Undoing the inner critic
“You can do anything you put your mind to”.
Sounds great doesn't it? Certainly speaks of the limitless potential within each of us. But when it comes to actual practice we know things can be a bit more challenging IRL.
If there’s one thing our minds are great at, it’s catastrophizing events. Moments where our worst fears show up. What if this goes wrong, what if I fail at X…
Go on, take this opportunity to recall one of your ‘what if’ fears right now.
The inner critic can often be the biggest enemy to growth and achieving our potential. But it also serves an important purpose- protection. Whether it’s from failure, rejection, or embarrassment.
Some good news and bad news now. Let’s break the bad first.
The bad news is that no matter how hard your try or how much you practice, your inner critic may actually never leave you. Yikes!
The good news is that you don’t need to be stuck with it and you can indeed overcome this through awareness and intentionality.
Here’s what this could look like:
Define- what are you really afraid of….
Prevent - How can you prevent it from happening
Repair- If your worst-case scenario really plays out, what could you do to fix it and ensure it doesn’t happen again?
Doing this exercise will give you some perspective for taming your fears and taking constructive action. Often, our worst fears are products of our imagination rather than probable outcomes, and even if they do materialize, we always have the opportunity to repair and recover. No fear is worth jeopardizing our potential and the impact we can make.
If stress and anxiety really seem to have a hold over you, psychology offers a useful technique called ‘the undoing effect’ where you essentially soak in a positive experience to counteract negative emotions such as fear or nervousness.
The next time you feel overwhelmed before an important meeting or a presentation, make sure you get your dose of positivity. This could be visualizing yourself acing it, having someone you trust to give you a little pep talk or even watching your favorite motivational video.
Positive emotions quite literally have the power to boost intellectual and creative capacities and enhance performance. We just got to leverage these instead of getting consumed by that damn inner critic of ours.
So with that, we leave you with an actionable question- What’s one thing you could do to silence that voice?
Drop your comments below.