The Inner Critic
We all have that inner voice which at times can tell us, ‘ no you can’t do that’, ‘you’re not good enough’, ‘you’ll make a fool of yourself’, ‘you will fail’.. blah blah blah..however it can be quite a hypnotic voice and we can get hooked on giving it airtime and actually believing what it has to say.
Much of the chatter is unfounded, illogical and very self-limiting as it can stop us striving for things we want to achieve or do in our careers and personal lives.
Mine certainly popped up enthusiastically when I decided to change careers, using every trick in the book to stop me in my tracks.. ‘stick to what you know’, ‘play it safe’, ‘you’ll be bad at it’…and so it went on..and I found a lot of my energy was wasted in listening to these voices and trying to stop negative thinking.
Stop Negative Thinking
One useful technique in coaching is to imagine if you met your inner critic, what shape would it take? What would it look like, sound like, and how would it move around?
Mine’s called Kev (no offence meant to any Kevs out there), he’s a lurker, hangs in the shadows. He has shoulder length greasy hair and is unshaven, chain smokes roll ups, whispers his mean words in a gravelly voice and here he is…
Rick Carson’s book ‘Taming Your Gremlin’ explores your inner critic in a light, but challenging way visit his website http://www.tamingyourgremlin.com
It’s very powerful when you detach your inner critic from yourself and see that it is a separate being. When it turns up notice its dialogue and how it physically affects you. What shape does your inner critic take and what do they look like? Please comment below on what comes up for you, we could may be even share our sketches…as you can see no drawing skills required…
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