Silencing Your Inner Critic - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

I recently talked with one of my former graduate students about her career plans. There have been several interesting positions announced in her organization but she has applied for none of them. She told me that she lacked confidence in herself and worried about failing. It was clear from our conversation that while she is a highly capable person, fear is blocking her from achieving her career goals. Her own inner critic and negative self-talk is what is stopping her.

It is often the private conversations that we have with ourselves that can launch us to our goals or present a major obstacle. Negative predictions can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. A little self-criticism can be a good thing because it can keep your ego in check but excessive self-criticism can stand in the way of us making incremental improvements in our life. This can also lead to higher levels of anxiety and depression. Psychologist Tamar E. Chansky, PhD, author of Freeing Yourself From Anxiety, offers the following constructive advice on how to silence your inner critic:

Put negative things in the right size box – often the story we tell ourselves about the negative things in our lives is far worse than the truth. Chansky believes you need to put problems in the right size box.
Use the power of possible thinking – positive thinking is often recommended but Chansky believes looking at the possibilities and expanding the options in our thinking is a better strategy to quell the inner critic.
Challenge your own version of the story – have we interpreted the situation correctly. Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania talks about explanatory style when evaluating events. Some people naturally have a more negative explanatory style.
Put a better spin on things – recognize that there is value in even negative events in our lives and we often emerge stronger. Chansky recommends looking at the better spin on events.
Ask yourself what we would say to a close friend – what if it were a friend with an inner critic? The chances are that we would offer a different perspective so why not treat ourselves as we would a friend.
Give your inner critic a name – psychologists contend that it is powerful to give our inner critic a name such as “miss perfect” or “the prince of darkness” as a way of defusing the inner voice.
Pick up the phone and talk with someone – just talking with someone else can be very helpful in silencing the inner critic because a constructive person can help us to gain perspective.
Embrace your imperfection – perfectionism is usually at the heart of self-criticism yet none of us is perfect. It is important to give yourself the space to be human and make mistakes.
Write down your thoughts – putting thoughts and ideas down on paper forces us to confront our demons in a way that just simply thinking about them does not.

It is important for leaders to realize that our inner dialogue and those of our staff can fuel our success or prevent us from reaching our full potential. It is self-bullying when you think about it – something we would probably not tolerate from someone else. Silencing our own inner critic may be the single most important step to achieving our career goals.