The coach’s secret to taming your inner critic.

Mar 8

As a coach, you’re no doubt the sort of person who loves to analyse, plan and reflect. It makes you a great coach because you can solve problems and help your clients work out what they need and want, and how to get there. Despite this, the inner critic can still often get in the way!

Thinking of course, can be great, but it can also be the biggest threat to your business and confidence. Especially if it’s the wrong kind of thinking.

Constantly questioning your offer, your abilities, criticising your work, judging yourself for making mistakes… the list goes on.

In this blog, we’ll look at why some of the more instinctive methods of dealing with our self-critical voice don’t work. Why mindfulness skills can very often be a better option to take to when dealing with your inner critic and building your confidence as a coach and also what these mindfulness skills might look like.

Why some self-care methods don’t work.

When you’re in a bit of a low mood with your coaching work, which methods do you use to improve your mindset?

You might try :

positive thinking?
make a list of things you are grateful for?
analyse the problem, find out where it came from, and the reasons why you feel the way that you do so you can reappraise it into something positive?
affirmations?
shout at the inner critic to go away?

You may even use some of these methods to support your clients.

I’m not saying that these methods don’t work, but I’d like to give you an argument as to why they may not.

Quite often, it’s thinking that has got us into trouble in the first place. The more we think about a subject, the more the mind wants to keep analysing and churning it over. It gets hell-bent on fixing the problem even if it can’t be fixed by thinking about it!

Let me give you an example…

You make a typo on an email, a simple mistake. Your first reaction might be to tell yourself what an idiot you are for not checking it properly. You might then search your memory for all the times you made a similar mistake. Confirming that you are, in fact, an idiot. Your confidence plummets.

Your mind then starts to think about trying to fix the situation.

How can you stop this from happening again? What can you do to rectify it? Who can you speak to? Maybe you need more sleep? Maybe…

Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.

All this time, while you’re trying to mentally fix the issue, you’re revisiting the mistake, and your body is reacting as if the event is happening over and over again.

Your physical reaction is intertwined with your mental reactions, and you’re getting more and more stressed.

And when you’re stressed, it’s really hard to think clearly. Your mind becomes foggy, and you get stuck, procrastinate, and find a distraction (social media, TV, wine etc).

Sometimes, we need to break the cycle of thinking because there is only so much thinking that can be helpful!

How mindfulness helps to quieten the critical voice.

Mindfulness can be supportive in this situation for many reasons.

1. By taking the time to pause and move your attention away from thinking to using your senses, this can give you enough time for your mind to get off the hamster wheel long enough to settle and think clearly.

2. Seeing clearly means seeing the truth in the situation, not just your judgement and perception marred by emotions or physical stress reaction.

3. Mindfulness trains the mind to unhook from self-critical thinking so you’re not ‘in it’. It is not YOU. YOU are not the mistake.

4. By taking a mindful approach to your situation, you can bring kindness, compassion and a level of acceptance to it helping you to feel ok and even be at peace whatever has happened.

5. With clarity, you can decide which thoughts are worth your time and which are not. Ruminating about past mistakes and overthinking how to fix them without doing anything about it is not helpful. Planning and taking considered action is helpful. A settled mind comes with making the right decisions.

6. Practising mindfulness regularly helps you to see the patterns of thinking that often trip you up. If calling yourself an idiot is a common theme, this will no doubt rear itself in meditation, a place where it is safe to practice working it.

7. Regular and consistent practice means your mindfulness skills will more likely be there for you at that moment when the inner critic rears its head again and catch those thoughts early on.

What you can do to tame your inner critic

When you’re feeling low, and the critical voice is beginning take hold, try taking the following steps or download this meditation.

1. Take a moment to pause. Find somewhere quiet that you can go without distraction and make yourself comfortable. Spend a few moments sensing the contact that your body has with your chair or bed, feeling the weight of the body. Allowing the muscles to soften - in your face, shoulders, belly or anywhere else.

2. Move your attention to your breath and follow your breath as best you can. Perhaps sensing in your belly, nose, throat or chest. Spend a few moments here until the mind feels a little more settled and grounded. If your mind keeps thinking back to those critical thoughts, acknowledge them and return your attention to your breath each time.

3. Bring to mind the experience which is triggering your inner critic. Not going into the full story of it, but allowing it to sit in your mind’s eye and see how your body reacts. Become curious and interested in the emotions and physical sensations that arise. Perhaps even labelling the emotion (sadness, tiredness, frustration is here etc) or the physical sensation (tight chest, heart racing, stiff shoulders is here etc).

4. See if it’s possible to be open and allow these sensations and feelings to be there but without judgement. Your mind is trying to keep you safe. Is it possible to say some compassionate words to yourself in this moment? “Hello, old friend. I know you”, or “it’s ok to feel this”. Whatever words resonate with you. Watch how the sensations move, change or stay the same.

5. Taking as much time as you need and then notice what happens or how you feel after spending time doing this.

This practice brings acknowledgement, respect and care to the inner critic. Even perhaps a sense of acceptance and letting go.

If you need guidance, try this mindfulness practice specifically designed for coaches for when you find yourself in a spiral of self-criticism. Download it here. It will help you to take a mindful and compassionate approach to your inner critic, helping you let go and get on with your coaching with renewed confidence.