44. The five inner critics

Your real voice is a megaphone for your inner voice. In this episode leadership and confidence star Shadé Zahrai takes us through five common inner critics (believe me they'll sound familiar) and best of all she shares the ways we can silence them to sound our best.

Transcript

Sally: Your real voice is a megaphone for your inner voice. So if you want to sound great on the outside, you gotta sound great on the inside. And that involves a bit of wrangling. In this episode, leadership and confidence coach Shadé Zahrai introduces us to five common inner critics we need to recognise and round-up.

I'm Sally Prosser. You're listening to That Voice Podcast, no matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters. So unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

If you'd like to speak with confidence and silence your inner critic, if you'd like to speak with clarity, reduce the brain fog. And if you'd like to speak with charisma and be interesting, then sign up for My Six Week Voice Makeover go to www.sallyprosser.com.au. The next one is starting on Monday, August 17, 2020.

If you're listening after this date, jump on the waitlist for the next one. sallyprosser.com.au. Week One of the makeover course is all about mindset because that inner voice is so important. You might think they're hidden on the inside, but we can hear it. I'm so excited to have the gorgeous talented Shadé Zahrai with me today. Shadé is a coach who helps professional women maximize career confidence and supercharge success. Woot! Woot! You can tell why I love this woman. Shade is also a champion Latin dancer. So let's cha cha cha our way right in. Shadé Zahrai welcome to That Voice Podcast. Could you do your job. If you lost your voice?

Shadé: There is no way I could do my job if I lost my voice, it's such an integral part of who I am. You know, so much about what I do is about who I am and the impact that I have on people. I couldn't do it without my voice.

Sally: So tell us a bit more about what you do.

Shadé: The piece that drives me the most is around my mission. And so my mission is to elevate the lives of over a million women around the world. And that's by giving them the clarity, the capability, and the confidence to take control of their career and to confidently create the life that they deserve. So I do that through offering coaching at the moment I run programs specifically for professional women, helping them overcome impostor syndrome, overcome the inner critic that holds them back mainly from their career progression. Because we know from research that when we are advancing, when we feel like we're progressing at work, that filters through to the rest of our life in the same way that life also filters through the work.

Sally: I really wanted to talk to you today because confidence is such a common theme. It comes up daily. What is the inner critic? And how do we give it the boot?

Shadé: So that's such a good point because you're so right confidence. It impacts people regardless of what level they're at in their lives, in their careers. Interestingly, some of the senior-most women that I coach who are general managers and executives, they struggle with this inner critic as well. And you know, you think that you get to a certain point of success and you don't have it anymore, but the reality is everyone has it to some degree. It's just about changing your relationship with it and learning how to listen to it, but not allow it to affect how you perform. So the inner critic is this voice that we have in our heads that tells us that we are not good enough. It tells us we are not ready. It tells us we are not worthy. And fundamentally holds us back from taking action from achieving our full potential. So it's that voice that continually judges us points out all of our flaws. Now, the interesting thing with the inner critic, I've been looking at this for some time, because obviously in my work with women, it's something that women are very much inflicted by. You know, we also know from some of the research, in my experience with senior women, that this idea of perfectionism, which is a manifestation of an inner critic, it impacts high performing women the most, and over 70% of high-performing women have experienced this to the point that it has held them back from speaking up from putting their hand up for things. Now, I I've been looking at the research, looking at what my clients have been telling me, looking at my own experience. Cause I spent 10 years in corporate, myself, starting in the law and then moving into banking and finance. So very male dominated industries. And I've identified that we don't just have one critic within us. We actually have identified five inner critics hanging out in our mind, waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

Sally: Oh my gosh. I'm just thinking, how do we get rid of one? Now you're telling me there's five.

Shadé: There's five of them. There's actually many, many more. When you start to look at other research that's been done. But I feel like these five are the ones that I have seen the most. I'd love to take you through them.

So the first one is the classic judge, and this is extremely common. So this is the inner critic that judges you endlessly, you know what you did, what you didn't do, what you should have done. It's constantly criticizing every decision that you've made, blaming you for things that are actually outside of your control. And it fills you with self doubt. So that's number one because that's by far the most common. Perfectionism that women often experience, not only women though, men also experience that, this falls really squarely within the classic judge's domain. So that's number one.

Number two is the victim. So the victim feels really powerless. The victim is intensely pessimistic and it manifests in a complete lack of motivation and zero hope. So this is something you might experience. If you've, you know, if you've gone through a rejection or you're dealing with immense change, your victim might come out and strip you of that motivation. It also makes you feel like you have no power. So you're constantly saying things like it's not me, it's them. It wasn't me. It was everybody else. And so by doing that, it's reflecting a lack of ownership, but you're also waiting to be rescued. So you don't feel empowered to make changes. And if we don't take action. So that's number two, the victim.

Number three is the Protector. Now the protector is also very common among professional women, especially because the Protector wants to protect you from harm. And that manifests in an extreme form of risk aversion. Now you can imagine when you're in the workplace as a professional woman, we know from research and I know from my clients and even my own experience, women are less likely to take big risks because of the risk of reputational damage, the risk of failure, the risk of being seen as someone foolish. And this is coming from the inner protector that we have. It wants to keep us safe, but in doing so, it's holding you back from taking action and it does that by undermining your confidence and your capabilities. So it makes you feel paralyzed. So that was number three.

We move on to number four, the Ringmaster, this is really common among again, high-performing women who experience imposter syndrome. It's also very common among entrepreneurs. People who are working for themselves, the Ringmaster tells you that your value is based on how disciplined you are. It pushes you to keep on pushing and then to keep on pushing and then some. So what you end up doing is you have convinced yourself that the moment you slow down, you're actually weak and a failure. And so your sense of self worth is dependent on how hard you are pushing, but you can imagine what this does to your sense of self and your sense of, you know, how whole you feel when you're attaching your sense of self worth on your outcomes and your outputs.

And then number five, the Neglecter, I find the Neglecter is much more common in women and it's a result of socialization, how we've been raised, what the media is telling us stereotypes. So the Neglecter tells you that everyone else's needs are more important than yours, and it reminds you that you're not worthy of care. So you actually prioritize the happiness of everyone around you, and you feel undeserving of any investment into yourself, whether that's from others or even yourself. I found that because of this, a lot of women, they are not, maybe they're not giving themselves what they need to be their best. And this also comes from that nurturing caregiving side, that women, a lot of women have this very much people-oriented side, make sure everyone else is okay. I come last. If everyone else is happy, then I'm happy. You know, this also manifests in this desire for social validation and approval that a lot of women have.

So that was a very, very high level summary of the five. But it's so interesting when I've started to articulate this to women and they, some of them are like, wow, ouch. I resonate with all of them or that's exactly what I'm experiencing. And so what I love about some of the work that I do is it's taking the human experience and then just helping people make sense of that. And also realize that they're not abnormal. They're not, you know, they're not really different because they experienced these things. It's not a terrible thing. It's extremely common, but what we need to do about it is to your point, it's, you know, okay, we know this, what are the strategies that we have to actually overcome it? Because awareness is one thing. That's the first step, obviously. But then if we leave it at awareness, we're only going to be aware of those thoughts going through our heads. We don't know how to actually tackle them.

Sally: Wow. All five resonated with me. And a lot of the reason why I feel like I'm just killing it at the moment. I'm not saying it's going to be like that forever, but I feel it's because I've been able to address each of those. For me, definitely letting go of that victim mentality. And this is all really Important for the work that I do because your real voice is a megaphone for your inner voice. Your real voice is a megaphone for your inner voice. And every one of those qualities that you went through Shade with those inner critics, the same could be applied to the physical voice. So when you're feeling the weakness in the victim, for example, you'll often have weakness in the voice, the volume will drop, the tone will drop. And so that's why I think this is such a fascinating connection. Okay. Now, to what do we do? How do we get away from these inner critics?

Shadé: Yes. How do we silence them? And I love just quickly how you mentioned that these voices manifest in the quality of your, your physical voice. And I, you know, I love that at this point in my career, I'm able to, well, not currently because we're currently experiencing restrictions and no events in Victoria where I am, but you know, speaking in front of thousands of people on stage and it took me many, many years to silence these voices. Because to your point, when you have these voices within you, people can hear them in the quality of your voice. It's almost like when you don't believe what you're saying. Other people won't believe it either. And this raises the importance of finding ways to actually silence them and subdue them. So if we look at how do we actually do it, there's basically, so there are five steps and this is very well known or there's a lot of psychology practices, therapy practices that work through these. I've simplified them and developed a process that I feel works the best.

So the very, very first one is awareness. What inner critic or which inner critic is speaking to me right now. And what is the narrative that they are pushing? You know, you want to be aware and actually identify which one is speaking to you and what are they saying? You know, it seems a bit counter intuitive, but when you take the time to consciously listen to the voices in your head, sometimes you can actually become aware of how irrational they are. And that simply just comes by listening to them rather than trying to push them away, which is something a lot of people do. We ignore them because when you ignore them, you're literally sweeping them under the rug and they're still there. And they still manifest in different ways. So we don't want to do that at all. A tip also with this is it's called emotional distancing. So you want to be aware of your critical voice, but if you're hearing it say, I am a failure, you want to consciously rephrase it. As I'm hearing my voice, tell me you're a failure. So you're creating this emotional separation. So that's the first step, which critic is speaking to me. And what narrative are they pushing awareness?

The second step is what is this critic trying to protect me from? Because often I would say most of the time, our inner critic is actually trying to protect our inner child from some form of harm or threat. And so, you know, often this harm or threat is completely unfounded. It's like, Oh, well you might fail. Or you might not do so well. Or what if it doesn't work out? So it's an unfounded threat, but that critic is there to try and protect us. When you take time to actually understand what it's trying to protect you from, again, that gives you a sense of emotional distance from that voice in your head.

The third step then is okay, we'll examine the evidence you want to ask yourself, do I really need to be protected? What is the best case scenario here? What do I actually have control over? Because your thoughts are not always correct. Your thoughts are not always correct. And we need to be conscious of that and question that. And when we're in these states where these inner critics are coming in, we're often thinking in an exaggeratedly negative way. So we're catastrophizing - thinking of the worst case scenario, but the worst case scenario very rarely happens. So it's actually reminding yourself of other alternatives and contrary evidence. Like let's say, you're about to give a presentation, uh, you know, an important presentation and you are so nervous and anxious and that inner voice is telling you you're not good enough. You're going to be terrible. You're going to fail. You're absolutely catastrophizing. And if you allow that voice or try and sweep it under the rug, it's going to affect how you feel physiologically. So it will affect your feelings. It will affect how you show up and the quality of your voice and the quality of your presentation. So you want to consciously think about contrary evidence, like actually a couple of weeks ago, I delivered a really great presentation. Do you remember that time when I was really confident in that environment? So you're consciously reminding yourself of what other possibilities there are.

Step four, you break the cycle, it's through a technique called cognitive shifting. So you consciously choose to take control of your thoughts, where you're reminding yourself of your strengths, your talents, your value that you're adding and how you're contributing. You might even want to reflect on previous accomplishments that you have. Now this is a really important one for women because women have a tendency to underplay our achievements and our successes. We will deflect attention. We will say, Oh, well it was due to others to luck or to timing. We're not deserving of the success or the credit, but by doing this, we're stripping ourselves of self confidence, which has a really negative impact on our sense of self worth. So here, it's actually important to remind yourself of what you've achieved.

And then step five. This is about responding. So you need to come up with a rational response to your inner critic using 'I am' statements. So it's positive affirmations. I am statement, do you want to talk to that inner critic? Like it's another person within your mind. You want to remind it that you are in control and respond with a more realistic and compassionate evaluation of yourself. You know, maybe remind it that I don't need to be protected. I've got this. I have strengths. I have value to add. I have previous experience to rely on. And I believe in myself, even doing that, working through that process, using those affirmations can actually make you feel completely differently. You're re-interpreting your physical experience and then you perform far, far better.

Sally: Absolutely. I love that. And it's very similar to the strategies that I work with as well. And if you've done My Six Week Voice Makeover, or you're interested in doing it, we spend the whole first week on mindset because this stuff is so important. Another good strategy, a friend of mine taught was to give your inner voice names like Frank. And now that we've got five to work with, we can give them different names and then you can tell them to F off or whatever you want to do when they start entering your head. Oh, fantastic. Now I know you work with women, but something I've found in my experience is that a lot of men have exactly these same thoughts.

Shadé: That's a really great point around the fact that we have so many spaces for women to come and to share their experience and to recognize that, you know, they're all in this together. What I've found though is even though my area is women. So I support professional women on all my platforms. I've actually had men reach out to me with these very heartfelt messages, acknowledging and thanking me for the fact that, you know, they say, look, we know that you work with women, but we want to share how appreciative we are that you're sharing this content because we experienced the same things too. And so it's beautiful to know that it's very much a human experience. This is not necessarily a gender thing. Obviously each gender has their own challenges to work through, but we need to create spaces where people can feel confident and can raise challenges that they're having and not be impacted by social stereotypes about how men and women should be.

Sally: Amen. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. So Shadé. How can people work with you?

Shadé: So I, at the moment I only offer one-to-one coaching with certain women and I've got a limited number I can take on each period, but what I am doing is I'm looking to create online programs of everything that I delivered in my one-on-ones and in my workshops with companies, when I'm focusing on professional women converting all of that into an online program. So anyone, well women around the world can actually access that. What I am encouraging people to do though is to connect on social media platforms to be across when we develop any new programs. It's Shade Zahrai so you just search my name on any platform and you'll be able to find me, thankfully, I'm I think I'm the only one of myself. So I'm not competing with anyone.

Sally: And we found each other on TikTok. Shadé's TikToks are very, very helpful if you'd like to tune in. Thank you so, so much for joining That Voice Podcast. Was there anything else that you wanted to add?

Shadé: No, I just want to say, I love your work. I think what you're doing is so important because you know, the very first question you asked me, or could you do your job without your voice? And the answer I think for everybody is no. And you know, even when we're looking at the inner critic, that's a part of us and it can manifest in what we tell ourselves, our internal voice, which then manifests in our external voice. So this idea of voice is so important, regardless of where you're at, wherever, you know, you want to go in your life. And so I would just want to commend you for doing this and sharing such wonderful value with people.

Sally: Oh, thank you. And you have a beautiful voice - voice of honey. Absolutely. Love it. Thank you so much. Bye!

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