112. Ronnie Grandell: Free Yourself from Self-Criticism

Ronnie Grandell is a clinical psychologist, coach and non-fiction author who specializes in compassion focused therapy. His expertise is helping people end the struggle with stress and burnout, anxiety, shame or self-criticism. He has also worked extensively with leaders, athletes and artists, with a focus on enhancing people’s performance and enjoying life while doing so. Ronnie has written two books on these topics in Finnish, “Itsemyötätunto” (self-compassion) and “Irti itsekritiikistä” (free yourself from self-criticism). His TEDx experiences Ronnie has given two TEDx talks. First Ronnie talked about self compassion: what means treating yourself as you would treat a good friend, especially during hard times. His second TEDx talk was about self-criticism. What is self-criticism Self-criticism is an aggressive, hostile and condemning way of relating to oneself that pushes us down instead of forward, or pushes us forward with fear and pressure. Self-criticism for speakers and performers It’s important to distinguish harsh self-criticism from constructive feedback and self-correction. Harsh inner self-criticism will wear us down, while constructive self-correction builds us up. Self-criticism can impact you as a performer in a few different ways. * Turn you down from applying for an audition, trying, beginning a project. * During the preparation stage the inner voice can tell you “you’ve got to do it perfect” and the result is avoiding practice. * Right before or during the event itself, it can trigger a negative emotion that will sabotage the performance. Once Barbra Streisand forgot her lyrics in a big concert, and her self-criticism stopped her from performing live for 27 years. Free yourself from self-criticism There are two important questions to ask ourselves after a performance in order to stay constructive and stay out of the self-criticism trap: 1) What worked, what went well. 2) What didn’t go so well, what can be improved and can be used it for the next time. Answering these questions will keep you in a growth mindset. Some suggestions for freeing yourself from self-criticism: 1) Recognize it. 2) Give it a name. 3) Be assertive towards the inner critic. 4) Do what you want, not what your self-criticism suggests.