3 steps for conquering your inner critic

When I first started this blog I did something that I very quickly regretted. And then proceeded to continue to regret almost every week for a year.

I emailed (almost) everyone I knew and committed to them that I would put out a new post every Tuesday. Every single Tuesday. I even took away all my excuses- rain/ shine/ illness/ travel- I was doing. this. thing.

But the following Monday afternoon, after all the fanfare and hubbub and public declarations were over? I had nothing.

Nothing.

There I was, an ADHD specialist, feeling unprepared, procrastinating, and running up against my deadline. The irony not even close to being lost on me.

10 years ago this would have sent me headlong into an imposter spiral. You know the one- “who am I kidding? I can’t do this? Everyone is going to find out that I’m a fake/ fraud/ sham I am.” That spiral that’s so painful you run screaming in the other direction (usually toward anything bright and shiny enough to make you— at least temporarily— forget that there is something else you are supposed to be doing).

And you know what? That spiral is still lurking back there whispering its endless taunt. But these days, that voice isn’t nearly as loud or strong. AND it’s been joined by another voice. This one’s stronger, wiser, and much more compassionate.

The Compassionate Coach

I call this new voice my compassionate coach and it says things like:

“It’s okay. You can do this. You’ll figure it out.”

and

“That’s okay that things aren’t going exactly according to plan, if you need, you can ask for help and make the extra time you need. You’ve got this.”

That voice is the one that I use with my kids (at least on my good days).

It’s what I would imagine a kind, encouraging, and effective coach sitting on the sidelines of my life would tell me- understanding, encouraging but also unyielding.

The ADHD inner critic

We aren’t born with inner voices. We develop them over time. And for most people with ADHD, the voices that develop are mean. Really mean.

The voices that I hear about most often sound more like the prototypical drill sergeant than a compassionate coach. They yell in your face, telling you you can’t do it, banking on your desire to prove it wrong, and harping on each and every mistake you make. — It’s loud, mean, make you feel horrible, and isn’t all that effective.

The drill sergeant feels automatic and somehow right and can feel like it’s just the way things are meant to be. And there’s a good reason for that.

The Birth of our Critic

(a brief—I promise!— neurology lesson)

When our brain learns new information it does so by connecting different neurons together. The more often we think thought, the stronger this connection becomes, as neurologists say: “neurons that fire together wire together.”

Strong Connections

*A neuron with myelin sheath insulating its axon*

When a connection is made frequently, the brain registers it as important and produces a special coating over the connection called Myelin. This Myelin sheath is essentially the brain upgrading from dial-up to a high-speed fiberoptic connection.

When a connection is myelinated it happens with little effort or thought. For example when you see this picture:

You think Apple.

You may also think of the letter A and the colors green and red. You may have even think of the alphabet books of your childhood or maybe it made you realize you were hungry.

None of those thoughts were effortful- once your brain saw the picture of the apple it then instantaneously fired up all the other neurons that it’s wired to. Because each of those connections has been made repeatedly and effortfully over the years, the connection has been fully myelinated and these relationships feel true and solid.

The 3 principles of strong connections

Repetition

Repetition builds the connection in your brain, making it stronger and more efficient each time that connection is repeated.

Each new connection is like a road. Each time you travel down the road, another layer of pavement is laid, eventually turning it from a dirt path to a well-established thoroughfare. The new ones? Sometimes they are barely more than a bushwhacked trail through a forest- if you don’t leave some markings it feels like you will never find it again.

Effort

Repetition is helpful. But really want to supercharge that connection? Add in effort and the strong feelings that accompany effort: struggle, failure, and ecstasy.

This is really what will get the myelin production flowing. When we experience heightened emotion, whether it be positive or negative, our brains learn more effectively and highlight that learning as important.

This is part of why that picture of the apple is so strong for you. You had to really work on that— your 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-year-old self struggled repeatedly, failed repeatedly, and put in a huge amount of effort to get that one right. The memory of the effort and struggle may have worn off but the connection remains and is reinforced every time you walk into a grocery store.

The power of imagination

Neuronal connections are strongest when they have lots of connections. Imagine 2 balls held together with one string. Even if that string is made of carbon fiber, it’s still just one string and a strong enough pair of clippers will be able to separate those balls quickly. But if you get a 10 balls and tie each to one another with 100 different strings? Now you have a knot that is hard to disentangle.

When you use your imagination and all your senses in your learning you are creating that knot. No longer are you just connecting the picture of an apple with the word “apple” but you are connecting it with your imagining of the feel of the hard, cool apple in your hand, the sweet smell of the skin, and the gentle happy anticipation of tasting its sweet, juicy fruit on your tongue. Each sense that you conjure and experience that you tie to it, the more connected it will become.

Using Neurology to Build your Compassionate Coach

Your inner critic was built to help keep you on track- it’s been developed from criticism (from others and yourself) and mistakes (real and imagined) and it’s been used over and over again to keep you on track. It’s had the benefit of repetition, effort, emotion, and imagination. And all that connection has made it feel effortless, true, and obvious.

But at this point, that inner critic? It’s likely hurting you more than it’s helping you. It’s making your tackling that big project feel scarier and more impossible and making you feel smaller and more incapable with each passing remark.

So we need to build a new coach to take your inner critic’s spot. But how do you do that when that inner critic has been so firmly established that your brain upgraded its connection to myelinated fiberoptic long ago?

You use the same 3 principles that made that inner critic so strong:

Repetition:

Despite how hollow and fake it sounds keep practicing that compassionate coach voice. Whenever you notice the inner critic comes on the scene, ask yourself- what would that compassionate coach say right now?

Effort:

As I was working to build my compassionate coach, I noticed that when I tried to conjure up an alternative to my drill sergeant I would often start off strong and then get distracted halfway through. So I started writing the dialogue down. This provided a little extra accountability and required a little extra focus- creating the effort required to make it strong.

Imagination:

My compassionate coach is large bosomed, slightly plump, 60- something-year-old woman with kind eyes and a quick smile. She has a warm, rich voice, lots of energy and she’s quick to offer hugs that make you feel safe, loved, and like everything is okay in the world.

She is an amalgamation of all the people who have loved me and supported me over the years. When I first started this process I created her in my mind, I used all my senses and tried to build her out as completely as possible. Now, she comes up, almost unbidden, as soon as a challenge comes my way, quick to support me as I push past my comfort zone and happy to drown out any doubts or fears.

Having this image not only helps me come up with what that compassionate voice has to say but It also makes that connection stronger and more layered.

What voices do you have in your head? What more constructive, supportive, and encouraging voice could you add? If that voice were a person what would they look like/ act like/ smell like/ feel like? What extra work can you do to make that one stronger than the superhighway voices that have already been established in your brain?

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