Silence that inner critic

DAN HARRIS:
Hey there, it’s Day 5 of The Marathon Mindset. Thanks again for taking 10 minutes out of what I’m sure is a busy day. If you can, shut down any distractions, pause your notifications, and let’s go for it.

Back on Day One, we heard how to change the critical inner voice that can hold us back. But here’s the thing: Many of us believe we need that voice — our inner critic — to push ourselves to achieve our goals. I know I have felt that way for much of my life.

The notion is deeply ingrained in our culture — that the only way to succeed is to liberally apply, what I call, an internal cattle prod. But the research strongly suggests that this approach doesn't actually work. And what you actually need to do is to gently, and in a friendly manner, silence the inner critic. And replace it with something a little bit more reasonable and kind.

Perhaps your mind — in the face of everything I’ve just said — is already throwing up objections. Well, mine did too for a long time. And that’s why I wanted to talk to Kristin Neff. She’s the co-founder of an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and she’s very used to working with skeptics like me. Her work shows that counter-programming against the inner critic can actually make you stronger. And she’s taught this lesson in some unlikely places. We’ll start the story as Kristin describes some of the toughest customers she’s worked with.

KRISTIN NEFF:
I work at the University of Texas at Austin, and so the Longhorn men's basketball team asked me to come in and give the guys a training.

HARRIS:
How'd that go?

NEFF:
Great, because I didn't use the word “self-compassion” once, because it's triggering. I talked about inner resilience and inner strength training. So when you're out there, when you're playing, you know, what mental voice do you want in your head? Do you want the coach saying, “You suck, I can't believe you miss that shot?”

HARRIS:
Well, no one wants that. But many of us believe we need it. And I am, as I’ve said before, speaking from experience here. For a very long time, I believed that I needed a truly nasty inner critic to keep pushing me towards my goals. I talked about this with Kristin.

HARRIS:
My father has an expression, which is “the price of security is insecurity.” And I told myself that any success I was experiencing in the hallways of ABC News was because I was worrying all the time and had very high standards, et cetera, et cetera. This internal cattle prod that many of us have, what do you say to folks and I'm sure you hear the argument all the time, like, "This is the thing that's keeping me afloat?"

NEFF:
Negative emotions narrow our focus, and positive emotions broaden our focus. Compassion actually is a rewarding emotion. It actually allows you to see more possibilities. Maybe when you were so threat-focused, you didn't see this opportunity. But once you feel safe, "Oh, I see. Maybe there's a completely different way to approach, I didn't even think about."

HARRIS:
Cultivating self-compassion is the best way to counter-program against the inner critic. And it turns out, we actually evolved to feel compassion and to respond to it at a physical level. The experience of kindness has not just an emotional, but a physiological effect on us. That’s what science tells us.

NEFF:
We are mammals, right? It takes 25 to 27 years for the prefrontal cortex to fully mature. Physiologically, we needed a system in place that would prompt the infant to be safe by being taken care of by parents. And that would also prompt the parents to take care of the child. So we have a very evolved care system as part of our physiology. And so we know again from the sciences, when you're kind to yourself, you actually lower the cortisol levels. You reduce the sympathetic nervous reactivity, and you actually activate things like heart-rate variability, probably oxytocin (the dots haven't been totally connected, but most likely you're increasing oxytocin). You're actually activating this physiological system that's designed to make us feel safe.

So, just for an example, there was one study done of soldiers who had come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and actually seen action overseas. And they found that how soldiers treated themselves, how compassionate they were to themselves around the real trauma they had experienced, was a very powerful predictor of whether or not they developed PTSD nine months later, post-traumatic stress disorder. And in fact, it was more powerful than how much action they had seen.

HARRIS:
Hmm.

NEFF:
So more important than what you experience in life is how you relate to yourself in the midst of that experience when it's really traumatic or difficult. And so, you know, when people say self-compassion is a weakness, not for these soldiers.

HARRIS:
Let’s take a moment to think about that because I found it pretty surprising. Kristin is saying that self-compassion actually helped these soldiers face the horrors of war, and helped them become more resilient when they returned home. So, of course the question is: how does that apply to the rest of us in our everyday lives?

NEFF:
If you think of life as a battle, in some ways, it's challenging. It's really hard to be a human being. When you go into battle, who do you want inside your head? Do you want an ally who's saying, "I'm on your side, I'm here to support you." Or do you want a voice that shames you and says you're not good enough?

Strong self-criticism, people think it makes them stronger. It actually doesn't. You're actually pulling out the rug from underneath yourself. That doesn't mean it's like Stuart Smalley, "I'm great, I'm wonderful." What you're saying is “I acknowledge I'm a flawed human being. Everyone is a flawed human being. I'm going to try to learn from my mistakes, as opposed to taking my mistakes personally.” And that kind of attitude toward learning and growth actually is a very powerful way to actually succeed and be more motivated. So it makes you more strong, not weaker. It makes you more motivated, not less. It actually allows you to feel more connected, not more isolated. So the entire practice in a weird way is paradoxical.

HARRIS:
You talked about Stuart Smalley. That is a character from Saturday Night Live played by the now I guess former Senator, Al Franken from Minnesota, would look in the mirror and say something like—

NEFF:
“I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.”

HARRIS:
Yes. So that is not what you're talking about.

NEFF:
That's right. Yeah it's not positive thinking. It's not about judgment or evaluation at all. It's really about a supportive, friendly attitude toward oneself. And that support is a tremendous source of strength, coping, and resilience. And it makes me a bit sad that in our society, we don't utilize this strength. The beautiful thing about this is you can learn it as a skill.

HARRIS:
Hmm.

NEFF:
You can do this, you can actually cultivate the ability to be kinder and more supportive to yourself, especially when you're struggling. I mean, that's the really exciting thing about self-compassion is there's a lot of research that shows this is actually a trainable skill.

HARRIS:
So, when you’re in the metaphorical trenches of life and work, you can apply the technique used by battle-tested soldiers. Instead of listening to the inner critic telling you that you suck, you can cultivate a new, more compassionate and reasonable voice.

What I want you to recall from Kristin is that it's not about positive thinking. “I’m great, I’m wonderful, I’m going to kiss the mirror, whatever.” It’s about acknowledging that “I’m human and I’m learning.”

Also, there’s lots of science to support that self-compassion makes you stronger, not weaker. And finally, cultivating that ally in your head is a trainable skill. So let's send it over to Reid Hoffman, your host for Masters of Scale and guide through the Courses. He will share today’s Action Item

REID HOFFMAN:
Dan’s right. As I said in the introduction to this course: you don’t think your way into a new way of acting, you act your way into a new way of thinking.

Today we’re going to that in an action called, simply enough: “Cultivate Your Inner Ally.”
Take a piece of paper and fold it in half crosswise. On the top half, write down something that went wrong in the past week, which your inner critic has had a field day with. Maybe it's something you said in a meeting — or something you didn't say. Maybe it's a deadline you missed, a goal you failed to meet, or a moment you lost your temper. It's important to actually write this down. Physically writing things down supports memory retention and deliberate practice.

Next, on the bottom half, write one thing you learned from the experience. It’s important to phrase this constructively. It’s not, "Don't be an idiot," or “Stop running late,” but: "Next time, schedule more time for that task.” Remember what Kristin said: negative emotions narrow your focus, and positive emotions broaden your focus. You're replacing that inner critic with an ally.

In the bottom third, write down the next occasion in which you can practice, say, scheduling the right amount of time for the particular task at hand.

This next step is the most important: You’re going to rip off the top third and throw it away. That's right, just crumple it in a ball and throw it away. Because mistakes are in the past. Forget them! Instead, focus on what will help you improve. Every time you do this, you'll be practicing an important mindset shift.

Don’t worry if you didn’t quite catch that full exercise. We’ll also be emailing you a summary of today’s Daily Practice, along with your Action Item. You can also find that right here in the app.

Tomorrow, for our final day of the Marathon Mindset with Dan Harris, he talks to another neuroscientist, Matthew Walker about something we can all use a little more of: sleep. That’s on Day 6 of The Marathon Mindset. See you then.