Wise Wednesdays

If you’ve ever felt terrified of failure or rejection, or heard a voice in your head tell you that you’re bad, wrong or inadequate, you’ve met your inner-critic. It’s a part of your psyche, like a sub-persona in your personality. How often have you kept quiet when you wanted to say something worthwhile or held back from having fun or trying something bold because you were afraid of failure or ridicule? The inner-critic is a frequent character in transformational coaching processes because it doesn’t like transformation so much…it prefers the status quo. Transformation entails risk of loss. But three words about your inner-critic: It. Means. Well. It's trying to protect you Against what? Against (mostly perceived) future losses. Usually, we react to the threat of future losses touted by the inner-critic in one of three ways: 1) become paralysed with fear and anxiety leading to procrastination; 2) try to be superhuman and never r...

Dear Heroines and Heroes, It’s Wise Wednesdays #90+! Thank you for being part of Wise Wednesdays! It gives me great joy to write and inspire you. It’s two years this week since the first edition of Wise Wednesdays (here’s the first edition ever: Curing Cabin Fever =>  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgu_kkljBho ).     In the same month, I officially opened the coaching practice and experienced the Zen of having my first paying clients and covering my living expenses. Two months prior, the six month NHS Consultant contract (in a civil service institution) I was on was coming to and end and I hadn’t applied for other jobs… It was a little scary…I’d reached the top of the medical ladder and was about to leap into the unknown. I didn’t even want to talk about it with others lest they dissuade me. When people asked what I was doing next, I’d half-jokingly say I was going on maternity leave (and sometimes “Baternity leave” i.e. to give birth to a business...

Stop putting yourself down now! 3 principles from learning science Do you catch yourself saying mean things to yourself? “I’m so stupid”, “I’m so lazy”, “I always get it wrong”… Our inner-critic may be trying to help us but it is often clumsy, brutal and ignorant of the full picture. If you notice it and recognise it fully once, you can start to shrink its hold on you and make decisions that are more aligned with what you really want. I see this happening with my clients after about three to six months. It may never disappear fully (it evolved over tens of thousands of years, likely from the moment one of our ancestors first tried to subdue another by force and language) but, with consistent commitment over time, it can find its place within your inner-world as a helpful force rather than a destructive one. The truth is that most of us would be horrified if we heard someone speaking to another person in the inner-critic’s voice – especially if it were a person we loved… ...