Is Your Inner Critic Standing Between You and the Success You Seek?
Posted on November 06, 2017 by Chris Mahan, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
You can silence the inner critic which is trying to convincing you that you will never succeed in attaining your dreams or achieving your vision.
Steve Siebold, the guru of “mental toughness” says, “The masses are primary motivated by extrinsic motivators, such as material possessions or money. The world class is motivated intrinsically, by their dreams, desires and passions.” A common thread found in the lives of the most successful people in the world is they have a vision and dreams that enable them to manage and motivate themselves.
George Barna defined vision as “a clear mental image of a preferable future.” I have known many people who had a dream of what they wanted to be but they were not able to achieve it. Why? Because they didn’t believe it was truly possible. That seed of doubt was enough to keep them from becoming what they hoped to be. That seed of doubt manifests itself as an inner critic standing between them and their success.
You see, their beliefs and actions are rooted in a faulty thought process. Zig Ziglar used to describe it as “stinkin’ thinkin’.” I want to challenge you to examine the way you talk to yourself to see if you are guilty of stinkin’ thinkin’. If your inner voice is continually warning you to “not reach too high,” “don’t bite off more than you chew,” "learn how to settle, because you really don’t deserve much more,” then you need to do a hard mental reboot and you need to do it NOW! You need to silence that inner critic. Better yet, you need to reprogram you inner voice so it becomes you most ardent supporter rather than your most vocal critic.
In his book, “What to Say when You Talk to Your Self,” Shad Helmstetter writes, “it is our programming that sets up our beliefs…what we believe determines our attitudes, affects our feelings, directs our behavior and determines our success or failure.” He then highlights the following progression:
• Programming creates beliefs.
• Beliefs create attitudes.
• Attitudes create feelings.
• Feelings determine actions.
• Actions create results.
If you are not getting the results you desire, it could be your programming is off the mark. Most of us have been programmed from our earliest days by the things people close or important to us told us about ourselves. That programming has continued throughout our lives and has exponentially increased with all the messages advertisers bombard us with throughout our day. We too readily accept what others say to or about us and, if we are honest, we often contribute to the detriment of our healthy self-view with the negative things we say to ourselves.
How do we reprogram our thoughts and change the chain reaction so it produces the results we desire? Here are just a few suggestions:
• Disassociate as much as possible from those who are negative influences in our lives.
• Acknowledge and celebrate even minor successes we achieve.
• Change our attitude regarding mistakes/failure.
• Feed our mind with positive messages via what we read and listen to.
• Challenge your inner voice whenever it seeks to demean or minimize us or our efforts.
If the success you seek is being sabotaged by your inner critic, it is time to make the adjustments necessary to change the way you speak to yourself. The more you speak to yourself in a positive way the more you will believe in yourself. The more you believe in yourself, the easier it will be to dispel doubt in your ability to succeed. The less doubt you feel will influence your ability to achieve your preferable future.
