But What If My Inner Critic has Good Ideas?
Last week, I wrote about how your inner critic is very similar to a racist.
A racist has a bias against people of certain races.
Your inner critic has a bias against YOU.
It starts with the idea that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you.
And you can try and try to “be good enough” in its eyes…
But it’s a losing game every day. The inner critic ALWAYS finds fault, no matter what you do.
Because it’s starting with the premise that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. And so nothing will ever be good enough.
A very common question people have when I say this is…
“Okay, I hear you…
But what if my inner critic – even though it’s biased against me – has good ideas on how I can improve?
Shouldn’t I listen to it then?”
Your inner critic definitely has ideas on how you can improve.
(Just like how a racist has lots of ideas about how people of other races can “improve.”)
But today I’m going to show you why its suggestions are actually terrible.
And why, instead of listening to your inner critic, you should develop and listen to your Inner Fan.
Your inner critic does all its problem-solving based on one premise:
Who you are is a problem. To achieve your goals, become someone else.
Your Inner Fan does all its problem-solving based on a different premise:
Who you are is an asset. To achieve your goals, be more YOU.
Let’s say you want to be a good leader, but you’re naturally quiet and introverted…
Your inner critic will say: Your quietness is a problem. Be louder and more extroverted.
Your Inner Fan will say: Your quietness is an asset. Find and tap into all the ways your quietness makes you a great leader.
Let’s say you want to get a lot of things done, but you don’t tend to stick to schedules…
Your inner critic will say: Your inability to stick to schedules is a problem. Be more organized. Be more disciplined. Stop being so distractible.
Your Inner Fan will say: You not sticking to schedules is an asset. Use your bursts of creativity and ability to jump from one thing to another to get a lot of things done.
Or let’s say you got assigned to a project, but you don’t have any experience doing this kind of work…
Your inner critic will say: Your lack of experience is a problem. Get outside advice. Follow best practices. Disregard your own instincts — they’re probably wrong.
Your Inner Fan will say: Your lack of experience is an asset. Use your fresh eyes to see the problem in a new way. Use your optimism to be bold. Use your humility to ask for advice — AND use your discernment to decide whether to follow it.
Your inner critic’s advice always boils down to:
Don’t be you. Be someone else.
Your Inner Fan’s advice always boils down to:
Be MORE you. Stretch your You-ness into new areas. Find creative, undiscovered corners of your You-ness, and use them to get what you want.
Your inner critic sees you as the embarrassing, bumbling misfit of the story, who just fucks things up and gets in the way.
Your Inner Fan sees you as the hero of the story. Every trial and tribulation is an essential part of your epic journey. Even at your lowest, you are admirable and strong.
You may agree with some of your inner critic’s goals.
But because your inner critic is always assuming that your You-ness is a blocker rather than your best asset…
The path your inner critic suggests to GET to your goal is always painful, difficult, and ultimately unsustainable.
Stop listening to that guy.
His advice only looks good because you’re not comparing it to anything else.
Stop and compare your inner critic’s advice to your Inner Fan’s advice.
And then decide whose guidance you want to follow.
Your inner critic is a well-oiled habit loop in your brain.
It’s like the habit loop you have for riding a bike. You just get on the bike, and your automatic brain takes over and does the rest. There’s no thought involved at all.
Listening to your Inner Fan is like learning how to ride a backwards bike. (A bike where the wheels turn left when you turn the handles right, and vice versa.)
It takes sustained practice to build the habit. You’ll have to override your old habit loop lots of times.
But if you get enough reps, it WILL become an automatic habit.
You literally can’t stop this from happening — that’s just how your brain works.
And once it’s fully in place, the Inner Fan habit loop will BLOCK your inner critic habit loop.
Just like how learning how to ride a backwards bike makes it really hard to ride a normal bike. The old habit loop has been overwritten.
We can’t do this work in just one email.
But we can — and DO — do this work in my course and coaching program.
In 2023, give yourself the gift of dedicated time, pre-defined structure, and on-tap expertise to lock this new habit into place.