Taxi For Inner Critic! You No Longer Have A Role In Our Company
“OMG, I’ve just been promoted! This is amazing - I’ve worked so hard for this and it’s finally happened…Oh God, I don’t know if I can do it though. Am I really qualified for this role? Is my team going to take me seriously? ARGH, I’VE GOT NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING!”
Ah, the old inner critic - don’t you just love it. It’s kind of like your drunk Uncle at a wedding - always lurking around in the background just waiting for an opportunity to pop up and make you feel small and insignificant.
What exactly is the point of the inner critic? No good ever seems to come of it, so why does it exist? Well, although it may appear to have only malicious intentions, your inner critic is actually a strategy devised by your brain to protect you.
Now I know what you’re thinking - “Laura, how is making me feel like an imposter protecting me? All it does is make me feel terrible and want to hide away from the world.”
AH-HA, EXACTLY! That’s exactly what your brain wants. Have you noticed that usually your inner critic shows up more when you’re busy, stressing or trying to do something new or challenging? That’s because all of these scenarios communicate uncertainty and danger to your brain - so it feeds you thoughts and behaviours to hold you back in the safety of your comfort zone.
So in order to be able to step outside your comfort zone, move through uncertainty and fear, and drive for what you really want - it’s critical to consistently communicate safety to your brain.
Because when you do this your inner critic is no longer required as a protection mechanism, so just like your drunk Uncle you can call it a cab and send it off to the kebab shop to sober up and leave you the heck alone!
The inner critic and your teams
There’s no denying the inner critic can be a force to be reckoned with. When not managed appropriately it can be the driving force behind some pretty gnarly stuff:
The list, unfortunately, does go on - but I think you get the picture. Suffice to say, it’s worth giving your leaders and teams the opportunity to learn how to manage their inner critics, so they can minimise the negative effects mentioned above and have the energy, clarity and motivation to drive for what they want without burning out.
According to statistics, 1 in 3 Australians are currently experiencing severe levels of distress. When you think about the number of people in your company, that’s quite a large proportion…well, one third of them!
As far as I’m concerned, that’s not OK. Because of course this isn’t isolated only to the work environment - it resonates through all areas of life and inevitably has an impact on our relationships and children too.
So what can we do??
领英推荐
How to manage the inner critic and all the negative effects that come with it
As mentioned above, the brain sends in the inner critic when it senses danger. The brain tends to see this as danger because the inner critic is feeding the fear of rejection and not being good enough, which we all have to some degree as we have a fundamental need to be accepted because having a tribe around us is integral to our survival.
It’s important to note at this point, that the brain’s number one priority is survival. So everything you think and do can be tracked back to this - but I’ll go into all that in more detail in another article.
For now let’s just focus on this fact that the inner critic equals danger, which triggers fight or flight mode to protect you, which can negatively affect your ability to be effective, reach your full potential and achieve what you want in your career and life.
And as also mentioned above, you can manage and overcome this by consistently communicating safety to your brain. In my experience, the ultimate way to do this is to build your confidence, which means getting comfortable in who you are and staying true to that regardless of opposing influences.
When you operate from this space you can let go of the need to prove yourself, which you’ve adopted in a bid to avoid rejection, which means you can let go of the unnecessary thoughts and behaviours (one big one being the inner critic) that cause your brain to trigger survival mode, which means you can be much more free to focus on what’s important and operate at your optimum.
So then the question becomes, how do you build your confidence.?
How to build confidence?
As far as I’m concerned there are a few key elements to confidence. Rather than bang on about it with words, I’ll just show you via the medium of an infographic! Over the coming weeks I’ll be going into each of these in more detail, but for now I’d just like to introduce you to my model of confidence.
The great news is, it’s actually quite easy to incorporate these elements into your life - without adding too much more to your to-do list (wooooop!) - the key is in understanding which actions you can specifically take as an individual for each element and then sticking to them consistently, so your brain has time to change its neural pathways and make the new thought, behaviour or skill your natural way of being.
As a coach and facilitator, this is my focus - teaching leaders and teams how to identify what they need to do as individuals at any given moment. There’s no point me coming in and telling everyone to do the same thing (exercise for 30 minutes a day, meditate, create more boundaries) because we all need different things at different times, depending on where we’re at and what we’re striving for.
We must give our people the understanding and tools so they can take control of their own wellbeing and development - this is where real change lives.
There’s a lot more where this came from! So if you enjoyed this article, hit subscribe and ensure you don’t miss out on future instalments!