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Taking control of what you think in service of designing your successful future

Part 4: The Internal Saboteur or inner critic

Have you ever noticed that just at a point when you are about to make a change or decision about

something new, or go into unchartered territories that you get this inner voice, mocking you, or

sneering at the choices you are about to make? Some inner voices can be quite negative and

critical, some will question your decisions, and other can be supportive. In the main the voice, for the untrained ear is generally negative. So powerful

and overbearingly loud that it is capable of crowding out all rational and positive thoughts.

Examples of the sort of things the internal saboteur will say are, “You cannot do that job, you don’t have the right experience”, or “you cannot ask that

question, everyone will think that you are completely stupid” Then you hear someone else ask the very same question, or someone who does not

necessarily have your skills, step forward and applies for that role. All this is because you listened to your internal saboteur or inner critic.

For the majority of human beings, managing this

internal saboteur starts with first just noticing the judgements that is going on inside your brain and understanding the difference between constructive

analysis and the saboteurs’ destructive chatter.

The primary objective of the Internal Saboteur is to keep you safe, and maintain the status quo. However if you listened only to that voice, you would never move forward with your life.

The way you speak to yourself reinforces the way you see yourself subconsciously, “If you repeat a conscious thought a number of

times it becomes a subconscious Programme” – Richard Matthews

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A Lesson from the way baby Elephants are trained…………….

In countries where elephants are used as working animals, they must be trained

when very young and not yet too powerful. The first thing a trainer does is fasten a

heavy chain to the baby elephant’s leg. Securing the other end of the chain to a

metal stake driven deep into the ground. When the elephant tries to walk freely, it

cannot move any further than the end of the chain. It may try repeatedly to escape

but his held back by this unyielding restraint.

After a period of time, the baby elephant stops testing the strength of the chain and

is restrained within the circle’s limited circumference, completely passive. It has

become thoroughly convinced that it cannot escape.

At that point the elephant can be used in the field and easily

transferred from one location to another without concern. All it takes

to hold the animal, despite its enormous strength, is a light rope and a thin wooden

stake. As the baby elephant has now been conditioned in this manner he remains

convinced, for the rest of his life, that what was once true will always be true.

……….And guess what; we are not elephants – we are able to change non-

constructive conditioned thinking patterns that no longer serve us.

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What ‘Baby Elephant’ ideas are you still hanging

onto?

Resources

Taming your Gremlin – Rick Carson

Master class in Gremlin Taming – Rick Carson

Gremlin taming website - http://tamingyourgremlin.com/

How to manage your inner critic -

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/01/how_to_quiet_your_inner_critic.html

Beyond the inner Critic – Skye Thomas

http://www.tomorrowsedge.net/self-esteem-book.html