Please enjoy this timely article from my good friend and mentor, Jean Hudson

Moxie vs Goliath

©Jean Hudson, July 8, 2009

Last week I ran smack dab straight up against a monster. There he was, galloping through the middle of a coaching conversation, interrupting the flow of strategies developing between us. Like a ventriloquist using my client as a dummy, mimicking his voice and moving his lips, Goliath dropped this bombshell into the middle of the table with a thud: “I’m so stupid. Why do I keep repeating the same pattern? I should know better by now!”

Name-calling and ‘shoulding’ on oneself … Goliath’s calling cards.

Successes criticized. Intelligence insulted. Talent denied. Confidence flattened. Insults hurled. Goliath is the name I give to an abusive habit common to us all – self-criticism.

Self-criticism is violence directed at ourselves. It grows on a diet of lies – any of hundreds of different varieties of thinking that we should somehow be different than we are right now.

The bright young entrepreneur I was talking with has already identified, questioned, and disarmed many lies (beliefs, assumptions, judgments, and perceived limitations, for example). But, like ogres and onions, Goliaths have layers. We gotta keep peeling them away. Sometimes we cry. It’s no work for cowards.

Are you an abuser? Is there a Goliath within you? Do you use violent thoughts against yourself? Do you allow self-doubt or self-blame to drain your energy and slow your progress? Even a little bit hurts.

It takes moxie (daring, courage, and guts) to relieve Goliath of power. It takes a desire for the truth, and a willingness to question everything.

Then you can look straight at self-criticism and see its weakness – it’s a puffed up concoction of lies. Locate, excavate, and examine the ways you limit yourself with lies. Goliath shrinks with each one identified and questioned.

So put down your slingshot and stones, and I shall put down mine. We do not need weapons against ourselves. When a lie is exposed, there is no need to fight it any more. Truth emerges.

Gently,

Jean

Contents ©2009 Jean Hudson.  Reprinted with permission http://execucoach.net/

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