Have you ever made strides in your life toward something you’ve wanted for a long time, but then just dropped the ball?

Have you ever created something for yourself in your life, but then turned away from it?

Have you ever jumped in with both feet, totally stoked, and then been seized with insecurity enough to make you quit?

I just noticed that I’m feeling totally cranky because I feel guilty about not having blogged much lately, not having tweeted much lately, not having updated my Facebook status and group a lot lately. My ezine was “late” this past month, too, and there’s this whispering, snarky little voice that keeps showing up in my head saying, “Well, you don’t have anything of substance to say anyway. You should just throw in the bag. No one cares what you have to say.”

What gives?

Well, the good news is that I know from the past three years of coaching that I am not alone in this little voice phenomenon, and it can be dealt with. It goes by many names, and we’ve all got one...gremlin, saboteur, inner critic, inner judge, etc. Rick Carson, who wrote a widely-used and great little book called “Taming Your Gremlin” has a great quote on the intro page to his website: “Your Gremlin is the Sleazy Master of Misery Lurking in the Shadows of Your Very Own Mind!” Yep, that just about sums it up!

In a nutshell, your gremlin is that nasty little (or sometimes big) voice in your head that tries to keep you from either doing what will truly move you forward toward a more fulfilling, authentic life (“You’ll never be able to do that! Why even bother? You stink at that kind of thing! Why, just last year you tried that other thing that’s sort of like this and it was a huge mistake. What are you thinking? Just go home and watch TV.”) and/or from feeling proud and confident about the progress you’re making when you are moving forward (“Well, you might have done something but it really wasn’t all that much. I mean, look at how far you still have to go! What’s the big deal about this one step? You still might screw this all up, and everyone still might laugh at you or, worse, think you’re dumb for trying...”). Nice, eh?

At the root of our gremlins is plain old fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy, fear of responsibility, etc. etc. etc. If moving forward means that you’re at risk of feeling any of the aforementioned fears (or the many others that exist), which it almost always does mean, then you can bet your gremlin’s going to launch into a tirade, whether that’s a sniggling, niggling, chronic whisper in the back of your mind that keeps you from playing at the top of your game, or an  all-out hollaring in your head that stops you in your tracks!

Now, before we go any further, there’s always a VERY important distinction to make here:

YOU ARE NOT YOUR GREMLIN.

YOU are not that sabotoging voice that tries to keep you from moving forward! YOU are so much bigger, wiser, more infinite, more connected, and more plugged into what really matters in life!

YOU are what’s at your core: solid, inextinguishable, unstoppable, knowing and strong.

Where does your gremlin come from? From years and years of training. We’re taught by our parents and families how to get along in the world and in our society. That socialization naturally has to come with teaching us the “do’s” and “don’ts” of our culture, which inherently has messages like, “don’t let that angry part of yourself show...it’s too much,” or “you must be polite and not say what you really want to,” and other such things. Hear me--I’m NOT parent bashing here! Socialization is vital thing. And, it comes with messages about buttoning up so we’re accepted and acceptable. And from then on, we see commercials, magazines, billboards, TV shows, movie videos, advertisements, and on and on that send us the message that we’re not enough just the way we are, that who we really want to unleash into the world isn’t acceptable, or isn’t [skinny, hip, cool, smart, tall, short, etc.] enough, might be laughed at or might be kicked out of the tribe.

So, we all have this voice, and we are not that voice, which is GREAT news, because if we’re not it, then we can pull it out into the light of day and manage it down to whatever size we’d like. To become aware of your gremlin means that you can be at choice about your gremlin. Hot damn! Isn’t that always the golden ticket?! Yaaay awareness leading to intentional choice! :D

Your gremlin (and my gremlin) isn’t going to go away, and that’s actually okay. (If you’ve read my article on fear, you know I believe that fear has magnificent gifts.) So don’t go around beating yourself up for having a critical inner voice...that’s like a double whammy since your critical inner voice is doing a lovely job of beating yourself up all on its own! What you must do, though, is to:

1. Understand when that gremlin gets activated the most,
   

2. Get very clear on what lies it likes to tell you in its efforts to maintain the status quo, and
   

3. Discern ways that will work for you to put that voice in its place.
   

And now, I’ve clearly got some gremlin hunting of my own to do. Won’t you join me? Here are some questions to start with:

1. As you go about your days, what situations most often cause your gremlin to show up and start yammering?
   

2. What is your gremlin most afraid of?
   

3. What does it say to you when it gets going?
   

4. If you could come up with one fool-proof method of miniaturizing your gremlin’s voice, what could that look like? (Sometimes I like to envision myself saying, “OKAY, I hear you! Thanks for your input. Now, go to your room and sleep, right now. And my gremlin goes slinking off.)
   

I hope this post has helped to normalize this thing that goes on inside of us. We’re all in this big soup of life together, after all, so we might as well shake out the covers once in a while! :-) Sending you wishes for some successful gremlin hunting of your own!