Creating Confident Leaders - Dealing with the Inner Critic

We all have one – that little voice that says:-

“You can’t do this, you don’t know enough, you are not smart enough, you don’t deserve it, you will fail, fail, fail……………….”.  Its natural, its part of being human and sometimes it serves a useful purpose by making us question our assumptions and think better.  However, mostly it simply blocks us sapping our energy, confidence and joy.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about honest self assessment to build confidence and tackle fears and that remains very important.  However, the voice of self doubt can speak so loudly sometimes that it drowns out all logic.  Leaders are particularly vulnerable to the inner critic and often feel that they can’t admit to it.  I hear this a lot with my clients, they are dealing with many difficult things and are their own worst critics, AND yet feel they always have to appear to be confident and in control.  Feel familiar?

In those moments it can feel as if the critic is totally in charge – yet it isn’t.  We give it power and we can also stop it having power.

3 of my top strategies for dealing with the inner critic are:-

• Recognise the voice of the inner critic. That voice can strike in many ways, it can speak loudly or softly, it can decrease energy, tell you something is hard, lead you to procrastinate, tell you that someone else will do this better, tell you no-one will listen to you, tell you there is no point.  Recognise it AND identify the fact that this is your inner critic at work and the inner critic does not reflect reality.   In fact, it lies to you!
• Talk back – you do not have to give in to the voice. Challenge it……and to make it easier give it a name!   I know, that probably sounds really stupid, however, if you name the critic you are separating it from yourself and recognising that this voice is not you.   One of my clients calls her inner critic “Boring voice”.  She sets off her talk back by saying “oh hi boring voice, is it you again?   Really are you not tired of this game yet.   Its not going anywhere, you are not clever at all and I am sure not going to continue this boring conversation”.   Another client calls his inner voice SD (for self doubt) and his talk back goes something like this “Oh ok SD you are starting to ask me – what if you fail?   Well you know maybe that’s a good question, but I prefer – What if I don’t?  What if this works?  So if you would just shut up for the moment that would be great.”   This may all sound really cheesy, but try it! Name it and talk back to it.   Let me know what results you get😃
• Change the mood.Find some mood shifters.  Some people use music or movement.  These are two great ways to change your mood.  Have a playlist that lifts you up, or get up, stretch, dance or shake yourself.    Movement and sound are great for shifting from a negative low energy mood to a more upbeat one and its surprising how quickly your inner voice can change.

I would really love to hear your ways of dealing with the inner critic and if any of these techniques work for you.

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