am i being realistic?
Up until I was about 30, I didn’t know I had “an inner critic.” Yes, I had heard the term here and there. Yes, I was mildly aware that sometimes cruel words about myself chattered away in my head, but that was it. Meanwhile my inner critic was keeping me from writing, from dancing, from risking, from creating the career I really wanted.
I wasn’t alone. Most women and girls are profoundly held back by their inner critics – but they often don’t know it and they certainly haven’t been given the tools to do anything about it. I’ve become passionate about every woman and girl on the planet getting an Inner Critic 101 Training – the basic knowledge about what the critic is and what we can do to quiet its voice.
Today I want to focus on one particular aspect of quieting the critic that we talk about in my Playing Big program: waking up to the difference between the inner critic and good old realistic thinking. Take a look at the chart below:
Get the idea?
The inner critic is into making definite pronouncements and predictions: “You look horrible.” “You could never pull off starting a business like that.” “Your painting is not as good as all the others in the class.”
The realistic thinker in us – when untarnished by the influence of the critic – asks curious questions: “Hmmm, could I do it? Do I have skill x and y that it takes, or do I need to build those skills?” “What is remarkable about this painting? What is lacking?”
The realistic thinker is forward moving. She seeks solutions. Bring the realistic thinker to bear when thinking about a career change, for example, and she’ll critically assess risks and potential costs, but with a focus on minimizing them and resolving them. The critic will spin and spin, ruminating on the risks and costs. In other words, the realistic thinker generates a true “line of thinking” – a line that lands in a different, more thought-out place than where it started. Something was created – a plan, a more nuanced understanding, a set of more specific questions to explore – through the thinking.
And then there’s the tone. The critic speaks in an anxious, emotionally charged tone. The realistic thinker doesn’t sound stern, like you might have been taught she did. The true realistic thinker in all of us just sounds grounded. Clear-eyed. Calm.
Just take that in for a minute, because I know that is very different than what you’ve likely been taught. It makes me cry a little to sit with that, because inside me there is a tender little girl who was told that “realistic thinking” was something very different, and ever since she thought she had to succumb to talking to herself in that way.
Realistic thinking is actually light, inquisitive, exploratory, and highly creative.
What does all this mean for you, today?
You can stop confusing realism with negativity, realistic thinking with the inner critic.
You can reclaim that inquisitive, calm, solution-seeking realistic thinker in you.
Even if you aren’t sure you’ve got her in there, she’ll start showing up, now that you have put your attention on her. Just look for her, a little inside, and invite her to the table. Ask her to come to the fore.
Love,
Tara
Want more support quieting your inner critic? I go deeper on this topic in Playing Big, my program for women who want to play bigger in going for their dreams for their lives and careers. Get details and sign up for access to early bird discounts HERE.
“There is a wonderful passage by Jonathan Safran Foer where he discusses an email he received from a friend in response to his sharing the joys around the birth of his child with the friend. The friend wrote “Everything is possible again.” This is *exactly* how I feel after having taken the Playing Big course.” – Playing Big Participant
“As a result of playing Big, I published a book, got a new website up, moved beyond some old energies of inner critics, and stopped caring so much what others might think of what I’m doing.” – Playing Big Participant
Insightful and so, so helpful! It is very difficult to live in the gray area of realism, but it can make all the difference.
Thanks for your many posts. What I find hard to deal with is the feeling of “I am a failure” when you get another Rejection or hit another setback.
Would love it if you could address that in one of your posts.
Great article Tara, and such an important issue.
In shamanism the critic is seen as a wounded soul part. Instead of quietening it, it is possible to dissipate the energy from it by allowing it to have it’s say in a healing environment so that it doesn’t have to stalk us for attention throughout our lives.
Underneath the wounding there is usually a gorgeous gift, an aspect of ourselves that which in its healed state supports us in being our full potential. The healed aspect of the critic can often be the ‘wisdom keeper’.
For many women when we were young our wisdom wasn’t honoured and created a soul wounding, we then project this wounding out onto ourselves and others as the critic.
Healing our inner critic can be an incredible transformational experience, for in the darkness we find our Light.
Blessings in abundance for your beautiful teachings
Catherine
this post and your last have really spoken to me. I’d love to join your group for playing big, but it just isn’t in the cards right now. I know there is more out there for me, I am excited for it all – right now I am really battling that inner critic and trying to figure out how to switch to the more linear realistic thinker. It is a hard habit to break, but I am definitely working on it. Thanks for this post.