Nina has cost me tens of thousands of pounds over the years. I’m talking about Nina Nitpicker. My inner critic.
She’s like the school bully – a familiar feeling as I was bullied by the popular girls in school due to my weight, big glasses, acne and quiet, studious nature.
Nina never has a nice word to say, always judging me harshly and making me feel small.
- “Who do you think you are to pursue your ambitions?”
- “You’re going to get found out any minute.”
- “You’re not skilled or experienced enough.”
- “You only meet 8/10 criteria on the job description, so don’t bother applying.”
- “What if something bad happens if you do that?”
- “Everyone knows more than you.”
- “Don’t say anything or you’ll embarrass yourself.”
- “Look at your thunder thighs! Are you really going out like that?”
Nina didn’t just cost me tens of thousands of pounds in lost earning potential. She also cost me thousands of pounds in makeup, new clothes, shoes, bags and flashy cars, all in an attempt to feel more confident and successful. But Nina was still there, undermining me.
She also took a toll on my emotional and mental health.
Nina would tut at me, wondering why I couldn’t be calm and confident like others. And during the pandemic, she really took hold – causing anxious thoughts, catastrophizing and dark cloud of negativity spiraling out of control.
You see 12 months before this, I’d finally found the courage to start my own Coaching business – an ambition that Nina had held back for around 30 years. I quit my stressful corporate job, where I had pushed myself to the point of burnout just to prove myself. And in the first year of my business, I surprised myself with my success and felt fearless. But then the pandemic hit, and my business crumbled overnight.
All my contracts were cancelled or withdrawn, and people vanished without paying me. I was a mess – unable to eat or sleep. Then I felt anger when the UK Chancellor announced the furlough scheme, yet I didn’t qualify.
During this difficult time, Nina emerged with a vengeance.
- “I told you, people like you don’t have successful businesses.”
- “You’re such a fraud- call yourself a coach?!”
These words hit hard because, as a coach, I had the tools to help others but couldn’t apply them to myself.
To make matters worse, I was experiencing the challenges of perimenopause, which brought around 30 physical symptoms and a rollercoaster of emotions. I felt like I had lost myself.
If you can relate to any of this, know that you’re not alone. It’s the most common thing I’m now asked to help clients with – from the C-Suite to professionals – an imposter voice that sabotages their success and confidence.
For me, I had two choices: stay as I was and feel like a failure, or take control and work on my inner landscape to navigate life with more ease and grace.
I’d had enough of Nina ruling. So, I chose to explore applied neuroscience and Neurosculpting®.
Here are three things I discovered along the way.
- My nervous system was overwhelmed. This was no coincidence. I had been unconsciously running fear-based patterns throughout my life, such as not feeling good enough, fearing disappointment, and fearing rejection. These patterns, influenced by past experiences, created my Nina Nitpicker and her constant negativity. The pandemic exacerbated this, triggering an overwhelming cascade of stress hormones, leaving me anxious and stuck.
- My stories were just ideas or concepts I held as true, whether they were accurate or not. As long as I believed these stories, they grew stronger. My brain had become a master storyteller, filtering every action I took (or most likely didn’t take) and perception through these stories.
- I had the power to change. Neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt and change itself was a free gift that I had and which offered hope. If I had learned my Nina Nitpicker scripts, thanks to my neuroplastic brain, then I could release these unhelpful stories and beliefs and use my neuroplastic gift to create new, empowering beliefs.
As a coach, I had a bunch of tools I could apply. But something was missing. The right steps in the right sequence. That’s where the Neurosculpting® 5 step process came in. Combined with the Crush Your Critic Framework which I’ve since developed and which is now being used by others.
The Crush Your Critic Framework looks like this:
- Clarity: Define what you want to achieve and create the action steps to get there. There’s a lot of neurobiology you can leverage here, helping you to take action, no matter how small and build your confidence. A clarity and goals achievement Neurosculpting® meditation cements this step.
- Break free from fear: Identify situations and fear-based stories that trigger negative emotional states. Use Neurosculpting® exercises to release these patterns, regulate your emotional state, and bring out your best qualities.
- Self-doubt to success: Script new, empowering beliefs. Ask yourself what you want to believe instead and anchor these beliefs in your brain using the five-step Neurosculpting® process.
- Resilience: Anticipate obstacles and form strategies to overcome them. Hint: Most of the obstacles are the disempowering thought patterns you’re running on a loop. Use neuroplasticity and Neurosculpting® exercises to condition your brain and nervous system for adaptability which really helps you to manage things outside of your control.
- Tuning your base operating system to self-leadership using Neurosculpting® meditation practice. Learn to navigate between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system states. The former is Nina in full force. For me it feels like contracted muscles, shortness of breath, racing heart, nauseous stomach, sweaty palms. Typically correlating to procrastination or running away behaviour.The latter is when you’re at your best, when you’re believing in yourself, feeling energised and yet calm. And believing you can achieve anything. Nina Nitpicker has been crushed!
Jo Britton is a UK-based Neurosculpting® facilitator and coach helping entrepreneurs, leaders and professionals to apply Neurosculpting® to improve their personal leadership, team and business performance.
Photo: Jo Britton’s Inner Critic