Playing With Dolls

https://eddecosta.com/playing-with-dolls/

Hello, my friends.

Today, we’re going to deal with a serious subject in a somewhat playful way. In fact, the title of this week’s blog is “Playing with Dolls”.

Now what’s the serious subject?

The serious subject is self-limiting beliefs, that little voice in your head that tells you that you can’t.

It says you’re not good enough, you’re not worthy, and other people are better than you. It says you didn’t grow up with much. It says you weren’t that bright, not as smart as your sister or not as quick on the uptake as your brother.

Quite often, the birth of those beliefs is benevolent. They are not intended to harm us.

For example, maybe when you were two or three years old, someone warned you not to talk to strangers. You likely don’t remember them telling you, but it was ingrained in you at a young age. Essentially, it was planted in your psyche – in your subconscious mind – that strangers are a source of danger, fear, and risk.

It is no wonder that in The Book of Lists regarding what people fear the most, there is one fear that stands out more than any other – more than fear of snakes, more than fear of spiders, and even more than the fear of death.

What is that one thing?

It is public speaking.

Why is this?

I am not saying there is a causal connection between someone telling you when you were a little kid not to talk to strangers and the fear of public speaking; but they are related. They are absolutely related.

This is just a simple example of something that might have been told to you for your own protection but later grows into something stronger and stronger.

Those with self-limiting beliefs have inner critics that remind them of past failures to prevent them from the pain of future failure. What is the single easiest way to guarantee that you don’t fail? It is for you not to try. “Don’t do it, and you won’t fail.”

It is perverse but logical, and this is what the inner critic does.

Quite often, this inner critic can grow so loud and become so dominant that it becomes malevolent. No longer benevolent, it turns from intent to help to intent to harm. The inner critic turns into a gremlin.

A long time ago, I went through an exercise with a coach where I had to articulate what my inner critic said to me. Eventually, I came to personify the gremlin. For me, it had a face, the face of Robert De Niro. I have nothing against Robert De Niro. I love his movies and think he is a great actor. But when I think about my gremlin, my inner critic, I think of his face in the roles he has played. Someone sent me a posable action figure of Robert De Niro. It truly personifies the gremlin that bothered me for a long time.

As you think of your inner critic – your gremlin – I have four challenges for you.

Personify it.

I challenge you to reflect as I did. Close your eyes, and think about your inner critic. Does your gremlin have a particular face or voice? For some people, it is just a feeling, and that is perfectly legitimate.

Prosecute it.

My second challenge is for you to take your gremlin to court. I have gone through this exercise with coaching clients and small groups hundreds of times. In fact, I just did it just a few weeks ago in Florida with over fifty people in the room. It was a phenomenal experience for me and for them.

Take your gremlin to court, and require the gremlin to make its case against you.

It quickly becomes apparent that the gremlin has no case. You realize the gremlin’s accusations are nothing more than superficial name calling.

Now if you don’t test the case of the gremlin (that inner voice), it can stop you in your tracks. But once you take that gremlin to court, you realize its accusations are silly, and they have no power over you.

Place it.

Put the gremlin in its proper place.

It’s a very empowering thing for me to have that little sucker sitting as a twelve-inch hunk of plastic in my office. Note the difference: it’s not I am a twelve inch hunk of plastic sitting in his office; it’s the other way around.

Anytime I have a disappointment or failure (those times when your gremlin typically pounces to tell you all the things that you’re not), I see it now as humorous. I actually laugh about it.

I have processed it so much that I do not allow the gremlin to have power over me. I’m not daring it or taunting it; I’m just saying I have trained myself to put the gremlin in its proper place.

Replace it.

This is the fundamental idea behind my second book, Release Your Superhero. The point is that each of us has a superhero inside, and in the face of that, the gremlin doesn’t stand a chance.

So now I have a second figure in my office, one that personifies my ultimate superhero. It reminds me of how we all need to reach our potential and keep striving to be better and better. This is certainly something I try to do on a regular basis, and these two figures are my continual reminders to do so.

Anytime you have a negative thought, anytime you have some “stinkin’ thinkin’”, just get rid of it outside of your head. Put if off into some other inanimate object so that it has no more effect on you.

So, yes, I am Executive Coach Ed DeCosta, a grown man playing with dolls.