Tag: inner coach

Overcoming the Self-Sabotage Constraints of the Critic

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I’m getting such good questions through from people in regards to the Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. I’m so glad people are emailing me with their concerns. There is one very common theme:

What if I invest in it and do every step, but it doesn’t work for ME? What if I’m just a hopeless case after all? 

Let me tell you a personal story. Last year I wanted to hire a business coach. I was looking at a 4-figure investment for a short period of coaching. I’d never done anything like that before. It took me AGES to make my buying decision. And do you know what came up for me?

What if I invest all this money and it doesn’t work for me?

I’m an honest person, I don’t make things up, and I kid you not. The fear and the self-doubt disabled me for a good while. And here’s what I learnt about my Inner Critic during that process:

When you are about to step out of your comfort zone, take a risk or a chance, possibly change life for the better, the Critic GETS LOUDER.

It wants to sabotage you, hold you back, and keep you small.

If you follow me you’ll know what a huge fan of Brene Brown I am. I advocate her work whenever and wherever I can. I’ve absorbed most things she’s ever said or written. When her Netflix special came out, I didn’t dive into it right away. I wanted to save it for when the time was right. I wanted to savour looking forward to it. And that time was over the last few days. Have you seen it? I’m sure the pregnancy hormones are playing a role, but I teared up like every five minutes watching it! It resonates. And it resonates with millions of us around the world.

She defines vulnerability as: risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure. She teaches that no single act of true courage exists without this.

And here’s exactly what we’re facing. When we are about to step out and ‘dare’ – even if in just a small way – your Critic will step up. Because your Critic DOES NOT LIKE VULNERABILITY. Vulnerability to it is danger. And ultimately, its evolutionary design is to keep you safe from danger. I talk about why and how it does this on the course. What’s important to get now is that when it senses vulnerability it will self-sabotage and engineer to hold you back and keep you small. That’s what it is designed to do.

Because, you are on the brink of experiencing the juicy fundamentals of life that we are hard-wired to want and need in the bigger picture of things. Joy. Love. Belonging. And these were not in the evolutionary big picture when our fear-centred hard-wiring was in the making. When your Inner Critics were in design. Survival was the only thing on the hard-wiring agenda. Your Critic is SCARED SHITLESS of these breakthroughs. And when it senses their possibility IT WILL GET LOUDER, SABOTAGE, HOLD YOU BACK, AND KEEP YOU SMALL.

Yet, on the deeper levels of our being, we know we don’t like the experience of being held back, of staying small, of not achieving what’s important to us. Because we are neurobiologically hard-wired to want to be brave; to achieve our goals, to expand, to experience those juicy fundamentals of life. These are the things that make our lives worth living.

If you are experiencing that self-sabotage, self-doubt of: what if I invest in it, do every step, but it doesn’t work for ME? What if I’m just a hopeless case after all? then just know you are not alone. It is just the Critic doing its evolutionary task. And it means you NEED THIS WORK.

How else are we to take ourselves from fear and fear of vulnerability, to trusting ourselves and taking a chance? Yes, you need coaching! And you know the VERY BEST KIND of coaching?  The coaching you can learn to do ON YOURSELF, FOR YOURSELF.  Learning how to overcome the Critic and develop a full-proof Inner Coaching practice that’s inside your head, available to you 24/7, absolutely free of charge, and there supporting you and encouraging you 100%.

In other words, in my experience, this is the only way I’ve managed to learn how to answer “The Call To Courage” that Brene Brown wants us to answer.

Once I’d worked out that my doubts were just my Critic piping up and wanting to hold me back, I took the plunge and invested in the business coaching. And I got my results, because I made sure I made it work for me.

It’s not the Critic who counts. Inside or outside of your head. It’s not the Critic who counts.

With love and a small amount of daring, Charlotte xx

P.s. Please get in touch with ANY questions. I’m here to answer them and support you for the next 4 weeks until baby comes.

I’m calling BS on the whole ‘peaceful parenting’ ideal!

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The last two mornings have been really tough, and I’ve shouted at my child.

I’m not proud of losing my temper, not at all. And if I’ve gone down in your estimation by admitting it, then so be it. Feel free to unsubscribe now. I gave up the belief that I had to be perfect in order to effectively help others some years ago (probably around the same time I became a parent!)

I share it with you however because it’s been a grave reminder to me how easy it is for parenting-guilt to arise. In my book The Imperfect Parent I call it the Shitty Guilt Fairy. And oh my, does the Shitty Guilt Fairy love it when I lose the plot! She kicks off her sparkly shoes and settles in, good and proper. And guess what comes with her? You’ve got it, the good old Inner Critic. This version is special however and probably hurts the most  – the Inner Parenting Critic.

The biggest pearl of wisdom I’ve ever learned from a parenting-psychologist (one which I drove 6 hours to go and train with for one day, and 6 hours back) was this:

“F#^k our kids. We give them everything we’ve got and they still demand three times as much!”

And isn’t that just the truth? The parenting equation isn’t one that is set up fairly, in my view. We do our best, we care, and we have the best of intentions to be the BEST parent we can be at any given time. We care for them, love them, teach them right from wrong and try hard to not give them labels that are hard to grow up with

And it’s when we’ve given everything and they still need more and push our buttons, that’s a recipe for losing it. For the last two mornings I’ve encountered nothing but obstacles and complaints one after the other, that have driven me to the end of my tether:

I can’t wear those leggings, the kids will laugh at me (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want that toothbrush I want an electric toothbrush! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want to wear that because it’s been in the washing machine! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I wanted to sleep with my glo-ears on! I didn’t want you to take them off! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My socks are falling down! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My egg tastes like a vanilla tree and it’s making me really sick! (refuses to eat, dissolves into screaming fit)

Let me be really clear on my stance on parenting and why I wrote my book: I DO NOT BELIEVE in courses that claim to achieve “Peaceful Parenting”. If you’ve done them and they’ve worked for you, and you can remain 100% calm 100% of the time, then good for you! I’ve received criticism for this stance on social media and I’m fine with that. It doesn’t change my stance. I find the most effective way of living my life is to be a realist. For me, these so called ‘goals’ are lofty and unattainable and therefore extremity unhelpful to us as parents in the expectations they create. I don’t believe they are achievable, and when we fail to achieve them, as we inevitably will, it simply gives us another reason to beat ourselves up. In my view, even the Dalai Lama would struggle to keep his cool after 24 hours of parenting. And who knows how he’d do with a particular challenging child, or doing it solo, or doing it sleep-deprived, or a combination of all three?

Of course we all want to be calmer and not lose it quite so often. But because of the above – that we give them all we have and they still demand three times as much– losing it is inevitable. And what I DO NOT LIKE  is the cruel guilt-driven beat ups that parents give themselves about being “a bad mum” or “not cut out for this” or whatever. I’m calling BS on the whole thing!! 

Losing it is inevitable. How we treat ourselves in response to that is optional. 

I’m not going to lie. I’ve heard my Inner Parenting Critic the last few days. I’ve felt the guilt, and it’s hurt. I’ve been in floods of tears, completely undone by it all. And you know what? I’m so glad I know how to get myself out of that spiral these days. If I didn’t have an Inner Coach Practice (and let’s face it some really good friends) then I dread to think how far down the spiral I would actually go. Once again, if I go down in your estimations for admiring that, then so be it. But it’s the truth.

Self-compassion, self-empathy, forgiveness and kindness are the only ways to genuinely learn and move on. 

With love for all the parents out there. It’s the hardest job in the world, and because you care and are self-aware, you’re doing amazingly well.

Charlotte x

Video 8: Achieving Goals

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Welcome to Video 8 of my free 8-day Video Series leading up to the launch of my Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case how to set a goal and actually achieve it.

The secrets of achieving goals? Firstly, you need to have one. Do you have a goal you’re working towards? If not then get one! Goals are really important, your brain loves them. Working towards something in your life makes you feel happier and builds up self-confidence.

Secondly, you need to believe you can achieve it. This part is influenced by two things:

  1. the goal actually being achievable and possible. If you’re just 4 feet tall, you’re probably not going to make it as professional basketball player.
  2. your internal self-talk

The first one is fairly straight forward. Your goal needs to have the right amount of challenge and stretch for you, which is relative to the situation you’re currently in. When I was unwell with Post-natal Distress (PND) my goal was to get through the day having completed some very basic tasks, like feed baby, sleep baby. And, later on when I became slightly better, make dinner. Conversely when I was thriving as an employed Lead Coach in a large government department, my goals were very different!  Ask – is it realistic for me? Is it actually possible/achievable? Asking a third person for their opinion can be a great way to check.

In terms of #2, if you have crappy internal dialogue playing in your head, then you will be very unlikely to achieve your goal. It will erode your belief in yourself by telling you you can’t do it, you’re not good enough to have it, or, the old favourite – who do you think you are?  In other words, WHO ARE YOU TO HAVE THIS?

You will then either be afraid of failure, or success, because with a lack of an Inner Coach practice, you won’t have a plan to support yourself 100% no matter what happens. Yes fear of success is something that can happen!

This will lead to some of those very unhelpful patterns that we have all experienced at some stage – self-sabotage and procrastination to name a few.

The solution? A self-talk revolution will be extremely helpful to you, which is the point of the eCourse. And, in the meantime, try these two things:

  1. write down the very first, tiniest little step you can take towards this goal.  Just the very first one, and make it small.
  2. write down why it is possible for YOU to achieve it. What strength or past achievement or resource do you possess, that will help you?

I talk a lot about learning how to ‘have your own back’ and supporting yourself 100% no matter what, in the Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. They are such essential stills to develop in order to achieve anything. Knowing you can manage potential ‘failure’ is everything.

Any questions, please get in touch!

Love, Charlotte x

Video 7: How To Boost Self-Confidence

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Welcome to Video 7 of my free 8-day Video Series leading up to the launch of my Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case a distinction and a tool to help you boost your self-confidence.

I just love this topic of self-confidence, because this is a huge part of what the Inner Critic to Inner Coach© Process is about! I make the distinction between self-confidence and the self-esteem in the earlier self-esteem post.

I want to make another distinction: between inside-confidence and outside-confidence. Let me tell you a brief story. When I was growing up as a teen and a young adult, when I still lived in England, I had a lot of outside-confidence. I was loud and said what I thought. I was brave and did scary things. I was socially competent and funny. To all I seemed a very ‘confident’ person. Once I moved in New Zealand and started my – what was going to be a never-ending, but in a good way! – self-development journey, I did so much healing. Because on the inside I didn’t feel confident, almost at all. I was highly insecure and needy; I doubted myself incessantly; I hated my body and appearance; my self-worth was in the toilet most of the time; I didn’t believe in an ounce of my own intelligence and I had no proper aspirations for myself. Yes, I put myself out there, but because it was the only way I knew how to get approval from others and keep them liking me, something I desperately needed to stay afloat in my life.

Once I’d done about 3 years of intense inner-work, I finally felt like I’d ‘bridged the gap’ between the outside and the inside. I felt so much more whole, and more self-confident in a very genuine way. I went back to London for a visit, and asked my friends if they’d noticed any differences in me. The overall answer was – ‘no’!  I guess that’s the thing with outside-confidence – it’s extremely convincing. However I felt the difference on the inside, which is the point.

Of course all the issues with self-confidence I’ve described can be solved by putting a stop to the constant Inner Critic and learning how to fundamentally talk to ourselves and therefore treat ourselves differently. So here’s a tip. See if you can begin to distinguish between inside and outside confidence. I’ll give you a clue – the more outside-confidence you have, the less inside-confidence there currently is. You can tell if it’s of the outside kind as your motivation will be about others, rather than you.

A quick way to begin boosting your inside-confidence is by finding real TRUTHS about yourself that you believe in 100% – specifically your abilities, competence or capacity to do something. Something you know about yourself. It could be as simple as: I know that I’m really organised, and this benefits me and the people I live with. Do a brainstorm of these small things that you absolutely believe about your competence and keep this list somewhere. When you need to cultivate that inside-confidence, you have a start.

This is such an important concept that’s explored in much more depth in the training.  For now, try it, and tell me how well it works for you!

And get in touch if you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you.

Charlotte x

Video 6: Getting Out Of A Funk

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Welcome to Video 6 of my free 8-day Video Series leading up to the launch of my Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case, changing the questions you’re asking yourself to get out of a ‘funk’.

So, what do I mean by a funk? My way of thinking about it is a negative ‘state’ – a state of mind and body that is undesirable to you and unpleasant. For example, worried, distressed, anxious, etc., and also an unhelpful situation that you’re in, which feeds into the bad state.

As we’ve been learning, your internal dialogue and the way you feel are infinitely connected. One feeds into the other. And your self-talk makes bad feelings worse by talking to you or asking you questions which are not helpful and simply take you further down a spiral.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you are in a lot of debt, and don’t have much money. When you look at your bank accounts online, and see your negative balance, you will feel bad. What you may not realise, is that in the back of your mind there will be a little guiding question, and it will be structured in a way that only looks for negative answers. For example in this case it’s likely to be some variation of:

How did I get into this mess?

How the hell am I going to get out of this?  

Why is this happening to me? 

This is what we call a Key Question.

These key questions pop up very quickly and are of course spoken to you by your own self-talk inside your own head only. They can be very quiet so you hardly notice them. However, they are powerful, and the nature of them are very unhelpful – inherently focusing on the past and on the negative and not moving you forward at all.

The solution to getting out of these types of funks is to pay attention to your key question in the back of your head, and change it. We want to focus on a future step that’s positive. So any of the above examples could be changed to:

What’s my plan to get out of this?

What’s my next useful step?

Who can I talk to that can help me with this?

Key questions need to be open and start with a what, how, who, how much, and not lead to yes or no answers. And remember, you don’t need to KNOW the answer!  It just helps your brain focus and begin to find a useful answer for you.

Try it and let me know how it works for you!
As always, any questions, you know where I am.

Love Charlotte.

Video 5: Shifting To A Better Feeling Mindset (no more ‘Imposter Syndrome’)

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Welcome to the Video 5 of my free 8-day Video Series in the lead up to the launch of my new eCourse – The Inner Critic to Inner Coach Online Training. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then, importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case, the biggest mindset hack for overcoming the so-called ‘syndrome’.

Mindset and Imposter Syndrome – two huge things!  And phrases that are now prolific in the professional / business / entrepreneurial world.

I hear about these MOST OFTEN in the business communities I’m part of. Why?  Because we all know that your mindset basically equals your success – what you believe you can achieve, you will achieve.

However when your belief in yourself starts to falter, for whatever reason, we can get into all kinds of negative spirals: self-sabotage; low-confidence; procrastination; avoidance strategies and so on. All because we don’t want to fail, and we feel like a failure. And once this self-doubting has really kicked in, we start hearing the phrase “I’ve got Imposter Syndrome…..”

You want to hear my BIGGEST mindset hack for this? OK, here it goes:

STOP CALLING IT IMPOSTER SYNDROME!

Because it simply doesn’t exist. The English language has a bad habit of doing this – turning verbs or processes into static things or objects. You don’t have a ‘syndrome’, you don’t have a disease and you don’t have a collection of symptoms. You don’t wake up in the morning and put the ‘imposter’ part of your brain in, do you? As long as you think of it as a ‘thing’ you are powerless to change it. Because what can you do, take a pill?  No.

Understand this – YOU are creating it with YOUR inner dialogue (and other factors will lead up to this creation, but ultimately this is what you’re doing).

I talk about this concept in much more depth in the eCourse because it is a crucial part of you stopping giving away your power, and starting to get your power back.

So, here’s how you get some energy into the situation and activate your personal power again: first step – stop calling it that.

Second step: Take a moment to actually DEFINE what the problem is for you. What are you concerned or worried about? What’s actually going round and round in your head? Write some stuff down until you get something that starts making sense. For example: I’m worried that I’m not qualified for this job and I don’t have the right tools and resources to feel good at it.

Just notice what changes when you do this and how you can start to get yourself a plan for morning forward.

As always – any questions, please give me a shout.

Charlotte x

Video 4: How To Improve Low Self-Esteem

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This is such an important topic!

The distinction between self-esteem and self-confidence (which I’ll be talking about in a few days) is this: self-confidence is how you feel about your abilities, your competencies and your capacity to do something.  Self-esteem is how you feel about YOURSELF – about who you are as a person.

How you feel about yourself as a person depends on what you believe. A belief isn’t objectively ‘correct’ or something ‘absolutely true’ – simply something that your brain holds as ‘absolutely true’. What you believe is fundamentally influenced by what you talk to yourself about inside your head. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between what’s real – what’s really happening out there in the real world – and your internal thoughts, images, words etc. It simply responds as if they were real. Of course, the logical part of you knows the difference, but not the unconscious part. So, what you’re telling yourself about yourself is crucial to what you believe about who you are, and therefore the sum of your self-esteem.

The beginning of a solution to start improving low self-esteem is to find something POSITIVE about yourself and who you are, and make it something you already BELIEVE is absolutely true.  And I advise going with the smallest possible thing – as long as you genuinely believe it about yourself. It’s much better to go small and believable, then go lofty and ideal, as these kinds of things will be rejected by your brain. And make it about YOU – even if it has to be about your appearance. If you have a poor body-image and each time you look in the mirror you’re telling yourself you’re fat and that no-one would want you, then find something about your body/appearance that you absolutely and positively like that’s already rooted in your belief system. It can be as small as “I really like the colour of my eyes”.  And then focus on that when you look in the mirror or think about your body.

There’s a neurological reason why finding an existing positive belief really works to turn this around, which I go into in much more detail in the upcoming eCourse – Inner Critic to Inner Coach.

For now – try this quick self-talk solution, and tell me how it works for you.  Any questions please get in touch!

Charlotte x

Video 3: Creating More Happiness (not depression)

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This is such a wide and important topic! And today, we are focussing on one key element – how negative self-talk is inherent in the creation of ‘depression’ and what you can do straight away to begin to turn that around, while debunking a major myth in the process. Even if ‘depression’ is not something you identify with, and you just want to create more of the good stuff, keep on reading!

**NB: when I reference the word ‘depression’ today I’m talking about mild, episodic, temporary periods of depression, and not persistent, severe or what may be termed a ‘clinical’ depression. If you have these issues, this may help you, but your spectrum of treatment obviously needs to be considerably broader. Please consult a professional if in any doubt.**

Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology teaches us two very important concepts. Firstly, we used to believe that negative and critical inner dialogue (self-talk) was a symptom of a depressive state. We now know and understand that instead it is one of the key causes of it. And this makes perfect sense in the understanding a simple equation – talk to yourself like crap, judge and criticise yourself, and you’re going to feel bad.  It’s not possible to talk to yourself in this way and feel good at the same time. Your brain can’t do this.

Secondly, the solution to this is NOT blind optimism, or Pollyanna Positive / rose tinted glasses kind of thinking. In fact, from his analysis he found that this kind of thinking no more served us in our lives then the really negative stuff did. People who thought this optimistically were not equipped to deal with life’s inevitable adversity when it arose, and they were therefore unable to build useful resilience in response to such events.  Listen to his definition of learned optimism (vs pessimism) here.

Michael Yapkow, an expert in the fast reversal of depression using brief therapy, has found something similar to be the case, which he teaches to his patients:  it’s not that happy people go around giving themselves high-fives every day for tying their shoe laces, or look at themselves in the mirror and say “you’re SO awesome!”.  No. In fact, people who are living happily rather than depressed still have their negative dialogue, it’s just they have learned not to listen to it any more or take it seriously.

I teach this in much more depth in my upcoming online training, because this understanding helped me form one of the key principles of developing a useful and healthy Inner Coach practice.  If we don’t want extreme optimism and high-fives, then what is it we are going for when developing an Inner Coach, that’s actually useful to us? This is all explained.

For now, imagine you had a volume control on that Inner Critic, as if it were a bad radio station you were tuned into. Try imagining you could simply turn it down, so you don’t have to listen to it all the time.  Now, what’s that like?

Any questions or feedback, give me a shout. I’d genuinely love to hear form you.

Warmly, Charlotte.

Video 1: How To Control Anxiety

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Welcome to the first instalment of my free 8-day Video Series in the lead up to the launch of my new eCourse – The Inner Critic to Inner Coach online training.  Every day for the next 8 days I’ll be talking about an area of your life of significance, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then, importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case, one that brings you back to calm.

**NB: Just to be really clear and keep everyone watching 100% safe, this is only relevant to minor, low-level anxiety issues like nervousness or small and short freak-outs/panic. If you have major anxiety issues or any kind, major panic attacks or any unresolved trauma, please seek more appropriate help for those issues as they will need a broader spectrum of help and support.**

Your self-talk and your feelings/emotions are inextricably linked, and especially so for anxiety. This is what we call a cycle of bio-feedback. You will either get a direct anxious feeling first, or a self-talk though first. Either way, your self-talk will at some point notice the anxious feeling, and start talking to you about it – You’re nervous, they’re going to notice….. you’re freaking out, OMG what am I going to do? Oh shit, now I’m even more nervous….God, this is so stupid….And so on.

This increases the level of adrenaline in the body and sends you further into anxiety loops. I talk about this in much more detail in my Imperfect Parent eBook.

In a key piece of neuroscience, it was found you can you break this cycle deliberately. You simply notice what sensations or thoughts are going on inside of you, and describe them to yourself in as much detail as possible, using your internal dialogue. The key component that was crucial in the success of changing where the blood was orientated in the brain was if you addressed yourself in the 3rd person, and used your own name. So for example, saying to yourself “OK, I’m freaking out here…” didn’t have the same affect as saying “Charlotte, you’re freaking out… your hands are sweaty, your heart rate is up..”.

This successfully sent the blood away from the Amygdala, stopping Amygdala hijack, and back into your Prefrontal Cortex, your logic and reason centre. I had reason to test this two or three days after hearing about it on the radio when I physically reacted to eating some pineapple and started freaking out, and within 2-3 minutes my nervous system was back to normal again.

All you have to do is use your own name to address yourself in the 3rd person, and describe what is currently happening in your body and thoughts, and your nervous system will re-set itself and bring you back to calm.  I talk about this neuroscience in more detail in the eCourse.

Any questions?  Please let me know!

Otherwise – try it, it really works!

Charlotte x

P.s. See you tomorrow for How To Make The Right Decisions (no more self-doubt).