Stop Listening to Your Inner Critic

In this blog post I want to share a sliver of a client’s experience in the Foundation Session. Every coaching engagement begins with a Foundation Session, a structured session that helps me get to know my client and solidifies the goals of the engagement.

In this session, my client and I discussed what type of support they’d like from me, and they shared that they are a methodical thinker and respond well to logic. When they think about solving problems in their life, they want to make sure they understand why they are doing something and examine all possible perspectives. This is how they normally talk to their friends or family when they are looking for advice.

One of my goals in the Foundation Session is learning how the client sees themself because their self-perception motivates the agendas they create and the language they use to describe their experiences. Since every person comes from a different cultural context that informs their self-perception and language, I start with the Inner Dialogues exercise to clarify our starting point.

In the Inner Dialogues exercise we talk about the client’s Inner Critic and their Truest Self. The Inner Critic is the voice in our head that tells us we’re wrong in some way while the Truest Self is the inner voice that already knows what we want. My client’s Inner Critic is a black-and-white thinker, always criticizing them for not having a plan and for not being logical enough. Their Truest Self, on the other hand, is playful and joyous. Yes, they go with the flow, but with a sense of wonderment and ease.

The Inner Dialogues exercise is so important to me because it gives me the starting point to speak with the client on their own terms rather than assigning value to the client’s experience from an outsider’s perspective. After learning about my client’s Inner Critic, I noticed a connection between the narratives that the Inner Critic had and the request my client made earlier in the session about the type of support they’re looking for. I pointed out the comparison and asked if their request for logical and methodical support came from their Inner Critic of from their Truest Self. My client responded:

But I didn’t stop there. One thing that is unique about the coaching process is that I’m not only inviting self-awareness, though that level of clarity is valuable in its own right, but I tie each thread into action during the session.

So I followed up with a specific request:

This is why I love having a Foundation Session. We don’t only talk about what we’re going to achieve but how we are going to do it together. This discussion now set the context for every upcoming agenda and session. The client’s plan goes from “what about myself do I have to fix?” to “what am I telling myself that I have to ‘fix’ and is that even the way I want to go about addressing my problem?”

From this conversation, we began to build the awareness of my client’s Truest Self. Over the course of our engagement, I hope, we can make that voice loud and clear so they’ll have no problem listening to it on their own.

This client story is a reflection of what I help my coaching clients do. Together, we identify what’s keeping you stuck, create a personalized path forward, and build the confidence and momentum to achieve sustainable, lasting results.

If this story resonated with you and you’re ready to explore change in your own life, I’d love to connect. Explore my current offerings or schedule a complimentary discovery call.