Our third permanent stress reduction technique is an interesting one: winning over your inner critic (a.k.a. achieving true self-respect). 

If you regularly stress about all the things you don’t have and compare yourself unfavorably to others, today’s post could be an important one. 

So, let’s take a look at ways to silence that inner critic. 

Life is long

The human mind instinctively wants things to happen immediately. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what’s needed to build a good life in today’s society. 

Indeed, our modern world belongs to those who manage to consistently and intelligently invest, be it in themselves, in their relationships or in the markets. By their very nature, investments bring little or no instant gratification. But over a decade or two, they grow enormously valuable. 

This realization is the first step to healthier self-expectations. True success never happens overnight, but, if we’re patient, each one of us has the capacity to build a life we can be genuinely proud of. 

Just get started. You have time. 

Patiently keep investing

If you want to win yourself over, stop obsessing about everything you lack. Instead, focus on building habits and environments that will keep you moving in the right direction day after day. 

In everyday life, it may sometimes feel like you’re going nowhere slowly. But if you look back after a year of consistent constructive daily actions, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve developed.  

And when you’ve earned that realization, you’ll automatically see yourself in a much better light. 

Fail like a pro

Many of your initiatives and investments won’t amount to anything noteworthy. But the way you respond to this perceived failure goes a long way to determining your level of self-respect. 

As the old saying goes: “If you want to succeed, increase your failure rate.” Indeed, failure really is nothing more than life giving you valuable negative feedback, helping you continuously improve. 

If you keep responding well to failure, your inner critic will eventually see it as a good thing. And when you master this skill, this former inner adversary actually becomes a valuable ally.

Invest, fail, learn, repeat

There’s this amazing sense of invincibility that kicks in when you have this awesome cycle running smoothly. 

With each completed cycle, your mind will go to a slightly higher plane. Your ideas will become more interesting, your resources more capable of realizing your elevated ideas, your self-image more comfortable with negative feedback, and your inner critic more positive about your efforts.

This is the path to genuine self-respect. If you’ve not done so already, start your cycle today. 

And always remember: You have time.