Member/Community News

By: Deb Oliver Dr. Beth Weinstock, a clinical psychologist an executive coach and organizational consultant, spoke to the Women’s Business Forum on Wednesday about our Inner Critic/Inner Worrier and how to develop and strengthen the voice of our Inner Coach. Beth, who writes for the Huffington Post, began the process of teaching the assembled members how to empower themselves in the workplace and in their personal lives. She began by telling us the ways we are negative with ourselves and defining the Inner Voice that highjacks our confidence and makes us doubt ourselves by delineating the three areas where this doubt arises. Firstly, she said it is evolutionary. The “negativity bias” evolved with man’s brain being “vigilant toward potential danger and the need to survive”. Once we recognize our predilection towards this behavior we need to manage it. Secondly, our family origins (childhood issues) have a defining influence upon our Inner Critic. If/when our needs as children were not met we decide it was our fault. Beth says, “And if it is our fault, we think we can fix it” and developing that Inner Critic is a protective function to micromanage behavior to meet what we assume are the wants of others. Thirdly, Beth attributes it to growing up female. She states, “by fifth grade girls have become negatively self-referential (I’m not that fat; I’m not that ugly)”. If we are to counteract this thinking we must know what we are saying that is damaging. Thus the development of an Inner Coach needs to be created to thwart the negative message. The Inner Coach is built to take the criticisms and question them. It says stop and allows you to analyze what is happening, investigate what stories you are making up, and stops the “black and white thinking”. It permits you to examine what “beliefs you are making up that are not accurate”. Beth also stated that “women are not as good at failure as men”. She says that possibly because men engage in sports to a greater extent they have a capacity to see loss in a less personalized context, as external. Women, “get devastated” and internalize/personalize it. She feels women need to build up a resilience to combat this Finally, Beth indicated that women need to get better at; negotiating (salary); not being nice; out-besting our friends and conquering the need for perfection. After all, in a study on qualities needed for leadership 70% were what are characteristically associated with women.