This informal CPD article Confidence At Work - Silencing your Inner Critic was provided by Lianne Weaver of Beam Development and Training, a provider of CPD accredited courses designed to help employers and employees take responsibility for their wellbeing.
Confidence at Work
If I asked you to think of someone who is confident, what comes to mind? Probably that person who holds court in the centre of the room, regaling people with stories, laughing and joking, the life and soul of the party. But this isn’t always what confidence is. To me, confidence is simply being comfortable in our own skin, no matter where we are.
So many of us wear masks when we go into different situations - we are a different person at work to the person we are at home, for instance. We might make an effort to hide or tone down our true personality to fit in with what we see as the company’s values, or so that we don’t stand out as different amongst our colleagues. Imagine how much lighter life would feel if we were the same person in every situation. To me, that’s true confidence.
Challenges to our confidence
The first step in the journey to becoming comfortable in your own skin is to recognise the many and varied challenges you have faced so far - and still regularly face - which challenge and knock your confidence.
The first is our upbringing. Whether our parents have shown us immense support and love, or whether our parents have been less than supportive and caring - both could damage our confidence. Parents who were over-protective for example, saying: ‘Be careful, don’t do that, that’s dangerous,’ can make us feel that we can’t make the best decisions for ourselves. Parents who never praised us can make us continue to feel we are not good enough.
Then there’s societal influence. We learn very quickly that society wants us all to behave in a certain way. If you skip down the road at five years old then passers-by might smile. If you skip down the road at 35 years old, that will be viewed as strange. We are all subject to these pressures that tell us we need to conform, fit in, and not rock the boat.
When we go to school the education system judges us against our peers, tells us we need to wear certain clothes, behave in a certain way, maybe have a certain haircut. It tells us we need to study hard, that some subjects are more important than others, that some traits and behaviours and skills are valued more than others. All the time we get the subconscious message that being ourselves isn’t quite enough - we need to fit in and conform.
If that isn’t bad enough we are then judged by our peers. Our friends in school could make fun of us if we are academic and we may feel that we need to dumb down; or if we aren’t academic then we may feel that we need to play up and challenge that norm. The whole time we are trying to fit in with what society tells us.
And finally we have media. Whether via TV, films, magazines or social media, we are constantly told that other people are happier, healthier, sexier, and generally doing better at life than we are.
The result of all of this is that the voice in our head is constantly saying that we are not enough. This tends to be the underlying mantra of a lack of confidence - ‘I am not enough’.
Now if we think about this logically, this statement doesn’t even really make sense. What are we measuring ourselves against? To say that we are ‘not enough’ is a really harsh inner dialogue. In order for us to overcome this we need to start to rewrite the dialogue - to start to accept that we were born enough, we are enough, and we don’t need to try and be something that we’re not.
Steps to confidence
To become more confident, more comfortable in your own skin, it’s important to tackle that inner critic - that voice that constantly tells you you’re not enough, that everyone else is better than you.
Your inner critic can be incredibly cruel, and no doubt speaks in a way we would never tolerate from another human being. Your inner critic is likely to be so mean that if it was played out loud you’d be embarrassed for anyone else to hear it.
There are three really good - and easy - tips for you to start to manage your inner critic. Note that not all of these tips will work for everyone, but one should work for you.
- Name and shame. Your inner critic is essentially your ‘fear voice’. It tells you not to do something, that you’re not good enough and not capable. It is almost like an over-protective parent trying to protect you from getting hurt if you try to be something more than you are. But your inner critic isn’t your friend, and is only ever going to give you advice based upon fear. Give your critic a silly name, a name of a character in a TV programme or a famous person you wouldn’t take advice from, and tell it to go away when you hear it. You don’t have to do this out loud, but even telling it to go away silently can really help you to recognise that your inner critic is having a go at you, and get it to go away. It sounds weird but it’s a really useful, powerful tool.
- Move your voice. Some people can pinpoint the exact location of the voice of their inner critic. If you can, then the next time you hear it talking and complaining and criticising, simply imagine picking it up and moving it to the other side of your head. Amazingly when we do this we can no longer hear the voice. You may need to move it multiple times a day - but this will help you to know that you have the power to do so, and that the voice is not the real you.
- Change the volume or the tone of the voice. Some people like to turn the voice into a cartoon character’s voice. Others imagine they have a volume dial and they slowly turn the volume down on the voice.
We all need to continually develop new skills - we are all a work in progress. Managing your inner critic will help you to accept that, even as you continue to grow and as life changes and unfolds, you are already ‘enough’.
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