Why is it that the negative self-talk voice in our head is so much louder than the inner-coach voice? 

We all have a split personality in our head: the Inner Critic and the Inner Coach.

😇  vs. 😈

The Inner Critic focuses on the negative, and stifles us from achieving, believing, and accomplishing. It speak from our past -- our past failures, the time we didn't get that job, the time we bombed that exam, the time we got rejected by that guy or girl. The Inner Critic is bold and brazeN; it's not afraid to speak its mind and tell us why we can't do this, or shouldn't try that. 

The Inner Coach, on the other hand, focuses on the positive, and celebrates the past (yes, even our past failures). The Inner Coach speaks from our future -- it cheers us on and says, yes you can! 

I liken the Inner Coach to one of my personal favorite coaches, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots.

Regardless of how you personally feel about him, or about sports in general, if you've ever watched him in a press conference after a game, one thing he does consistently is that he focuses on the next game, the next win. He consistently says, "We made some mistakes (and/or) we played a good game, the other team fought hard and played well, and now we're just focusing on the next game." It's never berating his team on how much they suck and how they will never succeed. Instead, he accepts mistakes, he applauds the good, acknowledges the opponent, and just focuses on the future, specifically, on the future win.

One exercise I suggest to my clients for turning down the volume on the Inner Critic and turning up the volume on the Inner Coach is the The Three Chairs exercise. This exercise can be used for a specific issue or dilemma you're trying to solve, or generally for life.

Imagine you have three chairs. In one chair sits the Inner Critic, in the second chair sits the Inner Coach, and in the third chair sits the Moderator. The Inner Critic and the Inner Coach have a discourse where the Moderator is an unbiased entity simply there to be the intermediary between the other two chairs (the two "Inners" do not speak to each other, but rather always through the Moderator). Pose your question, issue, or dilemma to the three chairs, and observe what that conversation looks like. What is each "Inner" saying? How are they saying it? What are some of the phrases and buzzwords each one repeats? 

By observing the conversation from your mind's eye, you can start noticing patterns of each Inner. When you start hearing repeated buzz words or phrases from the Inner Critic, ask yourself (or the Moderator to ask the Inner Critic): Is that true? What facts are you basing this off of? And while your Inner Critic is stumbling for answers, let your Inner Coach speak up and get a word in edge-wise. 

While we may never be able to silence the Inner Critic completely -- nor do want to (there is a time and place for some inner constructive criticism) -- we can certainly start to quiet all the noise to make room for the Inner Coach. 

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