Do you have an inner voice in your head that holds you back and prevents you from achieving your goals?

All that we think is not true. Inner critic or the negative voice that chatters to us pulling us back and drowning you sometimes into misery or sorrow is hard to recognize and arises from our past experiences and limited beliefs. When left unresolved, it impacts our mental health adversely causing overthinking, self doubt, depression and anxiety.These negative voices are unreal and cause noises inside our own mind distracting us from achieving our true potential in life.

One of the greatest gifts that has been bestowed to all of us is the ability to think and discriminate in our lives. It is this special ability that differentiates us from other living beings on this beautiful planet. However, when we lose the power of discrimination we get consumed by our own inner voices that steals peace from our own lives.

Today, I am going to 5 steps to use the power of discrimination so that you can move ahead and achieve greater things in your life.

1. Identify the Statements - What are the statements that sabotage you from achieving your goal. For example - Make a list of all the statements that puts you down in the form of "Iam not good enough", "I can’t do this", "I will end up being ridiculed", "I will be judged", "I will fail".

2. Zoom into your Triggers - What situation or event, triggers the statements that you have identified. For example - Include the triggers into your list that includes people, events and situations which bring up the self sabotage statements in your head.

3. Validate the Statements- Use your power of discrimination to validate these thoughts with evidence before believing it. For example - Asking questions to yourself to understand the validity of the statement could be like - What are the reasons that proves that “I am not good enough”. Is it Valid? You can also use your past experiences to assess the truth.

4. Challenge the Statements- Challenge your thoughts. For example, What is the worst that can happen if you deny the self sabotage statements and carry out the action beforehand.

5. Execute the Action - Perform a small part of the action that will take you towards your goal . For example - What are the simple steps that you can execute to invalidate my inner noise.

By following the above 5 steps, you are taking control of your thoughts through discrimination rather than allowing all the thoughts in your mind to control you. When you follow this simple practice, you are training your mind eventually to follow a mental discipline that can be unshattered at all times.

When you are in control of your thoughts, you are taking charge of yourself and allowing only the best to happen to you regardless of whatever happens around you in your life.However, in cases where thinking patterns are strongly rooted as habits, it becomes hard to overcome by yourself, so don’t be ashamed to consult a coach or a therapist who can help you overcome it and achieve your goals in life.

Quoting a famous sloka in Bhagavad Gita below -

उद्धरेदात्मनाऽऽत्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत्।

आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः।।6.5।।

Meaning - You have to uplift you by yourself and not allow your mind to sink because your mind itself is your friend and enemy.