🗣️Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend
In our episode on how to curb negative self-talk, psychologist Joy Harden Bradford says to be aware of the harmful things we might say to ourselves.
So the next time you're tempted to disparage your looks or criticize your decision-making, ask yourself: would I talk this way to my best friend? If not, practice "using the same kind and gentle language that we use with the people we love" on yourself, says Bradford. "Because we're also people who we hopefully love, right?"
🙉'SIFT' through what people say about you
The acronym SIFT (source, impact, frequency and trends), developed by research scientist Mike Caulfield, can help you figure out whether you should listen to feedback from others or just ignore it.
Say someone calls you out for poor email communication. Did that criticism come from someone you trust and value? Is it demanding a big change or a minor tweak to your behavior? Is this something you've heard from other people? And have you heard this from different communities in your life, or just at work? Consider these points before deciding to act.
🧠Don't forget that our brains have a tendency to focus on the negative
The mind is a tricky thing. It can lead us to fixate, for example, on one bad aspect of a year-end review from a manager instead of their positive feedback. This is called "negativity bias," says Yale psychology professor Woo-kyoung Ahn, and it illustrates our propensity to weigh negative events a lot more heavily than an equal amount of positive events. This "thinking error," she says, is dangerous because it can lead us to make the wrong choices.
Read more tips on how to quash negative self talk here
Let's be nice to ourselves this weekend, friends. Life's challenging enough as it is. –Andee Tagle, Life Kit reporter-producer | 
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