Here’s a neat trick I did in college.

I was sitting in someone’s dorm room with a whole bunch of freshman girls and we were having one of those painfully common conversations about how much we hate our bodies. My boobs are too small. My hips are too big. My legs are short. That sort of thing. For some reason, I floated right up outside of the conversation and looked down on it (I do this a lot. Yeah, it’s weird. Just go with it). What I saw annoyed the heck out of me. It seemed so pathetic and pointless. I thought to myself, if you don’t like something about yourself (and by yourself, I meant myself too) either do something about it or shut up already. Then I swore from that moment on never again to say another self-critical thing about my body. Not for any lofty self-esteem reasons, but rather to avoid being tedious.

A strange thing happened.

After awhile, I noticed that I no longer had negative thoughts about my own body. By refraining from negative chatter, I had deprived my brain of the fuel it needed to keep the negativity alive. Once that happened, I realized I had very little to complain about in the first place. I had, like so many adolescent girls, massively exaggerated my own imperfection. Not only did I feel better about the way I looked, I also cared a whole lot less about it. It’s not like I stopped bathing or anything. I actually looked exactly the same. It’s just that my appearance became a minor topic in my mind whereas previously it had been a major one.

As women, we spend a huge amount of time hating the way we look. And businesses have learned how to exploit this brilliantly. We get nothing out of it. And we lose a lot. So here’s my advice–as a woman who genuinely doesn’t care–stop the chatter.

Without the words, the thoughts will disappear.