Dealing with the inner critic: Defeating negative self talk

I’d like to share with you a quote by Teddy Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again ... who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.”

I’d like to make a couple of comments about it, to put it into perspective.

One comment is obvious. The quote repeatedly refers to “the man”, where a more contemporary author would have talked about “a person”. But it’s not just the use of the word “man” as opposed to “person”, it’s also the imagery that goes with it. Teddy Roosevelt describes this “man” as a warrior or gladiator of Antiquity, fighting in the arena, covered with dust and sweat and blood. This not only leaves out women from the sphere of courage, it also leaves out most men, very few of whom have actually had any direct experience of life-or-death combat. So I wouldn’t take the imagery too literally, other than as a form of idealized representation of courage.

The other comment is about the opposition between the critic and the doer of deeds. It quite literally refers to a situation where a critic is second-guessing a doer. I find it helpful to also apply this to situations where we are talking about parts of ourselves in an internal dialogue. In other words, I am referring to how we deal with the “inner critic”, the inner voice that second-guesses our efforts. 

Most of us do not have much opportunity to test their courage in life-or-death physical struggles. But, at one time or another, we all have to make difficult decisions, or to keep pushing beyond our comfort zone to make difficult changes. In those situations, the credit does not belong to the inner critic who keeps pointing out how you could have done things better; it belongs to the inner doer who does the best they can.

The following dialogue can help you change the experience of dealing with the inner critic:

- There is a voice in my head telling me to shut up the whole time I am writing this. What am I to do?

- It's OK to hear the voice... Just don't take it too seriously. Let it blabber, but keep going.

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