What To Do if Your Inner Voice is Cruel

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you're out there and you want to dominate your 2025 goals, I just wrote a short, to the point ebook that is absolutely free to teach you how to discover, set, plan, and accomplish your goals for next year. If you want to get that book for free, go to goals2025.com. Once again, goals with an S, 2025.com. Today, we're going to be talking about how to change the voice that's inside of your head. And I know I talk about the inner voice inside of your head quite often, but I don't really have like one dedicated episode of like, why do we have this inner voice?

0:50Where did it come from? How does it change our life? How does it make it good? How does it make it bad? And how do we actually start to change our inner voice the way that we want to? And so when we talk about the inner voice, it's this constant inner dialogue that we have within ourselves. If you guys are sitting there going, wait I don't know if I have an inner voice well that is your interviewer voice saying I don't know if I have my inner voice and the way I like to think about it is most people are not really aware of their inner voice because it's it's been around it's been omnipresent their entire lives or at least since they can recall and it's kind of like the the story of like the two young fish that are swimming through the water and they're just swimming next to each other and an older fish comes by and passes them looks at them and says water's nice isn't it and they say they look at each other and they go, what's water?

1:37It's like they've been in water their entire lives, but they're so young, they haven't become aware to the fact that they're surrounded by water all the time. So many people have been surrounded by this inner critic, this inner voice for so long, they're not even really aware of what it says. They're not really aware of how it impacts their entire life. And for many, many people that I speak to, once they become aware of this inner voice, they realize how overly critical or fearful or anxious or harsh this voice can be to them. And it's really important to know that this voice is not something that has to stay this way forever.

2:15You'll always have some form of a story or a narrative or a voice, but the way that it speaks to you, the tone that it speaks to you in, if it is sweet to you or if it is not kind to you in any sort of way can change over time. It just takes our time and intention and attention in order to do so. It is 100 % possible to change this voice. And so changing your voice requires your awareness or requires your intention and requires practice more than anything else. And so when you look at the inner voice, people always ask, like, where does it come from? How do we get an inner voice? And I want you to understand, and I am so hesitant always talking about parents because I feel like I'm throwing parents under the bus all the time and just trashing them.

3:00That is not my intention anyway at all. I just want you to know that you are the way you are because of your parents 95 % of the time. And you think the way that you think and you speak the way that you think and you act the way that you act 90, 95 % of the time because of the way that you were raised. And that's just the way that it goes. And so I'm going to talk about many facets of life and where it comes from. But the first one is obviously your caregivers. If it was your parents or if you were raised by a primary caregiver that was a grandparent, our primary caregivers play the largest role in shaping our inner voice.

3:32And for most people, our inner voice is the same way that your parents spoke to you or around you when you were a child. So the words that they used, the tone that they used, the actions of what they did when they were around you really set the foundation of how we perceive ourselves. It could be how they spoke to you. It could be how they spoke to themselves. It could be how they spoke to each other, how they spoke to your brother or sister. You know, it can be many different things that happen throughout your childhood. It's millions and millions of little teeny tiny moments that happen where you just start to pick up pieces of it.

4:14It can even be one moment. That's what's crazy about it. It could be one moment where let's say you mess something up and now your inner voice becomes, I can't do anything right. It's just that moment. You're six years old. Maybe you drop the milk on the floor and it pours all over the place and your parents accidentally get really mad and you think to yourself, I can't do anything right. And that's the beginning of the voice. And then what happens is you start looking for all of the ways that, because when you have this inner voice, you basically have a lens of the way that you look at the world through.

4:49And now what you start seeing is every place where you mess up. And it can become from one moment, a lifelong inner criticism. And like I said, there's a million little teeny tiny moments in the first few years of our life when you're learning what life is and you're learning how to act in the world. And so the first thing we have to realize is that the majority of the time, we're going to speak to ourselves. We're going to speak to others. We're going to think of ourselves the same way that we saw our parents acting and speaking when we were children. So that's the first thing. Obviously, your parents, your primary caregivers are a big piece of why your inner voice is the way that it is.

5:24The next thing I want you to think about is society. You know, you have to understand that we're constantly bombarded with media, with culture, with norms, cultural ideas of what beauty is, of what success is, of what intelligence is, and all of this can create really unattainable standards. And so from being a child, you could be a little kid and you can see someone, you could be a little girl and you could see someone who's this beautiful teenager. You're watching Saved by the Bell and you see Kelly Kapowski and you're like, oh my God, she's so beautiful. I don't look anything like her. And now you're comparing yourself as an eight-year-old to someone on Saved by the Bell who is a model.

6:05And now you're thinking, well, I'm not pretty enough. I'm not good enough. I'll never look like her. and you start developing your own just by seeing what's happening outside of you in society. You know, then we go to school and as we get older, we get into middle school, high school. There's all these peer dynamics that pop up. There's social hierarchies. And we learn a lot of people become a chameleon when they get into middle school and high school a lot of times, so they can fit in. And we learn a lot of times to prioritize acceptance of our peer group over authenticity. This isn't everybody, but this is most children.

6:39And so we become a chameleon just because we simply want to fit in with a certain group. And so what do we do? We abandon our true selves and start looking like other people. We start talking like other people. We start talking to ourself the way that our peer group talks to themselves or the way that they talk to us. So that's an aspect of it. Teachers are a really big aspect of it. Teachers can leave a really big lasting impression on kids, good or bad. And a teacher can label a child who maybe maybe their parents, the child doesn't have much money. Their parents don't have much money. They don't come for money.

7:11So they have to work a job and they work late. And then they come in from school and they're coming to school and they're all tired and they fall asleep in class. And the teacher labels that child as lazy. They don't know their backstory. They don't know their parents are struggling. They don't know that they have to work a full-time job right after school. And the teacher's like, you're lazy. And so that person can develop this narrative of I'm lazy and they can think that they're lazy forever. And then they take actions in the future because their self-perception and their identity as I am lazy, they take actions that line up with a lazy person.

7:39And we will be right back. And now back to the show. Or, you know, maybe it's a kid who wants some attention because they don't get any attention at home. So they become a little bit of a troublemaker. And so the teacher calls them a troublemaker and how they're always doing bad things. And that might instill the idea inside of them of I'm a bad person. So that's a really big piece of it as well. There's so many different things that happen to us that develop what we think of ourselves. And so it's like we look to the outside world for us to identify who we are. There's a quote around that that says, I think it's Calvin Coolidge that says, I'm not who I think I am.

8:18I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think that you think that I am, which basically means I become what I think you think I am by watching you and the way you interact with me, I become that thing. So we kind of become like this chameleon, this Frankenstein of all of these different people's perceptions or what we perceive as our perceptions of us. And so also the other thing that's really interesting and I want you to understand is that children are very, very narcissistic. Like, I'm just going to be honest with you. They look at the world in a very egocentric way because they only see themselves, their parents, and the house they live in.

8:56Not much, really not much further than that. And so they think that they're responsible for a lot of things that happen. You know, that's why a lot of times when parents get divorced, children blame themselves. They think it's their fault because children just naturally are egocentric. And so, you know, if a parent is really always at work or busy, or they are even always on their phone when they're around their children, the child can develop this thought of like, my parent doesn't want to be around me. There must be something wrong with me. And then they develop that in childhood and they continue that as they become an adult.

9:31Or, you know, the parent gets frustrated with them because they've had a frustrating day at work and they're always frustrated at work. So they always get frustrated with their children and the child starts thinking, I'm a burden. And so a lot of things happen. These small, seemingly insignificant moments can really shape lifelong narratives. And you don't even necessarily need to know the moment where this was started or why it was started. You just need to start to become aware of what your internal narrative is. Because then what happens is once we develop that narrative, it's like the lens that we see the entire world through.

10:02And so what we search for is evidence to prove what we think of ourselves and to make it true. So like if your parents divorce, okay, well then they must divorce because I did something wrong. There's something wrong with me. And then you go to school and you fail a test. You're like, I failed a test because there's something wrong with me. And then you get older and you go to high school and somebody, you're in a relationship, you fall in love and they break your heart and think, oh, there's something wrong with me. And it reinforces over time our own self-perceptions. And so we really need to start to dive into what is it?

10:33Like what are our inner critic, our voice? What do we think of ourself? What do we say to ourself? And so really what it comes down to is we need to start changing the inner critic that we have. We need to start changing the inner voice. And so I'm going to give you a step-by-step process of how to actually do this. The first thing with anything, the foundation of change is awareness. You cannot change something that you're not aware of. And just like the fish in the water, many people listening might not really be aware of what your inner voice is. And so what I would recommend is just start noticing your inner dialogue.

11:11Start asking yourself questions. You know, you can ask yourself this question when you're drinking coffee tomorrow morning, or you can ask yourself this question while you're sitting down with your journal and start saying like, how do I speak to myself? What tone does my inner voice have? You know, what words do I repeat to myself over and over again? Whose words echo through my mind? Is it my parents or my teachers or society or my sisters? What situations trigger my inner critic? And then how does this voice make me feel? And when you journal through these things or you speak them out loud to yourself, they can help you bring unconscious patterns to light and make it more conscious because you can't change something that you're not aware of.

11:55So the first thing is, how can I become aware of the voice going on in my head? And I want you to understand that the inner critic, the voice, it's just a thought that you've been thinking for a while. It is not a fact. It is not truth. If you believe something about yourself, it doesn't make it true. A belief is just a thought that you've been thinking for a long time, and you think that it's truth, but it's not. So when you notice your voice come in, or more importantly, if you don't hear the voice happening, when you notice your feelings change and your feelings shift, ask yourself, what was I just thinking?

12:32Because what happens is there's this thing that's called automatic negative thoughts. In cognitive behavioral therapy, it's called automatic thoughts, where we have these almost imperceivable thoughts that happen very quickly and so normal. It happens all the time, all day long, that we don't even really notice it. So it's not perceivable, but we notice the feeling of how we feel. So when we notice our feelings shift, the immediate thought was, what was I just thinking? I kind of got anxious. What was I just thinking? Well, I was just thinking this. I was just thinking about how I have my boss and I have a presentation I have to do later.

13:03And I thought to myself, I'm probably going to screw it up. Oh my God, why did I think to myself, I'm probably going to screw it up? Maybe that's a thought that I think often. And that keeps me in my comfort zone and that keeps me playing small. And so really what it's about, first off, is becoming aware of it. The second thing that it's about is identifying those and then challenging the old narratives. So recognize that almost all of your beliefs, this is what's crazy. almost all of your beliefs are completely outdated. And they're just remnants of your childhood. But you just continue to carry them around.

13:37It's like a shirt that you haven't washed in 27 years. You're just carrying that dirty shirt around. You won't take it off. Right? So it could be beliefs that are outdated from your childhood. It could be misinterpreted moments in your life because children aren't, if we're being truly honest, like children aren't really 100 % the most intelligent people in the very beginning. so they're not really understanding the way that the world works. And it could be, here's a crazy part about it, right? It could be that you're not, that your parents talk down to you. It could be that your parents set such high expectations that you're like, I'm never going to make it.

14:08I'm not good enough to make it. Like one of my best friends, his parents used to always say, like, they were very loving and positively affirming. They used to always say, everybody loves him. Everybody loves him. Everybody loves him. Thinking that that would be good for him. I thought that would be good for him, right? And then what happened was he started not wanting to go out because he thought it was his duty to make everybody love him. So he would change himself, make everybody love him. And so children misinterpret the world as well. And so somebody might think, oh, I'm not enough. And it might literally have just started from a parent's critical tone when they were a child.

14:42And so what you want to do is you want to ask yourself, once you identify these beliefs, is write it down with pen and paper. Is this belief true? That I'm not good enough? Is this belief true? Where did it come from? Does it still serve me? And then reframe that criticism as an opportunity to grow in some sort of way. So like if you're noticing I'm a failure or something that keeps popping up, how can you reframe it? Well, let me look at failure. Failure is just a part of learning and it doesn't define me. Okay, that's not too bad. If you say something like, oh, I'll never be good at this, or I always mess everything up.

15:16Well, how do you reframe that? Well, learning something new takes time, and every mistake teaches me something valuable about how to improve, and it's not possible to do something new and not screw it up. Maybe your inner critic says, you're terrible at public speaking. Why even try? And the reframe would be like, well, every time I practice, I get better, and I can't get better if I don't practice, and growth happens by showing up, not by being perfect, so I'm just going to show up. If your inner critic says, you're selfish, you're always putting yourself first, maybe a reframe would be like, hey, taking care of myself allows me to show up fully for other people.

15:51Self-care isn't selfish. It's essential. And so it's about trying to reframe what's going on inside of our head and trying to rewrite this script so that it's a little bit kinder and sweeter of a voice. Here's the key that I want you to understand. Decide how you want your inner voice to sound. Like it is now your time to change it. This is extremely important. Up until this moment, for most people listening right now, you have unconsciously built an inner voice, and that inner voice is running your entire life. You can keep it if you want, but if you're listening to this podcast episode and you clicked on it, you probably don't want it to.

16:28And so right now is the time to consciously decide to change it, to replace your harsh criticism with compassion, with support, with empowering yourself versus disempowering yourself. And so people, I want to finish it off by just telling you, how do you create affirmations to help you start to create these affirmations that are just going to become your new inner voice? I always tell people, like, I don't like the affirmations that say, oh, yeah, like money's flowing to me from all areas of the universe. And you look in your bank account, you've got like$7. And you're like, that doesn't feel good.

17:00That doesn't feel real at all. So what I always say is there's a three-step process for creating affirmations. Number one, they need to be true. Number two, they need to be empowering. And number three, they need to be present tense. So they need to be true, they need to be empowering, and they need to be present tense. And so when you look at what we were talking about earlier, when you're like, oh, I'm not good enough. Well, maybe the reframe is I'm working every day to become better and I'm becoming better every day. Well, that feels, that's true. I am. Okay. That's empowering. Yeah. And it's present tense.

17:32Okay. That feels much better. And so true, empowering, and present tense. You know, so it's like people were like, oh, I am waking up every day and there's money in my bank account that is getting sent to me from all corners of the universe. No, your BS meter is going to turn that off. So what's another version of that? I'm working hard every day to build more wealth for myself and my family. That's another version of true empowering present tense. My BS meter doesn't go off. And so what I would recommend is identify and become aware of what your inner critic, your inner voice is, and then decide, write it down, what is the new inner voice that you want?

18:10What is the affirmation that is going to be the tone that is set over this new inner voice? And repeat it over and over and over and over and over again. And eventually, it's not going to happen today, tomorrow, next week, two weeks from now, five weeks from now, but it might be six months from now, you're noticing the tone of the way that you speak to yourself changing. And I want you to understand, this is your responsibility. This is nobody else's responsibility. You're now an adult, and you're now waking up to the fact that your inner voice needs to change. It is your responsibility. Nobody's going to come in.

18:42Elon Musk is not going to hook up Neuralink to your brain and make your inner voice change. This is your responsibility. You didn't choose your inner voice from childhood, but now you have the power to change it. And so change starts with your awareness, and it grows through consistent effort every single day, multiple times a day. And if you do that, your inner voice will change. And if your inner voice will change, your actions will change. If your actions change, your life will change. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, if you feel other people in the world need to hear this, please share this on your Instagram stories.

19:13Tag me in it. It is the only way this podcast grows. You can tag me at it at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And once again, if you want to get my free ebook on how to dominate your goals in 2025, go to goalswithans2025.com. And with that, I'm going to leave this same way I leave you every single episode, make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.