May 26, 2017

How to Tame Your Inner Critic

Does your inner critic ever get in the way of you going for what you really want?  Mine sure did!

The thought of taking full responsibility for our wins and losses is often scary. It can feel vulnerable to try to accomplish something that matters to us – to put a stake in the ground and go for what we want, because if we try and fail, our inner critic can be brutal on us!

So, what kind of goals did my inner critic create?

My inner critic showed up with creative ways to not succeed.

It created goals with moveable targets and goals that highlighted a bunch of “shoulds” rather than giving me a clear direction of what actions to take. Most importantly, my inner critic created goals that didn’t let me win OR fail. In the end, I felt stagnant, not sure how to move forward and act, but at least I hadn’t really risked anything – like failure.

A great example of a goal that my inner critic created is, “I want be great at business development.”  On the surface, this captures the spirit of what I want. I DO want to be great at business development, but this field is new to me and I don’t know where to begin. I’m not even sure what success looks like and I don’t have a clear way to get into action.

What kind of goals would empower me?

To combat my inner critic, I need to create goals that encompass what I most want while showing me how to get on the ground and move towards it. Goals that encompass the following three aspects will help me get into action while keeping my inner critic on the sidelines:

1. The experience I want. I want to have a goal that keeps my eye on the big prize. I don’t want to lose focus on my overall intention but I also don’t want to tie my experience of it to my daily discipline. For me this goal reads, By the end of the summer, I feel relaxed and comfortable going to business development functions.
2. The action I need to take. How can I get on the ground right now to feel more relaxed? I also want a tangible goal that I believe will both get me into action and move me toward my intention of feeling more relaxed. This summer I have the opportunity to attend several large networking events. My goal to is attend each of these and walk away with at least a dozen new coffee meetings.
3. A measurable result I want to have. Though I have my intention in sight and my actions on target, I want to see results that link directly to the experience I want. I want to be relaxed around business development because I want to bring in more sales. So, I created a goal to specifically address how much business I brought in during the summer.

Overall, these three goals build on each other. Ideally, if I attend the networking events I’ll likely make connections that bring in new sales and give me the practice I need to feel more relaxed in the new environment. Also, I’m not committed to one process. I have ways to move toward each goal, and I’m open to see what might show up that would serve me!

Is your inner critic keeping you from being successful? Or, would you consider supporting my goals? If so, let’s meet up coffee so we can see how you might create better goals and better business results. Contact me at Sarah@culturecounts.biz