Lynn Hardin

In part 1 last week, we recognised that at times we can be our own harshest critic. Our expectations can be unrealistic and we can take it to heart when things don’t work out as we had planned. In responding to these self-critical thoughts we looked at the first two steps of the 4 N process. NOTICE the Thought – dump what is going on in your brain onto paper. NORMALIZE the Thought – negative thoughts are normal in the human brain. NEUTRALIZE the Thought Neutralizing is where we’re trying to just get to the facts of the situation. We are taking the punch or power out of the circumstance. It helps by removing the adjectives and adverbs. For example,…

At times we can be our own harshest critic. That little voice inside our head can be very self-critical. This can be because our work in schools can seem never ending. There is always more that can be done. More planning, more preparation, more consultation, more factors to consider and more meetings to be held. Despite our best efforts, sometimes things don’t quite work out the way we might like and often that leads to further self-critical thoughts. We can mentally beat ourselves up about what we “should have done!” Often this is unrealistic and not helpful. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing. Thoughts are important because they drive our actions, our choices, our results and ultimately our happiness. The…