Conquer Your Inner Critic

When business coach Doris Helge hears a critical voice playing in her head, she gives it a new job description.

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By Vicky Thompson
Originally published May 1, 2013

“You’re not good enough. Don’t even bother to try.”

Do you recognize this voice? You know, the critical voice in your head that says you’ll never succeed in life, no matter how hard you try.

The voice of the inner critic is one that many people fight against, struggling to shut off this self-defeating talk. But this annoying voice actually serves a vital purpose, says business coach Doris Helge, bestselling author of Conquer Your Inner Critic: Discover Why You Should Celebrate Self-Doubt.

When you were a child, you created your inner critic to keep yourself in line and be a good citizen on the school playground.

“We hate that voice now, but we forget that we personally created it so that we wouldn’t get in trouble as little kids,” say Helge. “It was before our consciousness had fully developed. It was definitely before our conscience has fully developed. It was extremely positive and purposeful, and it can be again.”

What did the inner critic say when you thought you could swim across the river at age seven? Or when you wanted to put firecrackers in your neighbor’s mailbox?

​While the inner critic kept you safe during your wild childhood, its messages didn’t evolve as you grew into an adult. And that’s why you fight against it today.

“Now that you’ve outgrown it, it is extremely empowering to learn that you can reinvent what you originally created. So you can give it a new job description, changing the strong arm tactic and the derogatory voice to turn into a high potency, very high energy part of yourself that serves you,” says Helge.

Partnering with the Inner Critic

So how can you work with your inner critic to become a cheerleader instead of an inhibiter? CEOs, Olympic athletes and other highly successful people have learned how to work directly with the inner critic, according to Helge.

She suggests directly communicating with your inner critic, instead of running away from it, resisting it or stifling it. Your goal is to reassign your inner critic’s job description from the default “You are not good enough, old enough, strong enough, big enough, powerful enough,” into “I want to work with you. You are an amazingly energetic, high-powered inner critic. I do want to know how I can improve. I want to hear it from you in a very constructive way.”

Learning how to discern between the voice of the inner critic and your true voice is key in learning to trust yourself and not mistake that automatic default voice as your own wisdom. Helge often instructs clients to chart the exact messages of their inner critic. The inner critic is almost always negative, fear-based and demands seemingly inhuman perfection. The childlike voice of the inner critic is very different from your true adult voice.

“If you hear yourself saying over and over again, ‘You can’t do this,’ that is not your true voice. It is the inner critic’s voice or it wouldn’t be using the word ‘you.’ Your true voice would say, ‘I can’t do this,’” explains Helge.

By understanding your inner critic and maybe even feeling grateful toward it for protecting you, you can recreate it into one of your most powerful allies. 

Vicky Thompson is the editor-in-chief of New Connexion. 

Doris Helge