Self-coaching exercise: Gremlin
How to override your Inner Critic and actually make him serve you.
Have you ever found beating yourself inside your mind for the “dumb 💩” you have done?
Maybe it was a F-up at work, a fight with your loved one, or not hitting again your personal goal that you had made as SMART as possible, yet still failed to achieve. Maybe it was a bad habit that you relapsed into yet another time.
Here is a coaching technique we teach in the coaching sessions to override your Inner Critique.
It’s called Gremlin.
(Just for context, if you have never heard of the word Gremlin, it’s a little monster from the movie Gremlins.)
This is what they look like:
And this is what Google will tell you:
So, basically a Gremlin is a Mental Representation of your Inner Critic.
How can you shut’em up? 🤐
Every time you are playing the “blaming language” inside your mind imagine your Gremlin sitting on your shoulder, (give it a name if it helps), and ask it one simple question:
What one piece of Constructive Feedback can you give to me at this moment?
Then stay quiet and listen.
- If the piece of feedback is indeed Constructive and helpful, thank your Gremlin and see if you can integrate or action the feedback.
- If the Gremlin gives you something you already know, say: “You said nothing new, you are not contributing, piss off.”
- More often then not, the latter will be the case. Your Inner Critic rarely says something constructive.
In a journey of every human, it is crucial to realize this:
Self-depreciating language is killing your growth.
This is me paraphrasing an excerpt from my favourite poem by Marianne Williamson “Our Deepest Fear”:
There is nothing noble about shrinking. You have a lot to give, but you serve no one if you choose to be a bystander, paralyzed by your fears and insecurities.
Your mind is shrinking when you are applying “shrinking” language to yourself.
You are literally programming your mind to operate within limitations that you yourself encode into your mind using the language you apply to yourself.
What can you do instead?
Here is a AAA framework for you:
- Acknowledge
- Accept
- Alternate
Acknowledge:
- You at all times have the ability to study your own mind.
- If you study it long enough, you might discover that some elements of your mind that function sub-optimally (e.g. old beliefs that are no longer serving you).
- You at all times have the mechanisms to distinguish Constructive feedback from Destructive feedback.
Accept:
- Negative self-talk is a natural defense mechanism to protect you from doing some stupid 💩 and there is nothing wrong about having negative thoughts.
- You at all times have the ability to compartmentalize (separate yourself as a person from the thought process that you have). You are not your thoughts.
- How you react to those negative thoughts is always within the Circle of your Control. Choosing how to think about what you think is your sole responsbility.
Alternate:
- Your way of thinking about the particular problem you have is ONLY YOUR way of thinking about it. Ask 50 people and they will give you 50 different opinions. That’s the question that will give you clarity with what you are currently thinking: “Is it a Fact or is it an Opinion?”
- Run a thought experiment. How would the people you admire (for their depth, thoughtfulness, mental discipline) react to your Inner Criticism? Is this something you can model and replicate?
- If the thought experiment is not enough, ask yourself this: “What data points do I actually have that support my current thought process? Can it be possible that there is data that I am potentially missing?” Go and develop new connections — find people who think differently about the problem you are trying to solve.
So there you have it. A little Gremlin technique to override your tendency to overthink and be too hard on yourself.
Use it. And I hope it will work for you and help you to be a better decision-maker.
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