Wisdom for Work #22 - Owning Your Strengths

This episode focuses on the importance of recognizing and leveraging personal strengths, and how to counteract the negative impacts of the inner critic by fostering a strong inner advocate.

1. The inner critic can significantly distort self-perception and hinder personal growth.
2. Developing an inner advocate is crucial for a balanced self-view and enhanced self-confidence.
3. Feedback, particularly through structured formats like 360 reviews, is vital for recognizing and leveraging one’s strengths.
4. Focusing on strengths rather than just weaknesses can lead to greater satisfaction and effectiveness in personal and professional arenas.
5. Radical self-inquiry helps in understanding underlying behaviors and making informed changes.

1. Introduction to Inner Critics and Advocates

A discussion on the detrimental effects of inner critics and the benefits of fostering an inner advocate. Speaker A: "Our inner critics can wreak havoc on our inner lives..."

2. Radical Self-Inquiry and Feedback

How leaders can use deep self-reflection and feedback to enhance their effectiveness. Speaker B: "360 reviews are a really powerful tool that can help leaders make course corrections..."

3. Owning and Utilizing Strengths

Exploration of how recognizing and owning one's strengths can be empowering. Speaker C: "How to just let yourself be amazing..."

4. Personal Stories of Overcoming Self-Criticism

Personal anecdotes from the speakers about overcoming harsh self-criticism and enhancing self-acceptance. Speaker D: "I was very harsh... I can't believe you said it that way..."

5. Chronic Illness and Self-Perception

Discussion on how chronic illness can affect self-perception and the importance of maintaining self-worth during challenging times. Speaker C: "Chronic illness...really took hold..."

1. Cultivate an Inner Advocate: Regularly remind yourself of your achievements and strengths.
2. Seek Constructive Feedback: Embrace feedback as a tool for growth, not just criticism.
3. Practice Radical Self-Inquiry: Set aside time to reflect deeply on your behaviors and their impacts.
4. Highlight Your Strengths: Focus on your strengths in evaluations and self-assessment.
5. Use Feedback Tools: Consider implementing 360 reviews in your workplace to get comprehensive feedback.

We all have that nagging voice in our head, the inner critic, that loves to point out our flaws. But what if there was a way to silence that bully and amplify a different voice, your inner advocate? In this episode, Ali chats with fellow coach Miriam Meima about taming the inner critic and unleashing your inner champion.
This episode is for anyone who has felt like they're not good enough, replays past conversations in their head, or struggles to see their unique strengths.

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Miriam Maima

Guest Name(s):

Miriam Maima

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Speaker A

Our inner critics can wreak havoc on our inner lives, and if left unattended to, they can manifest outward in our lives in ways we may not intend or desire. If we listen to those critical voices too much or at full volume, it erodes our belief in ourselves. If we believe our inner critic, we are not believing the full picture of who we are. In fact, we may become impervious to seeing ourselves clearly when our inner critic gets loud. It's time we employ our inner advocate.

In my conversation today with Miriam Maima, my colleague in the coaching world, we delve into how to do that and why it matters in order to quiet our inner bully and bring out our inner advocate. In moments when we need to remember that we are indeed lovable so that we can live a life more from that place, our inner advocate reminds us of our strengths, the skills and qualities that are strong and uniquely us. This episode is for those of us who have rerun past conversations in our mind, chiding ourselves for what came out of our mouth and thinking of better things we should have said way long after those conversations have occurred. And it's for those of us who fail to see and believe our unique strengths in the face of seemingly insurmountable feelings of self doubt and inadequacy.

Speaker B

At reboot, we often talk about the value of relationships in mirroring back to us our blind spots. Now all honest feedback is valuable, and it's great if your culture supports a constant flow of feedback. But it's often helpful for leaders to take deeper dives into radical self inquiry, giving themselves focused and intentional space to examine the patterns of behavior that are either serving them or not serving their teams and their missions. 360 reviews are a really powerful tool that can help leaders make course corrections, supporting both individual growth and the growth of the company. While there are many approaches to 360s out there, what we have found to be the most helpful to our clients is to approach the 360s as an extension of the coaching conversation.

Most leaders don't care how they rate numerically on a list of abstract capacities, and even if they do, it's tough for them to really know how to make use of that kind of data. But if they can hear through the voices of their colleagues how their behavior is making impact, and if they can be helped by a coach to see more clearly the choices available to them for change, the benefits can be immense. If you'd like to learn more about reboot 360s, you can go to reboot IO 360. Well, hello everybody. I'm here today with my dear friend and colleague Miriam Maima, who I'm delighted to say was my first coach probably over a decade ago now, and it was life changing.

Speaker C

And since then, I would say we're, we just have a lot of fun together in life. So it's a delight to have you here and to be bringing some really wonderful issues to the surface for our audience. But I guess on that note, the topic that we wanted to talk about today, or that you highlighted, which I thought was so great, is how to play to your strengths and owning your strengths. And one of the ways that you kind of talk about this, we've kind of talked about this, is how to just let yourself be amazing. So it's something that I don't think a lot of folks really think about because we always might think about how do I, like, shore up all of my weak points and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But it's like, how do we look at that differently and how do we, I don't know, anchor on what's, like, really solid and really true and really there for the you that's you in this world. Yeah. When all the time I'm working with executives, they go over feedback and they just want to gloss over the strengths so that they can get to the real stuff to get to the meat. I'm like, well, what if they're both equal quantities of meatiness? And so I think that was one of the inspirations for this topic, is how can we honor our strengths?

Speaker D

How can we own them? How can we use them to help with our sense of identity? Because we're so focused on what we aren't yet. And that creates this mindset of deficit, and therefore, we're constantly trying to, and I really believe that the better we get, and this is true for me, too, the better I get understanding who am I underneath? And then, therefore, how can I express that in a way that we would call a strength?

The better I get at that, the more clear I am, then the more likely it is that I can organize my life and my career to support me in truly showing up that way. Which is better for everybody. Yeah. Especially you. Right.

Speaker C

Or those of us that are, you know, not struggling and just trying to fit in and fill out our weak points. It's more like, no, let's just stand in the place that just feels easy and natural and true and something that we can do that maybe not other people can do as well. Yeah. So I don't know, where do you kind of want to, like, dive in here in terms of point of departure for really surfing around the facets of this. Yeah, well, where my head goes to is being early in my career when I made the transition from letting myself critic have the mic almost all the time to actually passing the mic to my self advocate.

Speaker D

First, I had to figure out what the heck that was. But I guess I can tell a short story about how much I tortured myself and then how I got myself out of it. And I do believe that there's value in being able to assess ourselves honestly and maybe even critically. But early in my career, I really, I can flash back to being in my office and surrounded by my colleagues. And it didn't matter who I was with or what the context was.

If it was a meeting, if we were actually just chatting literally by the water cooler or having lunch, I would always replay what I had just said and criticize myself, and not even slightly. I mean, I was very harsh. I would tell them, I can't believe you said it that way. You should have used this tone. You should have used that word.

You sound so stupid. Those people know so much more than you. You should really let them speak more. Oh, you should have spoken up more. I mean, there was no winning.

There was nothing I could do or say that would have my inner voice say, great job. I was just constantly looking at what I could have been doing better, and I don't think anyone externally could have noticed that. But what was happening for me internally was I just never, ever felt good enough and I was always just focused on what it could have, should have. And at some point, I just got so tired and just felt beat up to the extent that I was like, wow, what if, what if I just flip this on its head? And what if any positive feedback that comes my way, I actually believe that it's true.

And to the extent to which I've been believing these thoughts in my own head are true. And so I essentially shifted the weight that I was giving things and I was shifting the weight from what I was telling myself to what I was hearing and from the negative to the positive. And all of a sudden, I started to be able to relate to my presence in the world with more clarity, a little bit more neutrality at first, and then eventually starting to actually recognize value that I had been having all along but hadn't given myself any credit for. Wow. Do you relate to that at all?

Speaker C

Yes. There are days when I don't feel my best and my brain doesn't feel super healthy. I think backdrop there being chronic illness where it's like whatever the brain chemistry is I cannot meet the world with any sense that of, like, worthiness. I mean, it's like, it's like I start, I'm living through things, and everything's coming through this filter of me, which is in a really dark place. And I've learned how to live with that filter on those days and not really believe it, but it is.

It's a burden. It's a burden to, like, have those moments, to live through them. And I just literally, like, inch by inch, minute by minute, on a day like that because I also know, like, this greater reality, which is okay, but I am pretty great at certain things and I am doing well in other things, even though, like, this big part of my inner narrative right now is saying nothing but an inner critic garble of nonsense that doesn't. That doesn't really hit like nonsense, you know? Yeah, but what you said is so important is just to not really trust or believe those thoughts in those moments, because we all have them.

Speaker D

The question is, how sustained are they or how close together are they? And that's individual. I mean, that has a lot to do with physical health, mental health. It has to do with how much we slept and what we eaten and what we've been exposed to and whose energy we've been around and how much outside of our comfort zone we're expecting ourselves to perform. And there's so much that goes into how we're feeling, and then those words come up, that critic shows up, and then do we believe it or not?

And how much weight or how much truth do we assign to those thoughts and those moments? And it sounds like you've come so far and holding it lightly and being able to trust yourself. Yeah. And the trusting yourself thing is really key because I'm curious how that played in to your experience. And I can say, like, prior to going through, like, this chronic illness thing, I never saw myself as, like, a dark.

Speaker C

I didn't feel like I spent a lot of time in kind of those dark spaces. I felt like I was very self assured and very kind of bold in a silly or playful way in the world. And I knew my fear edges, but I was always willing to say, okay, I can feel that edge, and I'm going to be bold enough and brave enough to move past it and try something new and just keep expanding. And so, really, it wasn't until chronic illness that really, that darker backdrop and that more negative narration really took hold. But, yeah, it's.

And then, yeah, the self doubt kind of starts clinging in. Right. It's like, wait, is this the real reality? It's like. Or is this.

Is this just where I am right now? And I need to, like, bracket this as a moment and just, like, live through it until my body has something else to give, you know? And I can go back to another state that I also know that is, you know, not enhanced in any way. I mean, it was very much just, like, I felt like who I was. So having that comparison is interesting from my perspective, because it's like, wait, I've known something so different, and yet I don't know, you know, for others, you know, what that experience is for them.

Right. And sometimes I think, like, the negative voice gets so entrenched, and it becomes that.