How to quiet your inner critic

Our unrelenting inner critic can make our lives hell. That overly negative voice can contribute to untold stress and sleepless nights, which can then adversely impact work performance. During the pandemic, this voice may have become even more harsh: do more, push harder, keep productive, hold it together.

Here are four strategies that that can help to tame your inner critic.

I. Know that it’s (likely) about the context, not about you

Many people, including highly successful leaders, have an internal critic that becomes louder as they move into the leadership spotlight. The first step when you hear that critic is to recognise it as normal or human. It’s not weird to experience self-doubt and it doesn’t make you a failure either.

Strategies to achieve this:

1. Acknowledge the context surrounding you: structural dynamics relating to the pressure to produce a particular image or leadership persona,…