4 Way to Calm your Inner Critic

By Katherine Williams, Empowerment Coach, Mindset Mentor and Epic Baker

Have you ever been in the middle of a yoga class and you hear a niggling voice in your head that tells you that you’re not strong enough, flexible enough or fast enough or the person on the mat next to you is better?

That right there is your inner critic. This voice can keep you stuck and scared to make any moves and it can greatly influence how you behave and interact with the world around you.

The inner critic has one job - to protect us at all costs. The trouble is, it thinks we need to be protected from just about everything, especially things that sit outside of our comfort zone. The inner critic has built a bank of ‘evidence’ of all the things we have heard, learned and experienced in the past. We internalise this ‘evidence’ as the truth and adopt it as our beliefs.

Without awareness of the inner critic and its tactics, when we start to move towards the things that we truly want and desire, it kicks into action and the ‘protection’ looks like nitpicking, shaming, faultfinding and a stream of negative self-talk. It’s no wonder we struggle to reach our goals when this is what we’re dealing with, huh…

When does the inner critic show up?

Any time you leave your comfort zone, where you feel safe and in control, your inner critic is likely to clear its throat and take centre stage. Being outside your comfort zone (to your inner critic) is dangerous, so it'll say all it can to get you back to 'safety'. But in the comfort zone, there is no growth. 

If you're reading this, I'm going to assume that you are frustrated and stuck because you can't seem to keep promises to yourself and find yourself back in the same habits and routines that aren't helping you move forward. That's because those habits and routines are all warm and cosy in your comfort zone. 

In order to move forward, achieve your goals and consciously create a life that lights you up, you need to move out of the comfort zone, through the fear zone and spend time in the learning and growth zones (see below).

Step One: Develop awareness of patterns

Get to know its go-to insults. Recognise when it tends to get louder. What are you doing when it starts talking? Then ask, what is it trying to protect you from? Take time to get curious about what is being triggered within you. It's likely you experienced something growing up that caused pain or embarrassment, so your inner critic is just trying to avoid that feeling again. But you don't need protecting anymore... So get to the root of the insults. Inner child work can be really beneficial to uncover past trauma that might be unresolved.

Step Two: Name it

What is their name? How do they dress? What is their accent? Be imaginative! Create a separate identity from yourself so you can clearly see that they are NOT you. When we spend a lot of time up in our brains, we struggle to determine what is truth. What voice is our highest self and what is the critic or the ego? Giving them a separate identity can provide some much needed space and clarity.

Step Three: Use positive affirmations to rewire your neural pathways

Affirmations help you consciously create a new habitual, automatic thought response by rewiring the neural pathways in your brain. If your inner critic has been running wild for a bit too long, your brain may automatically listen to this voice first. Create your own affirmations that really contradict the inner critic's insults, that are achievable and believable (but stretch you out of that comfort zone).

Step Four: Reframe it

Hearing the inner critic means you are leaving your comfort zone. This is exactly what we want! Just being aware that you are leaving your comfort zone can be enough to soften the scream of the critic and you can see it for what it is - fear of leaving the 'safe zone'. If you're hearing it, you're pushing yourself. That's something to celebrate!

Introducing... The inner mentor

Your inner critic isn’t the only voice at play. While your inner critic might be the loudest at times, your kind, wise, caring, loving inner mentor is always there too.

Your inner mentor (also called your highest self, truest self, soul, or spirit) is the voice within that is egoless, pure and driven purely from a place of love.

This voice will guide you to make intuitive decisions that may defy logic or stray from what is societally expected of us, but will lead you exactly to where you are meant to be.

Letting this voice be heard is the key to playing bigger in your life. It's the key to achieving your goals, making the change you've been putting off, the antidote to your procrastination and the source of your self worth and confidence. Want to get to know her?

In Tara Mohr's book, Playing Big, she offers a visualisation exercise to meet your inner mentor. It's an incredibly powerful task that will allow you to connect with this part of yourself and can offer guidance on decisions and clarity on how you'd like to move forward.

You can access a recording of the visualisation here. Allow 30 minutes to complete.

About Katherine…

Katherine is an empowerment coach and mindset mentor (plus an adventurer, photographer, writer, baker, and anything else her soul desires to be). She helps women who deep down know that they aren't letting their full potential shine and be seen by the world. 

It’s her mission to help you cultivate unshakeable confidence, intentionally and purposefully create a life that sets your soul on fire, opt-out of society’s expectations, say f*ck you to the ‘shoulds’, embrace and embody every aspect that makes you wholly unique, stop procrastinating on doing the good stuff and realise that you can build a life that brings you immeasurable joy every single day.

You can find her on Instagram at @katherinejwilliams, at katherinejwilliams.com or sign up to her email list here!