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Want to Be Successful? Silence Your Inner Critic
Advice from Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen
A few gifted people just seem to get things done. They aren’t distracted by fears or doubts. The vast majority of the rest of us are plagued by self-doubt, worry, and fear. We spend an enormous amount of time getting ready to take action and worrying about the fear of rejection and failure—and get very little done. It’s time to become single-mindedly focused on getting through the fears and getting more results!
To be single-mindedly focused means refusing to be distracted by anything. First, don’t be distracted by the critical voices in your own head. Second, don’t be distracted by the critical voices that are screaming in the minds of many of the people around you. They profess to be concerned for your safety, but often they’re just repeating the words spoken by their own internal critical voice.
Often your critical voice floods you with a myriad of reasons why your project won’t work. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, but you aren’t prepared for that kind of growth. Better wait till next month, when you’ll have more time.
Yeah, but…
But is one of the favorite words of your critical voice. Often, whatever reason follows the word but is just an excuse to stop your progress…
For whatever reason, your critical voice is not your friend. It doesn’t want you to win. It primarily wants you to lose. It will try to talk you out of your growth and happiness. And then, having succeeded in stopping you, it will berate you for not having the courage to act.
For some people, just hearing this voice creates a flood of negative feelings and emotions, such as fear, anxiety, worry, apprehension, dread, panic, low self-esteem, worthlessness, not-good-enoughness, unworthiness, undeservedness, guilt, blame, self-reproach, and shame…
Suppose you knew a person who professed to be your friend. She seemed to give you good advice from time to time, but upon reflecting, you began to notice that this so-called friend took every opportunity to subtly bring you down and make you feel fear, low self-esteem, and guilt. How long would you hang around a person like that? You’d likely drop that relationship the moment you became aware of it.
Suppose you were getting ready to run a marathon, but your friend kept nagging at you: ‘I doubt you’ll be able to finish. You haven’t trained enough to make it. Only masochists go through this kind of pain to run a silly race. You could hurt yourself. You waited till too late to get started, better wait till next year.’ How long would hang around that so-called friend? Not very long.
That’s what we’re encouraging you to do with your critical voice. Don’t spend another minute listening to it.
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Copyright © 2009 by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen From the book CASH IN A FLASH: FAST MONEY IN SLOW TIMES published by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted with permission. |
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