PICs are Positive Inner Comments that you tell yourself every day and NICs are Negative Inner Comments you tell yourself. Negative comments are not good for your self-esteem. To help you with lifting your self-esteem, when you think of a negative comment, try to think of the positives to cancel the negatives out. Now when you are in a situation where you use a negative comment, try telling yourself the positive of the negative.

Some situations that are likely to activate your NICs

1 – If you forget someone’s name.

2 – If you forget where you put your keys.

3 – If you fail an exam/test.

4 – If you can’t understand a television programme.

5 – If you don’t ‘get the joke’.

6 – If someone criticizes your work.

7 – If you’re on a course and find the work to difficult.

8 – If you miss a train or bus.

9 – Boyfriend/girlfriend has to go way on business.

10 – Boyfriend/girlfriend, boss, colleagues, or friends are angry with you.

11 – If a relationship ends.

12 – If you smile at someone and they don’t smile back.

13 – If you send a present to a friend and they forget to thank you.

14 – If a family member or friend doesn’t phone when they said they would

Now try to think about what situations activate your nic’s

And try not to think about your nic’s and switch them to pic’s instead

Some key points

1 – Recognize that you have a Negative Inner Commentary that disturbs and upsets you.

2 – Keep a note of situations that particularly upset you so that you can recognize them more easily and deal with them.

3 – Try to work out from these situations where your Negative Inner Commentary started.

4 – Look back at your life to see where your Negative Inner commentary started.

5 – Challenge the truth of the distressing thoughts.

6 – Acknowledge that those thoughts and feelings evolved into your Negative Inner commentary.

7 – Challenge the truth of your Negative Inner commentary when you’re in situations that trigger it off.

8 – Work at replacing the Negative Inner commentary with a Positive Inner Commentary.