Practice Speaking To Yourself: Changing The Inner Voice

 Is your inner voice a friend or a foe?

Today, we must dive deeper into something incredibly powerful yet often overlooked: how we talk to ourselves. We all have an inner critic—a voice that can be our greatest ally or harshest enemy. This voice can second-guess your decisions, amplify your fears, and lean into every doubt and limiting belief you’ve either created or inherited over time. It can haunt you, stopping you from trying new things, speaking up in critical moments, or even following your dreams.

But here’s the good news: we have the power to change it. Understanding the inner voice and practicing how you speak to yourself is not just important—it’s critical to shaping your mindset, confidence, and success. So today, we will break down how this inner voice/critic is developed, how it affects you, and, most importantly, how we can transform it into a tool for growth, resilience, and personal empowerment.

Understanding the Inner Critic

Before we can change how we speak to ourselves, we first need to understand the nature of the inner critic.

At its core, the inner critic is a part of your psyche that plays a significant role in your self-perception. It’s that voice in your head that tells you, “You’re not enough,” “You’re going to fail,” or “You don’t deserve success.” This voice often emerges from past experiences—traumas, unmet expectations, societal pressures, and negative reinforcement from others. It’s shaped by how we are raised, how we are treated by others, school, community, coaches, experiences, and how we internalize those experiences. Your voice is developed through perspective. Perspective is the byproduct of your experiences—judgment, alignment, understanding, agreement, etc. Since this is the background of how the voice is developed, it’s necessary to understand that the inner critic isn’t your true self because it’s not necessarily based on fact.

Example: Think about a time when you felt too afraid to speak up in a meeting. Maybe the inner critic told you, “Your ideas aren’t good enough. You’re going to embarrass yourself.” That voice was the critic—it’s trying to protect you from the fear of rejection or failure. But it’s also preventing you from making a meaningful contribution or learning from the experience.

The tricky part is that this voice often feels so real. It can feel like it’s our truth, even though it’s just an echo of past limitations. But when we understand this, we can begin to separate ourselves from that voice and reclaim control over our inner dialogue.

Now, let’s talk about understanding how you relate to your inner voice/critic—this is more logistics than anything. You can hear your inner voice in one of two ways: the first is to listen to it as if it is outside of you—like you are conversing with yourself. It’s your voice, but it has a separation to it. The other is as if it is a movie and you are the narrator. You can have a blending of both; however, it’s typical to have one style over the other.

Knowing which you lean toward is important as it will help you work with your inner voice instead of against it.

The Impact of the Inner Critic on Our Lives

Now, let’s talk about how this inner voice impacts your life. It doesn’t just show up when we’re about to take on significant challenges—it infiltrates nearly every aspect, shaping how you view yourself, approach your goals, and interact with the world.

Self-Doubt: The inner critic fosters self-doubt, creating a barrier between you and your potential. When you start doubting yourself, you second-guess everything you do, leading to missed opportunities.

Fear of Failure: The inner critic also magnifies the fear of failure. It convinces you that failure is the worst thing that could happen—it will somehow define you or make you unworthy. This level of fear can prevent you from taking risks, trying new things, and elevates a deep fear of being “found out” or judged.

Perfectionism: One of the most insidious ways the inner critic shows up is through perfectionism. It convinces you that anything less than perfect is unacceptable. You feel as though you must get everything exactly right in order to be worthy, and when you inevitably fall short of perfection, the critic amplifies your sense of failure.

These consequences of the inner critic—self-doubt, fear of failure, and perfectionism—prevent you from living your fullest, most authentic life. And here’s the kicker: the inner critic doesn’t just stay in your head. It influences your actions, your interactions, and your achievements. It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where your lack of belief in yourself keeps you stuck in a cycle of underachievement.

Why Changing the Way You Speak to Yourself Is Key

So, why is it essential to change how we talk to ourselves? Because our inner dialogue shapes our reality. How we view ourselves, our capabilities, and our potential directly impacts how we behave in the world. If your inner critic constantly tells you that you’re not enough, you’ll start to believe it and act accordingly. Conversely, if you learn to shift that inner dialogue toward positivity, self-compassion, and belief in your potential, you can open up a new world of possibilities.

Let’s look at the why in more depth:

Mindset: Your mindset is a direct reflection of your self-talk. It truly is a direct reflection of how you speak to yourself and about yourself. The inner critic/voice keeps score and uses the words as instructions. Your brain doesn’t have a filter for good or bad—that’s the emotional body’s job. Sadly, once you practice something long enough, the feeling becomes dull and doesn’t take you out of the self-talk as quickly or easily as it first did when you started the new line of thinking. Negative self-talk keeps you stuck in a fixed mindset, where you believe that your abilities are set. It’s the line of thinking: “It’s always been this way.” This kind of mindset doesn’t allow room for growth or learning. But by shifting your self-talk, you can foster change.

Confidence: Most struggle with confidence, at least at one point or another. The major reason why is they are missing the formula to have true, grounded, aligned confidence. This formula is something I have created after thoughts of hours sitting with people in their growth cycles. It looks like this: safety—trust—respect—love/freedom—peace. Without safety, we cannot find a level of trust. Without trust, we cannot find respect. Without safety, trust, and respect, true love, whether self-directed or outward, is impossible to create. Freedom is the same. And, of course, peace is off the table without the entire line of behaviors and thought processes. Confidence is not a blanket behavior or developed trait. It’s something that is individualized. Think about it: You may be confident in one area but not another. It’s not an either/or experience. Yet, if our inner voice only speaks trash, confidence is not a factor for you because you do not have self-safety. You cannot trust yourself if you are busy downgrading yourself.

You can practice self-affirming thoughts and affirmations, but you must believe in those thoughts. Affirmations are amazing, but it’s not a fake it until you make it deal. Your brain isn’t wired that way. If you want to learn more about affirmations, check out my detailed course on Insight Timer: Affirmations: How To Use Brain Chemistry to Unlock Your Greatest Desire

When you begin practicing self-affirming thoughts, you build confidence. You stop seeking validation from others because you’ve already validated yourself. You start to trust in your abilities and your worth.

It is essential to point out that if you try to jump from a negative to a positive, whether a thought, feeling, or inner speak, you won’t be able to do so for a sustainable amount of time. You need to work up the ladder to create real change. If you have a negative inner voice, try speaking to yourself neutrally. Negative to neutral, neutral to positive, this is the path to change.

Success: Positive self-talk fuels a sense of possibility, which makes it easier to take risks, put yourself out there, and pursue your goals. The more you believe in yourself, the more likely you will take the steps necessary to succeed.

Practical Steps to Change Your Inner Dialogue

Now, let’s get to the heart of today’s conversation—how do we change the way we speak to ourselves? Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Awareness The first step is awareness. You can’t change your self-talk unless you first notice when it’s happening. Take a moment throughout the day to pause and listen to the voice in your head. What is it saying? Is it critical or supportive? Once you identify those negative patterns, you can begin to challenge them.

Practice: Set a timer for three times during the day—morning, midday, and evening. When it goes off, stop and reflect on what you’re thinking. Are you criticizing yourself or encouraging yourself? Acknowledge it. You must accept the current truth to change the truth.

If you want an accurate picture of how you speak to yourself, log the thoughts that catch your attention for the next seven days. Good, bad, indifferent, if they catch your attention, put them on paper. Keep track for seven days. Commit to gathering the evidence. From there, you can reread what is written. You are likely to see themes.

From there, you can go through and ask yourself questions:

Did I mean what I wrote?

Is this true?

Do I have evidence of this truth?

Is this voice mine, or did it come from somewhere else? (Mom, Dad, Grandparent, teacher, etc?)

Step 2: Challenge the Critic When the inner critic shows up, challenge it. Ask yourself, “Is this thought helpful? Is this thought based on reality?” You’ll find that the inner critic is usually based on irrational fears or past experiences that no longer apply to the present.

The brain often triggers experiences that imprint into your subconscious. Those marks are instructions for later. If you are constantly reliving an imprint that doesn’t hold up now, the only way to change it is to challenge it, accept it was there, create a new behavior/instruction, and practice it.

Step 3: Replace with Truth: Start replacing the negative self-talk with one question: Do I want this to be my reality?

If you don’t, what do you want the truth to be? How can you direct your mind, emotions, inner voice, and actions into this experience?

Step 4: Practice Self-Compassion: Speak to yourself as you would speak to a friend. Don’t beat yourself up when you make a mistake or fall short of your expectations because we all mess up! Our inner voice is going to talk trash at some point or another. Fine. Accept it. Practice self-compassion instead. Recognize that everyone has setbacks and that they’re part of the journey to success. It’s feedback, not a life sentence!

Example: Next time you make a mistake, tell yourself, “I did my best, and I can learn from this. This is not a reflection of my worth.”

Step 5: Surround Yourself with Reinforcements: Your environment influences your mindset. Surround yourself with people, content, and experiences that uplift you. If you call someone who never supports you looking for support, you will fall flat. Doing so is like calling someone who dislikes you and asking them to tell you why you are a good person. They will not do so. Positive reinforcement from external sources will strengthen your internal dialogue. Negative strengthens the negative. What is the end goal?

Conclusion:

I want you to remember this: The inner critic is not your truth. It’s a voice shaped by past fears, limitations, and experiences but does not define you. How you speak to yourself shapes your reality now, and you can change it. By becoming aware of your self-talk, challenging negative thoughts, and replacing them with self-compassion and truth, you can transform that inner critic into an inner champion.

You are worthy of success, happiness, and fulfillment—don’t let the inner critic tell you must continually pay for experiences and moments that are not present today. You deserve better. Be kind to yourself.

Danielle A. Vann is a 19-time international award-winning author, a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, Life Coach with a specialty certification in Mindfulness, Master-Level Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner, and a meditation teacher. She is also the creator and voice behind Get Your Life Together, Girl. To learn more, visit the bio page, and follow @Getyourlifetogethergirl on Instagram.

Copyright of Author Danielle A. Vann 2025. No part or whole of this blog or website may be used without written, expressed permission. Listen to the Get Your Life Together, Girl Podcast on every major platform.