If you don’t have something nice to say…

Last night I gave one of the adolescent girls in my house a talking to after she boldly sassed me as only an 11 year old can do in that tone. You know the one I mean. The whatevertone. To complicate matters, I am her stepmother, not her mother and her father was not present at the time of the sassing. I’ve known this girl since she was five and have watched her enter this new developmental stage with trepidation knowing that with her strong personality she would be challenging. I had a decision to make. Would I allow her to get away with her behavior because I am only the stepmom or would I stand up for myself as an adult who deserves respect?

I marched her inside. “I know you’re at the age where you think adults don’t know anything and that’s just fine, but I will not tolerate disrespectful and rude behavior in this house.”

Later in the evening we became friends again for the time being. This scenario reminded me of the battle with the Inner Critic. Sometimes it needs a good talking to. Sometimes you have to explain that you will not tolerate disrespectful behavior. Sometimes you need to stand up for yourself.

Sell yourself to yourself.

We’re looking for a new car right now so I’ve met several car salespeople recently.  Because there is a stereotype that car salespeople are pushy, I walk into the dealerships ready for a fight. I admit it. But yesterday I met James. He was low key and pleasant. As we looked at *gasp* a minivan to fit our family of six, we pointed out everything that was wrong with the car. His response was the same in every instance.

“Yes, you’re right. That’s a downside.” He would agree with us and then he would gently counter us with a reminder of the positive. “But it has the best mileage in its class.”

I bet we can win our battles against the Inner Critic with the same tactic. Agree gently, to keep the beast calm. Then counter with the upsides again and again.

“Yes, you have put off that project for a month now. But look! Today you’re sitting down at the desk to work! Yay!”

“Sure, you haven’t cleaned the house in a week, but hey, everyone is fed, happy and healthy.”

“Sure you lost your job in this sucky economy, but have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re hot! You’ll get a new one in no time!”

This week, take after James and sell yourself to yourself.

Managing the Inner Critic: Part Two

The techniques for knocking out your Inner Critic come in five categories. So if you’re battling the brutal voice of the Inner Critic every morning with your coffee as you look for a job, or procrastinate on your thesis, or continue to believe that you are not worthy of love, try a smackdown from each category every week. (Or every day if need be!)

Kindness. Kill the Inner Critic with kindness. Make sure self-care is a part of your daily routine, even if it’s just ten deep breaths before you walk out the door in the morning. When you allow yourself pleasureable experiences, you are showing the Inner Critic that you respect and love yourself. There is no room for brutality from the Inner Critic when you are feeling good.

Surprise. Keep the Inner Critic on its toes by doing new things. Try something silly like painting a tree in your garage or something scary that takes you outside your comfort zone.

Knowledge. Coming up with new ways to motivate yourself, to combat fear, and to create a life on purpose requires that you deeply know yourself. You need to know what your core values are, your passions, what things embarrass you, and how you light a fire in your belly that can help you go after a goal even when it’s difficult.

Faith. In order to really beat the Inner Critic, it’s important that you have faith in yourself. Faith that you are worthy of the life you want and belief that you can do it. This category also includes having faith in something bigger than yourself – God, your higher power, or your reason for being.

Action. The Inner Critic hates it when you actually do something to move toward your dreams. And it will put up a fight, but if you are proving your intentions to create the life you want by moving toward it with action, then you’re really on your way! Every time you say, “Yes! I did that!” the Inner Critic goes to sit in time out.

The art of smacking down your Inner Critic is really about trial and error. When your Inner Critic wises up to a particular technique so it won’t work for you anymore, your job is to come up with new ways to engage yourself in actively creating the life you want. It’s a lifelong process. But the rewards are a life lived with intention and presence. This is our chance!

Managing the Inner Critic after you’ve lost your job.

In the last few days I have been in touch with many friends and readers of this blog who have lost their jobs. While having lunch with an extremely talented friend who was laid off from a job she loved, she described how the Inner Critic had more power over her than ever before. With every emailed resume she didn’t get a response to and every minute she waited for the phone to ring, the Inner Critic leapt into the communication void to whisper in her ear.

Do any of these phrases sound familiar? “You don’t have the right experience. You’re too old! You suck at interviews! You’ll never find a job! You’re not talented enough to get a job in this tight economic market!”

If you’ve lost your job, or are a freelancer like me and have to create jobs on a daily basis for a living, then we must battle that Inner Critic minute-by-minute. My Dad always use to say, “It’s easier to change lanes when you’re in the traffic than when you’re stopped at the side of the road.” True. But what if you are stopped on the side of the road by forces outside your control? Here are some things I’ve been stewing on lately.

Get dressed. I’ve written about this one before, but it’s so important. Put on the clothes you would wear to work so you’ll feel more confident. If you’re in your pjs or sweats, it’s easy to slip into inaction. Right now? I’m in my pjs. Whoops. One moment please.

Persue every lead. How do you figure out which opportunities to take? I believe it’s my job to put myself out there in as many ways and as often as I can. What comes back to me, is not up to me. So when doors open, I walk through them to see where they lead. Even if it wasn’t necessarily the right thing for me, I always learn some valuable lesson that serves me later in unexpected ways.

Face the worst-case and plan for it. What is the absolute worst thing that can happen? You’ll lose your house? And then what will you do? Lose your car? Then how will you get around? Though your circumstances may change in unpleasant ways, there is always a way through. Sometimes you have to change your career or your attitude, or your living arrangments. But there is always a way.

Be proud of yourself. Make a list of the moments in your life when you have been most proud of yourself. What did you do? What did you achieve? How did you handle a situation? Remember those moments now.

Do something that makes you feel confident. Make another list of moments when you have felt the most confident. What were you wearing? How did you walk? What are you really, really good at?

Find allies. If you have people in your life who take energy from you instead of helping you feel courageous, then ditch those friends or family members for a while. Call up the confident people you know and align yourself with them. Instead of hanging out with people who are scared and in fear spirals, find those who are scared and are rallying themselves for the fight with optimism and hope.

Use this time for self-exploration. Last week on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, they ran a story about a 40-year-old woman who was in the financial industry and lost her job. Instead of returning to the same industry, she decided to go to school to become a chef. These stories abound during times like this. But if you view this time as an opportunity, then you will not only survive this turbulent era, you will thrive.

How about you? Let me know how you continue to smackdown your Inner Critic while you hunt for work or have to make a scary transition so we can all benefit! And please remember to do something kind for yourself every single day. This is especially important right now.

Living On Purpose

I read this quote this morning in Repacking Your Bags by Richard Leider and David Shapiro. It’s their vision of the good life: “Living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work, on purpose.”

This is exactly what the smackdowns are all about. Telling your Inner Critic where to get off so you can create a life on purpose. One that makes you “Feel the rapture of being alive,” in the words of Joseph Campbell. And to do that takes vision, realism, optimism, and action.

But what if you are getting push back from the ones you love? You might need to make some painful decisions in order to live an authentic life. For instance, what if your partner doesn’t support your dreams and is stuck in one place with no desire to grow? Or what if your spouse is locked in a fog of addiction? Or maybe one of your dear friends is consistently repeating old emotional patterns that leave her trapped in a hell of her own making that she blames on forces outside her control?

Warning: This smackdown is not easy. Once you’ve decided that you’re going to do the deep inner work it takes to heal yourself and live your life on purpose, you become a threat to others.  The Inner People Pleaser will turn on you with a snarl.

“What do you think you’re doing?! Your job is make sure your best friend feel good about herself! Your job is to make sure your husband is comfortable and that his home is clean and his meals cooked! Your job is to bend over backwards to give your partner the life he wants with no thought of what you want! How could you let your kids down this way? You need to give, give, give, give, give, give, give… What would they do without you?”

The truth is, doing deep inner work requires you to set up emotional boundaries that you will not allow others to cross…even those closest to you. It involves developing a sense of self-esteem that can combat the voice of the Inner People Pleaser. “I deserve it. I am worthy. I deserve it. I am worthy.” It might even feel like you’re being selfish for a while and others in your life might accuse you of that, but once you’ve defined your inner territory, you can again open up the gates to others you love. But this time, you’ll have the knowledge and the strength to stand up for yourself not with defensivness or anger but with love and integrity. What your loved ones choose to do in response to your growing sense of self, is entirely up to them. We may walk side by side with our loved ones, but we each walk our own path.

Right now ask yourself this: Are you “living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work, on purpose?” And if not, what things need to change?