How A Champion Learned To Quiet The Critical Voice ... And You Can, Too

Before Jaylen Brown became the MVP of the NBA Finals, before he helped lead the Boston Celtics to become the best team in the NBA, he had to learn to manage his anxiety.

In 2018, Brown lost his spot as a starter for the Celtics. “As he lost his starting job and both he and his team failed to live up to high preseason expectations, Brown says his head filled with doubt, questions and disbelief,” writes Jay King in the New York Times. “Though some of the feelings were foreign to him, he could recognize them as a threat to his well-being.”

But Brown did what many of us don’t do: he faced his inner critic head on.?

“That kills more dreams, careers, on and off the court, basketball-related and just (in) regular life,” Brown says. “As soon as you start not believing in yourself, it’s over. So I had to quiet that voice that was in the back of my head. Everybody has it... I think everybody on this planet probably has that voice in the back of their head telling them to stop or to quit or not to keep going. And that voice had been louder last year than it had ever been. So I had to make sure to quiet that f**g voice because it was pissing me off.”

How did he do it?

“Finding out what you’re made of. I had to remind myself of who I was. That was good for me.”

Brown focused on the work at hand. He got stronger. He improved his game. King wrote in 2019, “Brown says he believes in his talent and thinks nobody can hurt him but himself. He intends to stay out of his own way. That means refusing to listen to external pressure about how many points he should average or what types of accolades he should achieve. It means declining to get into his own head by overly critiquing himself on the court. It means playing freely instead of overthinking the game. ‘I just told myself I’m not going to beat myself this year,’ said Brown in 2019.

The Voice

Many high achievers carry with them an inner critic on overdrive. Outside voices only amplify the inner critic. Often it’s because somewhere along the way — through messages we received in our childhoods, our adolescence, or even in our education and early careers — we internalized the message that if we make mistakes, we’re not worthy. Now, our internal voices threaten, shame, and harshly critique us in life and at work. Anxiety has become the driver that powers us through.

The problem is that anxiety is not a sustainable motivator, as Brown notes. It only gets you so far. When the stakes of failing feel too high, we’re?more likely to avoid?rather than do. Once a task is done, we may look back and be unable to find anything positive in our performance. We measure our self-worth by our self-imposed standards, and the cycle continues. Inevitably, we become stalled out or burned out.

So, how do we overcome it?

Understanding Your Inner Critic

I call it “the voice.” On our journeys to achievement, “the voice” often targets the piece of us that always expects to be the best and asks: “How dare you be less than perfect?” “If you work hard enough, you can’t fail. So, work harder.”?Maybe, it says, “You’re lazy. Do better. People are depending on you.” Or maybe it tells you that your best is never good enough.

Whatever message the voice is sending, pay attention to it. Hear it. When you feel yourself becoming discouraged by your own thoughts, it’s important to slow down, and acknowledge that “the voice” is not?your?voice —?it’s your anxiety and it doesn’t tell the truth. This isn’t easy to do. Most of us anxious achievers have become so accustomed to listening to our inner critic that we do it out of habit. We don’t know any other way to operate. But with practice and self-awareness, we can learn how to manage.

You can quiet “the voice” down:

Notice when “the voice” strikes.

The next time you hear a critique in your head, consider the following:

• Notice who is speaking. Does the voice sound like you, or does it sound like someone from your past? Sometimes our inner critics are driven by formative experiences or by people we encountered years before.
• What phrases does the voice use? Notice the words your inner critic tends to say over and over again. Is the voice a harsh taskmaster that shows up when you make a mistake? Or is it a nagging little bug constantly buzzing in your ear? Paying attention to these cues will help you identify when it’s speaking.
• How do you feel right before the voice takes over? What emotions tend to precede it? For example, you might notice that you feel anxious right before your inner critic tells you to pull an all-nighter on a presentation. What’s making you anxious? What could help calm the anxiety in that moment?
• Does listening to the voice serve you? For example, is your voice driving you to be people-pleasing? Have you caught yourself bending over backwards to help someone who really didn’t need the help? Perhaps your inner critic is demanding you make everyone happy, at your own expense.

Address “the voice” with compassion.

Only after you notice the themes and commonalities in your favorite self-criticisms, can you attempt to address them head-on. An easy way to start: Address the voice in the third person, out loud. Be like Jaylen: Tell your voice it’s pissing you off!

Can you picture a life in which you achieve at the same high levels you do now, but without all the anxiety, stress, and angst that comes from listening to the voice??

Without all the negative outcomes that come from holding yourself to a standard that’s literally impossible to reach, you might just unlock your creativity and let loose your drive — and your joy — in an entirely new way.?

Focus on team

The Celtics are a great team because they are a great team. We focus on superstars in sports, but a game like basketball can't be won by a single star. Sometimes the best way to quiet the critic is to get out of our head and focus on others. The pressure lifts when we trust and invest in others. When he won Finals MVP, Brown first said, “I share this with my brothers and my partner in crime, Jayson Tatum." 'We trust our teammates," Brown says, "That's a part of our growth.'

More from The Anxious Achiever:

Learning Self Compassion For Your High Achieving Self

HBR: You Don’t Have To Be The Best At Everything

What Athletes Can Teach Us About Mental Health

Go Celtics!!!!

Morra