“Am I the drama?”

Do you ever, like me, ever have a quiet voice in your head that says:

• “You should be further along in your career than you are.”
• “You’re not gonna pull this off.”
• “That was horrible. Hopefully they won't give me feedback.”
• “They’re going to find out about you.”
• “Maybe you aren’t cut out for this.”

If so, you might have an ‘inner critic’ running the show.

What is an inner critic?

It’s negative self-talk.

An inner critic is the voice in your head that tells you you’re not good/talented/clever enough. And it’s a phenomenon particular to people who grow.

Is it bad?

Only if it gets in your way.

For example, a critical voice has actually helped me in the past. It’s helped me analyse things, learn new things, get better at giving myself feedback.

But somewhere along the way, a negative voice can stop many of us from taking action.

Examples:

• We want something to be ‘perfect’, so we don’t start.
• We want to be good at something, so when we aren’t, we quit.
• We berate ourselves after giving a presentation, so we never ask for feedback.
• We tell ourselves we’re terrible at something, so when we do The Thing, we meet our expectations.

Name Your Inner Critic

I love this simple exercise from our Managing Your Inner Critic training.

Here's how it works:

1. Give your inner negative voice a name. A persona. This helps you notice these thoughts as not defining you, but a version of you. Mine is Snappy The Crocodile. She's judgemental and grumpy.

2. Give your more positive self a name. A persona. What do they think when they're having a great day? Mine is Rayonce - always seeing possibilities and full of self-compassion.

3. Imagine you are in the middle of these two voices, as the navigator of thoughts.

4. Now imagine you can now turn down your negative voice, when it shows up and turn up the positive voice. When can Snappy go take a hike? When can Rayonce come and steal the spotlight?

Over time, the more air-time we give to our more positive selves, the less space the negative one has to breathe.

We never 'rid' ourselves of these voices. Over time though, the more positive voice has more case studies of helping you succeed.

Over time you start to trust that voice more.

And when we trust our own judgement, we start to critique ourselves less and celebrate what makes us unique more.

From there, we are truly unstoppable.

If you’re curious about what life is like without that negative natter in the background, my Managing Your Inner Critic course, now in?Leadership Mastermind, is for you.

We never ‘rid’ ourselves of our inner critic. But over time, when we pay more attention to more helpful thoughts, we start to focus on them.

From this place we have our own backs and make more decisions that work for us, instead of against our own best interests.

Take care, Arohanui,

Rachel and the team at Happiness Concierge.