How to manage our inner critic
Many of us have a very loud and active inner critic. We speak to ourselves in ways that we would not speak to others. We don’t just point out what we could improve or work on. For many people, the inner critic goes way overboard, continually pointing out our faults and failings, and comparing us unfavourably to others.
‘That was rubbish’
‘You should have handled that better’
You are incompetent’
‘You should have done that, this, the other..’
Our inner critic not only holds us back from doing new things, or seeing what we have done well and valuing our skills and experience. If we don’t deal with it, it can drag us into a downward spiral of criticism, embarrassment, and paralysis, where we are almost incapable to taking action because it will never be good enough.
I coached a senior women leader who was an expert in her field. She has been appointed into a challenging role because she was the best person for the job, based on her experience and skills. She came to me for coaching because she was stressed, working long hours, not sleeping and her health was suffering. She felt she wasn’t too far away from burnout and having to take some significant time off from her job. And, even with all the long hours and overwork, she felt that she wasn’t accomplishing enough in her job or hitting her targets and was waiting to be ‘found out’ by her manager.
As I talked to that client what emerged was a leader who was actually hitting all her targets, and was getting good feedback from her manager, peers and team members. The one person that she wasn’t get that good feedback from was herself. Her manager might be saying to her, ‘good job on developing that new strategy’ and what she was hearing was ‘it should have been developed 6 months ago, why haven’t you and your team implemented it yet, it’s not that good really - it looks like you just lifted it from another organisation’. She do a presentation to the board, answer their questions and get great feedback, and in her head she would be saying, ‘that was rubbish, you don’t deserve to be in this post, you didn’t prepare enough, they are only being nice, no one thinks you are good enough’.
Her inner critic had taken over and was running the show. She was never going to be good enough for her own inner critic. But here’s the thing – just because your little (or not so little) inner critical voice tells you something, it doesn’t mean it is true. It is just a thought, or a series of thoughts, and you can chance them.
Tackling our inner critic is challenging, but with a little bit of motivation and practice, it can be done.
If you recognise some of this and would like to work on your inner critic, here are some practical ideas that you can use to help reduce self-criticism and cultivate a more compassionate relationship with yourself.
Step 1: Increase awareness of your inner critic and self-criticism
Let’s start by becoming more aware of your inner critic. Sometimes we are so used to it that we don’t even notice. So, start to become more familiar with your own inner critical voice:
Notice what you say to yourself when you fail or have made a mistake.
Are there key phrases that you say to yourself?
What is the tone of your voice when you are criticising yourself?
At this stage, we are just building our self-awareness. Awareness in itself can be curative. Sometimes, just by surfacing the thought we can realise that it isn’t actually true, or we can stop it before it gets into a cycle of even more negative thought and criticism.
We don’t want to try to argue with it. Remember, our inner critic isn’t rational, it’s not based on evidence and facts, so arguing with it won’t help, and will probably only make you feel worse.
Step 2: Now we are getting familiar with recognising our inner critic we can start to take action in the moment to turn down it’s volume a little and minimise the impact.
Choose what works best for you. Some of these techniques might sound a little bit out there but I’d encourage you to experiment and try something a little bit different, you never know it might just be the technique that works for you.
Pause and take three deep breaths. Just focusing on your breath can take the attention away from the voice of the inner critic and can help break the spiral of negative self-talk.
Give it a name! That might sound a bit crazy, but it’s amazing how quickly and powerfully it can work. It’s a really easy and effective way of distancing yourself from the voice. You might want to give it a funny name, to help deflate the impact of what it is saying. Or, if it reminds you of someone who has been critical to you in the past, you might want to acknowledge that and name it after them.
Turn it into something ridiculous. Imagine saying it to yourself as a cartoon character, maybe in the voice of Daffy Duck! Or sing it to yourself using the tune of a short snappy song; jingle bells is always a good one, even if it isn’t Christmas!
Turn it down. Imagine that you have dial to turn, or a sliding volume recorder. And then use it, seeing yourself turning the volume up and then turning it down, so that the volume is getting lower and lower.
Disrupt it. Do something quick that makes you happy, brings you joy or makes you feel more confident and better about yourself. Listen to music. Look at a photo. Read a positive message or email. Do jumping jacks. Pet your dog. You want to do something that will change and lift your emotional state.
Step 3: Now when you feel a bit calmer and better about yourself, we are ready to do some deeper work, adjusting how our inner critic presents itself so that it is measured and helpful.
When you inner critic is speaking, think about what you would say to a loved one in the same situation. Now use these words to reframe and rephrase what you say to yourself.
Think about the tone of voice that you used. Practice the tone that you want to use with yourself in the times when you are feeling good about yourself. Then use the same tone when you are in a situation when you don’t feel so good about yourself.
Use your imagination again and think of a friend or relative and what they might say to you instead. Instead of criticising you, they are much more likely to focus on what went well, and to encourage you to recognise and appreciate your strengths and experience. Practise giving yourself feedback from their point of view.
Identify what you are criticising yourself for. Sometimes our inner critic can provide us with useful feedback. But it’s usually not presented in a useful or helpful way. Try to ask yourself: What can I learn from this feedback? If you can learn something, that’s great. But if not, let it go. Try visualising yourself letting it float away on a cloud, as just another thought passing through your brain that day.
This all takes a bit of practice but it’s amazing what you can achieve when you start to use some of these techniques.
With a little bit of practice and time, you will be able see that inner critic for what it is: an unhelpful, over the top, and too loud, irrational inner voice. And even better, you will be able to turn down the volume of criticism, see yourself the way others see you, with all your skills, experience and accomplishments, and allow yourself the space and capacity to try new things, develop and grow.
And, of course, if you would like help with any of this through coaching, just get in touch. Your inner critic is just a pattern of thinking that you have got caught up in, and like the senior women leader client I mentioned earlier, you too can change that pattern of thinking, regain your confidence and thrive, both at work and in your home and personal life too.