The Inner Critic is banned from narration.

Consider this:

What you might think is your greatest flaw might be exactly what leads to your greatest success…. Tell *that* story to yourself for a while!

Who the hell cares?

My mother told me a story about a 3-year-old girl whose mom signed her up for dance class. At first this little girl refused to participate in the class with all the other kids. She stood on the sidelines watching with keen interest until she felt like she knew enough not to make an ass of herself. Only then would she step out onto the dance floor.

But who did this child think she was going to look dumb in front of, I wonder? The other kids who knew exactly the same amount as she did? The teachers who were there to show the class something they’d never known before? The parents who loved their kids and just wanted to see them have fun?

I have absolutely no memory of this event, but when my mom told me about that little version of me on the edge of the dance floor it gave me chills. More than thirty years later there are parts of my life where I am still watching from the side of the dance floor, biding my time until I feel confident enough to step out and perform without a single mistake. 

Nobody likes looking stupid. Are there things you haven’t done because your Inner Critic assured you that you’re going to mess it up and look foolish?

Why do you want money?

This morning I read a post on MFK’s blog Open-Source Career called Economy Hits Home. She listed the friends she knows who are being affected by the current state of affairs. I was just talking about this yesterday to a friend because for the first time I, too, am finding that everyone I know has been touched in some way by the financial challenges our country is facing.

Normally when I am working on creating something in my life, such as more money, I refuse to listen to any negative stories and focus only on successful, abundant tales. But what do you do when everyone you know has a negative story?

The truth: When I think about how much money I lost or how I will find a way to continue to make money, I want to throw up. But when I focus on all the opportunities that this kind of financial climate provides, then I am able to rally and get to work on the next thing.

I’m reading Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life by Harvard Business School professors Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson. (A brilliant book, by the way.) One of the exercises asks you to list why you want money to get at the underlying emotional reasons that drive you.

So today ask yourself this: Why do you want money? Ask the question over and over again until you can get by the fear voice of the Inner Critic and can excavate your deepest answers.

There is no try, only do.

Yoda was on to something when he blasted Luke Skywalker for saying he’d try to lift his fighter plane out of the swamp by using the Force. When you say you’re going to try to avoid unhealthy foods, try to get in for a makeover that will help you feel good about yourself or try to accept yourself for who you are, you are not committing to act. If you simply do the action you’re talking about, there is no need for discussion with the Inner Critic. As Yoda said, “Do or do not…there is no try.”

Award winners! So now what?

We received an award for our blog! Check it out: It’s the Superior Scribbler Award and we got it from another blogger over at The Erin Experiment. Thanks Erin! And there are rules that go along with this award.

• Every superior scribbler must name 5 other super scribblers.
• Link back to the author and the name of the blog that gave you the award. 
• Display the award and link to this post, which explains the award.
• Visit that same post add your name via Mr. Linky List, so the award creators can keep track of who the superest scribblers are.

So we will get back to you with five bloggers to check out! We’ll update this post with a few of our favs. Besides Erin above, who is a superior scribbler and fellow stepmom, here are five bloggers we will pass this award along to:

1. MFK at Open-Source Career. It’s an awesome blog about one person’s search for the perfect career.

MORE TO COME!

But winning this award highlights the fact that we’re attracting a lot of readers to our blog. (Yay! Thanks everybody!) So will we find ourselves confronting the Inner Critic even more now that we know people are reading us? Will we be paralyzed by the knowledge that what we write is not for our eyes only? Or will we be able to do what we both feel called to do and continue helping people get around their Inner Beasties so they can live their best lives? Hm. Stay tuned.

Nothing is wasted.

When I was in graduate school, I took a fiction writing class from Andre Dubus III, the author of House of Sand and Fog and the Garden of Last Days, whom my fellow classmates and I fondly called Andre Whom I Love. He was a masterful teacher and there are a few things he said that still resonate with me more than a decade later. While guiding us in the process of writing a novel, he told us to follow where the story led us. We were to excavate each idea and if it led us to a dead end and we had to go back, that material was not wasted. He maintained that there was clearly something important we had to learn about the story by heading off on that side road, even if we never used it in the book itself. Of course, I thought that was bunk. I didn’t want to waste time messing around with something that wouldn’t pan out. I wanted instant success! Re-writes, are you kidding me? No way! I wanted a novel to jump fully formed from my brain onto the page without a mistake! Ha.

I thought about that class recently as I considered all the times I have gotten excited about a project or a career plan or a guy that turned out to be a dud. The Inner Critic could very easily have its way with me if I let it. But you know what? I’m not sorry about all those experiences. Don’t get me wrong. I would much rather have just gotten it all right from the beginning and not found my path from F-bombing things up repeatedly. But now, my life is richer for all my screw ups, painful or embarrassing as they were at the time. Yes, I am even grateful for the tattoos (3), and the extra pounds I used to carry around (100), and the summer of excess in Prague. (I traveled to the Czech Republic after I’d lost the weight, what can I say? Grin.) 

The other thing Andre said was, “You have to jump naked into the abyss!” Perhaps I remember it so well because he also leaped up onto his desk while he said it. But after a screw up, you have to take another leap of faith. Even knowing it might be another wrong turn, you have to jump. It’s not just one big leap and then you’re done, either. I have found that I have to renew my energy again and again to take that next step. Because there are times, believe me, when I would much rather just spend my days on my ass watching old movies or reruns of Law and Order. But if I want to create a life that I feel good about, I have to keep getting up and trying again and again and again. It’s a lifetime’s project.

This is not a new idea. But it feels new when you actually apply it to your own life. In fact it feels like a novel idea over and over again. So what do you feel like you’ve messed up lately? And how can you use it to your advantage?

Failure is flimsy.

So it can’t stack up.

I’m just learning this one myself, which means I go through phases of forgetting it, then painfully relearning it. A lot of my “failures” occur in my love life. If you define successful dating as finding your soulmate, getting married, and living happily ever after, I’m nowhere near close. (Thank goodness I have other definitions of success )

One of my Inner Critic’s favorite tactics in dating is to convince me that every time it hasn’t worked out with a guy, that failure gets added to a stack, which by now is the size of a mountain. It looks a lot like one of those skyscrapers of trash in the movie Wall-E. With that image, the Inner Critic can convince me that nobody is ever going to stick around once they find out about my Leaning Tower of Heartbreak.

But failure doesn’t stack up. Failing is like walking through the mansion of your life unlocking doors. You get to open up a room and see what’s there. So what if it’s a room that’s narrow and cramped or just not designed to your taste? Or maybe it’s a *perfect* room, as long as you don’t look at the giant hole in the floor.

The point is, failure in any aspect of life feels like hell, but it’s actually a process of experimenting and clearing and cleansing. Your past is not a curse, and it will only lurk in your mind if you let it.

So what’s your image of your past failures? And what new image are you going to invoke?

Turn your fear into a game and you’ll feel like less of an idiot.

Pick a physical thing you can do that will remind you of a person you believe is extremely confident. Then do it. Wear sunglasses inside. Wear an evening gown around the house. Put on a suit so you can step outside of yourself for a little while. It’s silly sometimes, and you don’t ever have to admit your strange antics at a cocktail party, but your Inner Critic is smart. The Heavyweight knows how to undercut you. If you use humor and games to get around it, you’ll find its power over you is reduced.

One of my first assignments as an editorial assistant at a city magazine was to dress up and attend charity events that all the rich and famous people frequented. I had to wander around with a photographer who would snap their pictures while I asked them their names.

As soon as the assignment would fall on my desk I would go home and worry for days about the upcoming event. Even though I’d lost about 70 pounds by then, I was still overweight and for a shy girl who didn’t want to draw attention to herself or her body, it was excruciating to have to walk up to these fancy people and engage them in conversation.

Since Clare and I had vowed to do something we were afraid of every year, I decided I would take an acting class and try out for a play. I’d loved acting in junior high and high school but had quit because in my senior year, while onstage playing Tevya’s wife Golda in Fiddler on the Roof, I heard the boys in the front row making fun of how fat I was. I had not performed since that night.

In the Method acting class I signed up for, I learned to come up with three physical things I could do that would help remind me of the character I was playing. I wondered if that technique might work in my real life. So in the hours before I had to cover yet another ball for the magazine, I decided to create a character: Confident Jacque. I chose three things I thought a confident person would do – shake hands firmly while looking people in the eye, walk with a straight back, and clasp my hands casually in my lap instead of shredding the nearest napkin, menu, or program to bits.

I set out to the ball of the season with a nervous flutter in my stomach and a curiosity to see if my experiment would work. Truth? The first time I did it I felt like an idiot. I mean, come on. I was faking it. I was play-acting like a 5-year-old. Sure, I could shake somebody’s hand and look them in the eye but I was still the kid that didn’t want to be noticed for fear that the attention would turn to hurtful teasing.

But I kept at it. I discovered that when I stopped slouching and walked with a straight back, my head automatically came up and my gaze with it. Because my body appeared to be more engaged and open instead of closed and disinterested, people began to respond to me differently. And with each positive interaction, I gained in confidence. Pretty soon I added another physical act: I looked people in the eye, smiled at them, and said “Hello,” while walking by.

The more I practiced, the more the confident actions began to seem like things I would do. Today, I am Confident Jacque. Even though I sometimes still feel like a complete idiot or too shy to ask for what I need or want. And then I practice again. For instance, this morning I felt too dumb to be writing advice about how to achieve your dreams. I’m only 36 years old. Who the hell is going to want to read anything I have to say? What do I know? So I chose my three things: 1. I painted my nails red because a sassy, confident woman would have written this. 2. I dressed up. I work in my home office and I can take myself and my work more seriously when I’m in a suit than when I’m in my pajamas. 3. I sat up straight in my chair. A confident writer would sit up straight with lots of energy, not slouch at the desk like a college student working on a term paper.

If you’re reading this smackdown, it worked. So what games do you play so you’ll feel like less of an idiot?

Zidane: Trust your reflexes (Second Half)

(Warning: This post is a spoiler, so if you’re planning to see the movie, don’t read it.)

(And read the post “Zidane: Trust your reflexes (First Half)” first

In the first half of the game, Zidane is marked by his stillness, as opposed to getting caught up in emotional motion, the drama that other players indulge in. Zidane is so focused on the ball, he doesn’t even celebrate a goal he helps to score.

But he’s different in the second half of the game. The team is up a goal and apparently, Zidane’s Inner Critic is gone. He’s more engaged, not just in the game, but with the other players. He spends more time watching other players as well as the ball. He calls to his teammates, he gets more insistent with the referee after bad calls, he even laughs at a joke one of his teammates delivers. When you look at him grinning, you’re glad for him. Finally he looks like he’s enjoying the game!

Just seconds after his relaxed and happy grinning, he attacks with all his power and precision and skill and superb reflexes… but he attacks a player from the other team instead of the ball. He literally goes for the man’s throat. It’s animal fast and downright scary. The referee red cards him: throws him out of the game.

So… what happened?

Well, first of all, people fear loss more than they are greedy for gain. So with his team up a goal, Zidane actually felt less secure, because now they had an advantage to lose as well as something to gain. Success is a tricky gift.

And then he forgot what game he was playing. Zidane plays the ball, and when he started relaxing and interacting with the other players, he lost sight of his game. His emotions were back in motion, and laughter one moment turned to blood the next.

Now, the message is not to be isolationist, unemotional, and solitary. But know what game you’re playing, and if the Inner Critic is absent, be just a little suspicious. It might be switching tactics behind your back. The more energy you’re working with, the more energy you have that can be misdirected.

At the end of the movie, there’s a quote from Zidane: “Magic is close to nothing at all. Nothing at all.”

But I would add, Nothing at all is close to magic. A red card is temporary, and you always get another chance.

Don’t always get what you want.

You have to fail not just before you succeed, but in order to succeed.

Instant success means that you’ve accomplished your first impulse, but first impulses are usually knee-jerk reactions, old patterns, second-hand ideas, or will-o’-the-wisps that will sink you in a swamp. Failure clears the way for your true dreams and the best solutions to appear.

So when you fail, congratulate yourself for falling on your face. It’s better than falling off a cliff.

Read about what Amy Edmondson and Mark D. Cannon of the Harvard Business school say about Failure Anaylsis.