Quiet the critic’s voice and listen to your inner wisdom instead. 

You like to dream big and dream of doing big things. You make resolutions, goals, and think of new habits that you want to incorporate. Its all so great. You have the drive and you’re ready to go, but something happens.

Somewhere between dreaming and doing, there’s a gap and time passes.

You stop yourself from taking again.

You let the voice of the inner critic make you question your actions. Maybe you start to feel imposter syndrome.

You have an inner critic, a voice of fear and scarcity that is worried about what happens if you step outside of where you are right now. This part of you values staying safe and secure with what you know.

Your mind has an inner critic that talks to you and talks you out of your dreams and desires. How can you cope with your inner critic? How can you move forward despite the inner dialogue of critique and fear?

The unknown can be scary because it is open, vast, and in the unknown all kinds of things are possible. 

But listening to the voice of your inner critic won’t allow you to create the life you really dream of living. It won’t let you make the impact you desire to have in your life, your community, and your industry or career. 

You want to dream bigger than your inner critic wants you to dream. One way to do that is to listen to others who have overcome the fear and taken action anyway. One great book to read is Playing Big by Tara Mohr that I guarantee you’ll get some good value out of reading.

Here’s a BIG idea for you to remember. A lot of people think that the voice inside their head that’s critical of them is important and should be followed. We think that this inner critic is the voice of your mind or the voice of your soul.

Folks think that since this voice is inside of them, that it must be true. And I don’t mean to make things confusing, because I am all about listening to your inner voice and inner wisdom, but your inner voice is not critical or fearful of the wonder of you.

You know who you are and you have an inner director essentially who’s guiding you with love and compassion.

But if that voice inside is saying things like “you’re not good enough for this” or “who do you think you are to do this?” or other critical things that are trying to dampen you down, you can clearly put a name & title to this voice.

This critical voice is your inner critic.

It  puts a damper on your enthusiasm, your vibrancy, and the things that you’re trying to do.

Many of us, especially women & BIPOC, have been conditioned to live small and play small. But when you really get committed to cultivating your calling and going after your calling, to some degree you have to be committed not to play small anymore. This doesn’t mean you have to be like some Mega Superstar, but what I mean is don’t play small in your own life.

You’re not a bit player in the drama and the theater that is your life.

YOU ARE THE STAR OF YOUR LIFE. 

You are the star of your life and so, you should be at least some of the time feeling like you’re the star. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

But if you’re listening to voice that says “Don’t do that,”

“You don’t know how,”

“Better just play it safe,”

“You’re not ready yet” and other critical comments those are going to keep you small and keep you from being the star of your life.

Those critical comments are going to keep you looking on from the sidelines. The first step in cultivating your calling is dreaming bigger then your inner critic wants you to dream. It might be that in order to dream bigger you can come up with a symbol of something that when you’re inner critic starts talking, you picture this symbol, just kind of nudging your inner critic to the side. Or you can say to your inner critic, “Oh tell me about that tomorrow.” Or just listen to your inner critic, but don’t act on what she says.

Tara Mohr talks about the inner critic (here’s the podcast that I listened to that inspired me to read her book again this month). Amy Ahlers, another writer, calls that your Inner Mean Girl .I think fighting against your inner critic doesn’t really do any good.

I don’t think you can stifle it until you extinguish it, because its a part of you. But I do think you can redirect it or give it a job. If you give your inner critic a job or ask it to just wait and tell you all that later sometimes, you can kind of subvert it and get back on track with what you want to be doing.

So that’s the first step. Now if you’re ready for more (or you’d rather start with something else, cause you’re still not sure you want to go against what this compelling inner mean girl is saying, then try this. It is really fun to declutter.

Haha, you might be thinking, “Rachel, you and I have very different ideas of fun.” But listen to me, bear with me on this. And I’m not just saying this because its is very trendy right now. And I know a lot of people right now are into decluttering because Marie Kondo and sparking joy.

If you look at 95% of books published in the last 20 years in the spiritual-personal development field, those books will have a chapter on decluttering physical stuff.

Why?

What do you think?

Why is decluttering physical things essential to personal and spiritual growth?

I believe, and I know that anytime I want bigger, better things to happen in my life, and I’m doing the outer actions, but waiting for change to happen, I either de-clutter or deep clean. I was just rearranging some things in my living room yesterday which I don’t know that you care to see pictures of my living room, but it’s true because I want more things to happen in my life that are the dreams that I have for this year.

Are you actively releasing the things of the past that are not fulfilling you right now and making space for the new things to happen?

Your outer environment can impact and support your inner environment. You can find studies to support this and the art/science of feng shui. You don’t even have to know anything about feng shui or even Marie Kondo to look around your home and think, “How can I rearrange things to make me feel more vibrant and supported? Are any of my physical things making me feel bad or dragging me down?”

What about new things that could infuse you with energy and vibrancy?

When you create space in your home,
in your mind,
on your computer/phone,
and lastly in your schedule
then you make space for new possibilities and new potential.
 
I’m trying to get back into a daily writing, in addition to my habits of gardening, hanging out with my kids, spending time in nature, and exercising outside. Right now I haven’t figured out what is my best time to write or exercise, but I’m not giving up and hopefully I’ll soon be able to report back that I’ve figured it out and I’ve got a time daily when I do it.

Two things have helped me prepare to do this– I cleared space in my living room so I didn’t have to look at the things that might call my attention and I put my writing notebook out where I see it and pass it every day. I remind myself not to worry or listen to my inner critic regarding any of the fears that could come up with taking on a new hobby-

These are some common fears or ways that the inner critic chatters away

• its too hard,
• its too much to try to do this when I’m doing other things,
• its boring,
• why am I doing this?
• What’s my end goal?
• What if this is a waste of money?
• What if its a waste of time?
• What if I put in aaaallllllll this effort and I’m actually not any good?
• What if I do it for six months and then never do it again?

Any of these sound familiar to your concerns?

Are you letting fears of what this new habit/hobby will be get in the way?

Long-term progress is most likely to happen when you can release the need to know all the ins and outs of the path, when you allow yourself to feel the discomfort of not knowing where its going, how it will look and will you get it “right?”

If you want to start something new.

If you want to dabble, just for fun, not because you want to be famous, but just because you want to. Or maybe even, you want to do it and be incredibly famous and successful at it, but the fear of starting it and maybe that not happening is worse than never starting at all.

If any of these apply to you, let me just encourage you to start.

It’s ok if you feel like a lost seagull, not knowing which pile of seaweed to begin with when hunting for your food. Just pick a seaweed pile, starting poking your beak around and see what you find. Then move onto the next pile and repeat.

What the seagull does, you can do.

Start Small.
Start this week.

Start and you don’t have to tell anyone (or you could tell me if you want, I’d love to know).

Start and just observe and feel what happens.

See if you can surprise yourself.


You got this. And if you mess up, well, maybe it’ll just make a good story one day. 

I’m waving at you with encouragement from my living room.

-Lots of love, your psychic friend, Rachel