Turning my inner-critic into a coach

My inner-critic and I have a long, quarrelsome history together. He (my inner-critic is male) was a jerk for a really long time.

He started coming around in middle school. He told me that I should be afraid, especially of talking with girls I had pre-teen crushes on. And then he made me feel terrified of failure in high school. He led me astray in college by making me try to fit the cookie-cutter mold of pre-law, even though I didn’t want to.

Then as a young adult, he reminded me how lonely I was, and rubbed my nose in how I didn’t have a graduate degree or a high enough public profile. He made me feel like garbage about how little I was dating and how I needed to be more elite (his opinion, not mine).

Then, on top of all that - as I approached my early thirties, he scared me into thinking I was not good enough at my job or getting promoted fast enough. When I felt like doing something difficult, unorthodox, or unexpected he naysayed me, “naw you shouldn’t do that, that’s not for you to do” he would say. He also told me, so often, to take instead of give, indulge instead of restrain, ignore instead of love.

Over the course of years he has shamed, scared, cajoled, and ridiculed me. Like I said, he was a jerk for a long time.

I write often about reflection because I think it’s really important. Reflection is the engine that drives learning from experience. I’ve been developing a practice of structured reflection for over 15 years now, and I’ve been working on a project to share what I’ve learned. Reflection is what I’m probably best at and most serious about.

What I’ve realized in the past week, is that reflection is more than just the abstract notion of “learning from experience.” In retrospect, reflection has been a process that has improved my relationship with my inner-critic at least ten-fold. Reflection has transformed my inner-critic and made him into a damn good coach.

This is why I’m becoming something of an evangelist for developing a practice of structured reflection, similar to how someone might run, lift weights, do yoga, pray, or meditate. Almost everyone I’ve had a heart-to-heart conversation with alludes to their inner-critic and how terrible theirs is to them, too.

We all have to manage our own critic, and it seems more useful to channel them rather than silence them.

But how?

Structured reflection - over the course of time - was sort of like having a crucial conversation along these lines, with my inner-critic:

Alright buddy, our relationship is not working out. We need to do something different. You can’t harass me anymore. You’re either going to help me get better, or I’m going to replace you with someone who does.

Here’s a piece of paper with what I believe and how I want to be better. This is what you’re going to coach me to do.

I need you to coach me hard. I need you to be honest, specific, and encouraging. Sometimes, I’m going to need you to give me tough love and tell me hard truths. I understand that. But you will not make me feel like shit and shutdown while you do that. I need you to push me to be the highest version of myself. I need you need to be my coach, not my critic.

You will not heckle me right before I take a leap and do something hard, that we’ve agreed is important to do. In turn, I promise to work hard during practice and listen to what you coach me to do. The only way this is going to work is if we have a symbiotic relationship. need you to get better and you need me because you’ll have nothing to do if I shut you out.

Do we have an understanding?

I did not intend for this to happen when I started to get really serious about practicing reflection. But in retrospect, working through a structured set of reflective prompts and practicing them religiously has given my inner-critic no choice but to become my coach.

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Thanks to two friends - Alison and Glenn - who connected some really important dots in my head on this subject. They probably don’t even realized they gave me that gift.