Picture this: you have a life coach on call 24/7. She is there before you send a text or make a call. She anticipates your every need and is as invested in your personal success as you are. Sounds amazing, right? It’s within reach for all of us. Because when we learn how to care for ourselves properly, we can all tap into a resource that is this incredible. In fact, we all already have access to that unconditional support, anytime, day or night. The resource we need to tap is called our inner coach.
How to Find Your Inner Coach
Think more about how uniquely qualified our inner coach is to guide us, encourage us, motivate us.
To help us figure out our true purpose in life.
She knows us better than anyone, including our best friends, family, mentors, and anyone else we consider a trusted advisor or source of support.
She understands our inner fears and insecurities and is intimately familiar with our most private thoughts.
Consider and embrace how powerful it can be to have ongoing access to a positive force in our lives that knows our strengths, talents, insecurities and even our deepest secrets. Imagine the limitless potential of having this constant source of encouragement and inspiration.
If only we can find her. Give her a voice. Listen when she speaks.
It can be done. We can each tap into our inner coach, if we make a conscious decision to do so.
So, enough talk about the possibilities. Let’s get down to the basics of how to find this miraculous mentor. The first step to locating and hearing our inner coach is to silence another voice we all hear too often: our inner critic.
Our Inner Critic
Unlike our inner coach, most of us are familiar with the other being that lurks within us, the one we know as our inner critic.
It’s the negative voice we hear inside our own head.
The voice that chides us regularly for past mistakes and failures, and generally erodes our self-confidence.
Especially if we are considering trying something new or ruminating on a past failure or mistake.
She’s obnoxious and brassy and doesn’t give a fig about our feelings.
She’s the reason so many of us may also suffer from Imposter Syndrome.
Why is our inner critic so loud and persistent?
For many of us, the strength of her voice stems from our childhood. If we
- were raised to strive for extraordinary accomplishments.
- felt that our best was not good enough.
- received little support or praise for our efforts.
- were treated as though we were a disappointment.
Every instance gave our inner critic more power. It all her and reinforced the negative messages she planted in our subconscious. She learned to mimic every negative, painful criticism levelled at us. Over time, the belief that we are inadequate became cemented. And to this day, every day, that inner critic continues to vocalize all those deep-down insecurities.
Take Control of Your Inner Critic
I call my inner critic “Marge”. I recognize when she’s doing her work on me. When I do, I tell Marge to sit down and shut up. (It happens way too often). It’s like she’s always there, hovering, waiting for an opportunity to take center stage, snuffing out the positive energy I’d prefer to maintain, the optimism and self-acceptance I know is better for me.
Do you have a Marge? I think most of us do. Some of us know her better than others. And a lucky few have figured out how to keep her at the sidelines where she belongs. How can we all do that?
Good news: we all have an inner coach, too!
And by invoking that inner coach’s presence, we can “marginalize Marge”, so to speak. Our inner coach is there but most of us don’t give her enough air-time. We need to find her, feed her and nurture her, and offer her the spotlight more often. And let her pull rank on Marge, every chance she gets.
Let’s talk about how to welcome our inner coach to the table more often, and how to politely usher Marge to the door.
Coaching Ourselves: The Role of Self-Compassion
“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” -Buddha
We seldom think of ourselves in these terms.
That we are worthy of love, approval, respect, and joy.
But we are. Each and every one of us.
We are perfectly imperfect, each in a unique way that we should cherish.
Many of us can probably relate to carrying around guilt and disappointment in ourselves for not turning out the way our parents hoped. Or the way we hoped, for that matter. But this diminished love for ourselves is completely groundless.
Brace yourself for a bit of tough love now.
Feeling this kind of self-loathing is disrespectful. To ourselves and those who love us. It’s also self-indulgent. Imagine all the good we could do if we redirected all that misplaced energy towards positive thinking, actions and outcomes.
Our Inner Coach and The Road Not Travelled
Whatever the road we’ve travelled, whatever the path we didn’t take, we’ll never know what may have happened had we made different choices. Nor will anyone else. It’s all irrelevant. It’s in the past, and that’s where it belongs. Truly. We give negativity (and that inner critic) power over us when we give pay more attention to the past than the present.
We all need to invoke our inner coach and gently but firmly counsel ourselves to stop ruminating on past disappointments and missed opportunities.
Let’s instead work on cherishing the path we’re on, with all the bumps in this particular road. They are all there for a reason. We just may not know them all yet.
Coaching Ourselves: Forgiving Mistakes
We all have made and will continue to make mistakes. (We are all human, after all). Some of us criticize ourselves mercilessly for those missteps. “If only I hadn’t done this, if only I had done that. I messed everything up, I’m useless, I’m a failure.”
It’s unkind. It’s not how we would counsel a friend.
We don’t seem to know how to show ourselves compassion.
Or how to forgive ourselves.
Nor do we see that those mistakes were all part of the universe that was meant to unfold around us, and that they inform who we are and the purpose we are fulfilling.
Who are we to think we know how the past should have unfolded instead?
Let’s be kind to ourselves, comfort ourselves, even congratulate ourselves on taking the risks that led to those errors.
Let’s be that inner coach who tells us to look ahead to the horizon, where new opportunities await.
Maximize The Impact of Your Inner Coach
Some strategies that can help us tap into our inner coach include:
- Make a conscious effort to notice the voice of your inner critic when you hear it. Are there situations that tend to trigger it? Think about the facts that contradict that voice. For example, if your inner critic rises up when you make a simple mistake, admonish her for blowing things out of proportion.
- Give your inner critic a voice and a name. Make your inner critic as unappealing as you can.
- Do the same for your inner coach. Have your inner coach assume the identity of someone you respect and admire. Someone who you would never ignore. A person you would be honored to spend time with. And then listen to her. And watch as she beats your Marge into submission!
- We are all biased to gravitate towards negative thoughts. Remind yourself (via your inner coach) that it is hard work to stay positive, but that you are up to the challenge and getting better at it every day.
Let’s all make a commitment to ensure our inner coach gets the best of Marge, maybe even bench her forever.
Thank you as always for reading.
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Joan Senio is the founder of KindCompassCoach. Her career includes 20+ years as a health care executive and 15 years (and counting) as a consultant. The common thread through Joan’s professional life has been a commitment to lead, mentor and coach current and future leaders, and women from all walks of life. KindCompassCoach provides information and advice grounded in Joan’s personal experience; however, all articles are backed by research and provide facts and advice from a wide variety of experts. Joan also serves as a thought-leader for KuelLife.com and is a regular contributor to PsychReg and Sixty and Me.
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