When Your Inner Critic Feels In Control, Here's How To Believe In Yourself
When Your Inner Critic Feels In Control, Here's How To Believe In Yourself
You are unique amongst billions - let your core mission and purpose forge your way forward
Alan Turing, father of modern computing, died at 41. He was a year into government mandated chemical castration after being charged with gross indecency in 1952 (homosexuality was considered a crime at the time).
He died of cyanide poisoning - deemed a suicide, but many consider this was accidental.
I hate wasted potential. Hate it with a passion. It burns in the pit of my stomach and my heart hurts. In this case, it was an untimely death that wasted immense potential.
What else could Turing have achieved for himself and society had he lived? We’ll never know.
More commonly in every day life, what drives wasted potential is identity death.
You want to achieve something meaningful, but the mental, emotional, and behavioural blockers are so intense, you lose focus and energy.
You get beaten down by the process and lose your sense of ambition and self.
‘Is this even worth it?’ you might ask.
If it is, that’s when you grit and push through the obstacles blocking your path.
Reclaim your identity. The world needs you.
Your inner critic is a mean cow that gets in your way
People hold themselves back because of fear, lack of knowledge, self-sabotage, emotional dysregulation, unhelpful thinking, and more.
You lose confidence in your abilities and question whether you contribute anything of value. Whether you’re normal enough, or smart enough, or creative enough or caring enough.
Whether you’re enough.
Your inner critic, the nagging, mean voice that witters away with constant sh*tty commentary on everything you’ve done, are doing or want to do, wields its ubiquitous power. One voice to rule them all.
Where did it even come from?
Why is it so loud?
Why won’t it just SHUT UP!?
It’s not always your voice either. It appears from early life experiences and those we collect along the way. A tough word from a parent. A throwaway comment from a teacher. A put down by a sibling. It’s like a rubbish card collection you start by accident, but keep collecting due to habit.
All this confusion, frustration and low confidence leads to wasted potential.
If I achieve anything in life, it’s to make sure you don’t waste yours.
Your inner critic needs a persona so you can chat to (ignore) it
It’s hard to quieten your inner critic. What’s helped me is giving it a name and a persona. This gives you much needed mental distance from it.
Mine is called Maeve - she’s a bit dowdy and wears shabby lavender-coloured cardigans. I have no idea where this persona came from. During a visualisation exercise a few years ago, there she was. I’m pretty sure she’s got bad teeth too.
Conjuring up this persona helps me separate from my inner critic thoughts. It takes time but with practice, you’ll do it.
Every time you notice your inner critic persona pipe up, say thank you kindly, and choose to ignore their message if it’s unhelpful.
Getting into a fight or debate doesn’t help. We want to bring down the stress, not ramp it up with mental fisticuffs and a bust-up in your mind.
Self-compassion is a better route (Educational Psychologist Dr Kristin Neff’s research indicates this) so instead of fighting what’s there, you thank it gently and move on.
Sticky, annoying thoughts and thinking habits are just that - habits. They are undone by replacing the unhelpful habit with a more helpful one.
When you notice a sticky inner critic thought, you replace it with the ‘thank you, but I’m ignoring you’ one.
Over time, it’ll lose its hold on you.
Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it gets the job done.
Done is better than perfect.
Clarify the purpose of everything you do - what’s your core mission?
I visited Bletchley Park this weekend - situated on a country estate 40 miles from London, it was the government’s secret hub for cryptanalysis (codebreaking) from the early years of World War II.
You’d never suspect it witnessed so many historically significant moments in time. This is where Alan Turing and many, many others led codebreaking and cryptanalysis efforts during World War II.
What struck me the most as I took the guided tour and wandered from building to building was how singularly focused the entire operation was to its core mission:
Enable the Allied forces to decipher the military codes and ciphers that secured German, Japanese, and other Axis nation's communications. This produced vital intelligence in support of Allied military operations on land, at sea and in the air.
Bletchley Park Website
In essence, to win the war by gaining military advantage over the Nazi and Axis regimes.
At the start of the war, there were 200 people located in and around Bletchley Park, growing to over 9,000 by the end of the war in 1945, covering three shifts 24/7.
Each person was given a role based on their unique talents (along with a skill of keeping a secret to the grave), and they undertook that role to the best of their ability.
They knew how they each contributed to the overall mission - it was a logistical and operational feat that still astounds us today. Even more so when you consider the Germans apparently never found out about it (back to being good at keeping secrets!).
What can we learn from this? Apply it at an individual level - what’s your core mission and purpose in life? Why you do what you do? What does that inner critic get in the way of when you plan or take action?
Consider this beyond ‘earning money’ and ‘having fun’. Those in and of themselves are rarely enough to create a core mission or purpose in life that matters.
Over time, they’ll become dull, and you’ll still struggle to get out of bed.
For me, it’s to help others recover from burnout and grief, to live a productive, focused and creative life that matters. One which enables them at the end of that life to reflect and believe ‘I lived a good life, loved well, and had a positive impact on those around me’.
This must become your North Star - your core mission, purpose, and focus in life. Come rain or shine, good times or bad, tired or energised, you always come back to this. It’s the essence of you and a core part of your identity.
If you didn’t achieve something during your life, what would leave you with regrets? This will give you a clue to your core mission and purpose.
The unique talents which form your identity are mission-critical
Knowing your core mission isn’t enough. You need to do something to make it a reality. Dreams and goals are great. They’re useless if not backed up by action.
Using the Bletchley Park analogy, what unique talents do you possess to make your core mission a success?
List these unique talents out - physical, mental, knowledge-based, experiential, spiritual, social, and so on.
Hone in on how each unique talent you possess helps you achieve that core mission or purpose. Be bold here.
Foster and protect these - nurture your mind, body and soul to keep these humming. Do everything you can to get help and support to enhance them.
Once you’re clear on where you’re going and why you’re uniquely able to achieve it, the barriers and blockers to success fall away more easily.
These could be related to mindset, behaviour, emotional fitness, biology, productivity or energy management. Get specific on your blockers and use tools, tips and social support to move past them.
Your core mission, identity and unique talents build your self-belief.
Make yourself unstoppable by undertaking daily, weekly, monthly and yearly action.
Achieve your potential for those unable to achieve theirs before you.
Key takeaways
The thousands that toiled away at Bletchley Park during the War under incredible pressure, stress, hardships and uncertainty teach us valuable lessons.
With focus on a core mission and tapping into our unique talents, we are capable of achieving incredible feats, regardless of the stresses and strains around us.
Be sure to balance effort with restorative action and rest so you don’t burnout (they did this too at Bletchley, offering exercise, creative and nature-based pursuits).
If you’ve lost self-belief, here’s now to regain it:
Reclaim your identity by connecting with your core mission and purpose in life. These are strong motivators in the face of adversity.
Get clarity on what makes you uniquely you - these unique talents will help you deliver your core mission and purpose. Take these from your strengths, values, and learning opportunities from self-study, training, coaching, and mentoring.
If your inner critic raises its noisy and mean head to make you wobble, give it a persona and practice thanking it kindly. Then ignore it. See it as the neighbourhood busy-body you have to be nice to because you feel sorry for them. Still, you don’t want to get into a long, boring chat, do you?
Make daily, weekly, monthly and yearly actions towards your core mission and purpose using your unique talents.
Don’t hold yourself back to live a life half-lived.
You have incredible potential when you get out of your way.
Be unstoppable.
Dear friends, share your core missions and unique talents in the comments below. Let’s leave no wasted potential here.
I was horrified when I heard how Turing was treated after what he contributed to the war effort. My purpose has always been to help people to succeed at work by making sure they get the training need to flourish.
Such a powerful charge!
"Don’t hold yourself back to live a life half-lived.
You have incredible potential when you get out of your way.
Be unstoppable."
Identity death and the power our inner critic wields. These are such basic inner struggles that we often discount to our own detriment.
Thank you for the inspiring reminder about Alan Turing and so many who lived out a core purpose, probably not by choice but in response to the times they lived in.
We can more easily know and follow through on ours and will learn a lot about ourselves by following your action plan.