You know that voice?
The one that keeps popping up, when you are about to do something new and exciting and fun – something that is going to stretch you a bit?
The voice that tells you that you are not good enough, not ready enough, not (something else) enough?
Well, that’s your inner critic.
And it sounds like the only thing that it wants to do is keep you small, and insignificant, and in some corner out of the spotlight.
Well what if in fact it wasn’t so much about keeping you small, and more about protecting you from something – not so much a physical danger, but more an emotional one of going out of your comfort zone …
I met my inner critic a few years ago – Brainy Bob the Boring Barrister – who would scream and yell at me for going all pink and fluffy and woo woo once I left my tax career. For a long time he stopped me in my tracks. Then I learned his motives and things changed.
When I learned how to deal with him, it changed my life.
And it can change yours too.
The other day I sat down with my friend and colleague Annie Ricci to talk more about the inner critic and how we can start to manage it, so it doesn’t manage us.