In this blog post, Liane shares an exercise which she uses to develop her students’ confidence when performing, presenting or generating creative ideas.
Whenever we ask any of our students to form new ideas, create without preparation, or prepare them for a performance, it’s likely that they will run into their inner critic. The inner critic is the small voice in our head which we all have. It usually shows up to tell us that our idea is ‘bad’ or ‘silly’ and we need to think of another one.
Bert & Ernie – The Inner Critic Birds
I have two birds which sit on my shoulders. They usually pop up whenever I have a great idea to say:
“That’ll never work”
“Who do you think you are calling yourself an actor?”
“You’re a terrible writer, I’d quit if I were you”
I call my birds Bert and Ernie, and whenever they pop up, I blast them away with an imaginary splat gun!
I introduce my students to Bert and Ernie and ask them if they ever have an equivalent little voice which pops up every time they have a new idea. I ask them:
“Where do they appear?”
“Are they in front of you or behind you?”
“What do they sound like?”
“Is it a voice you recognise?”
“What do they look like?”
It’s worth noticing that the inner critic always appears when you’re on to something which has value. The inner critic is primed to pop up when you have a brilliant idea which just needs a little development.
Hotseat the Inner Critic
When my students have fleshed out what their inner critic looks and sounds like, I get my students to play them whilst I interview them. This is a widely played drama game called ‘hotseating’. I might ask questions such as, “Why are you here?’ or ‘What are you trying to do?’
As a result of the hotseating, my students often discover that their inner critic is just trying to protect them. Once my student becomes aware of this, they can then have a conversation directly with their inner critic to say, “that’s very kind of you to protect me from looking silly but I don’t need your protection. How can we best work together?”
After you’ve had this conversation, the inner critic will still pop up! In which case, I get my students to get really creative in how they’ll blast their inner critic away. They might use a huge cannon, or a sword or a magical bow and arrow!
Master your Mindset
Having an awareness of the inner critic, befriending it and blasting it away when you need to, can make a huge difference to our students’ mindset. They realise that we can make a choice not to listen to our inner critic. When we keep going against our inner critic’s well-meaning advice, we can often surprise ourselves by accomplishing things we never thought we could do!
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