30 9 Tips to Quiet Your Inner Critic (So You Can Make it through the Holidays without a Meltdown)

Your inner critic can get loud during the holidays. Family dynamics, packed schedules, unrealistic expectations, and a season filled with comparison can push even the most successful woman into self-doubt. In this episode of Joyfully Unstoppable, we walk through practical tools you can use to dial down that critical voice and dial up your inner cheerleader so you move through the season with more confidence, clarity, and joy.

You will learn simple strategies you can use anytime, along with quick nervous system regulation techniques that work in public settings such as holiday parties, family gatherings, and end-of-year events. You’ll also learn how to name your inner critic, create distance from unhelpful thoughts, and stay anchored in what matters to you.

If you want a lighter, more grounded holiday season, this episode will show you how to steady your mind, support your energy, and create space for the joy you deserve.

In this episode:
• How to set a holiday intention that keeps you steady
• Ways to create a daily anchor that quiets self-criticism
• Why naming your inner critic helps you reclaim authority over your thoughts
• How to get curious about your triggers
• Five in-the-moment techniques that calm your nervous system
• Why your inner cheerleader is a powerful leadership asset

If this episode encouraged you, share it with another woman who carries a lot on her shoulders. And if you enjoy the show, subscribing and leaving a review helps more women discover Joyfully Unstoppable.

 #JoyfullyUnstoppable #WomenLeadWell #InnerCritic #HolidayStressSupport #ConfidenceTipsForWomen #LeadershipForWomen #MindsetForWomen #NervousSystemRegulation #WomenInLeadership #SelfCompassionPractice #CalmYourMind #PersonalGrowthForWomen #PodcastForWomen

Joyfully Unstoppable—helping women reconnect with what matters most.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode!

✨ Let’s stay connected
Want more support as you lead with clarity, confidence, and joy? Here’s how we can keep growing together:

💻 Grab Your Success Blueprint and make 2026 your best year yet!
👩🏽‍🤝‍👩🏾 Join the Women Lead Well Community on Facebook!
🌿 Meet Becky – Get to know the heart behind the mic
💼 Coaching for Women Leaders – Ready for personalized support? Explore 1:1 coaching
📚 Free Leadership Resources – Practical tools to help you lead (and live) well
🏡 Explore Women Lead Well – Learn more about Women Lead Well and everything we offer

Transcript

1:06

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to lead boldly, live lightly, and reclaim their joy. Whether you're leading a team, a classroom, a boardroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I am so glad you found us. I'm your host, Becky Hamm leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well after years of high level leadership. I discovered that success doesn't have to come at the cost of your peace, your values, or your wellbeing. Each week, we'll explore what it means to lead joyfully, sustainably, and authentically. Even in a world that tells you to hustle harder and prove your worth, you carry a lot. Let's help it feel lighter. Hello friends. I hope that you are doing well. Welcome to the holiday season. Thanksgiving is behind us, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza. The new year is all ahead of us. It has snowed here in Virginia, um, earlier than most. I think the last time it snowed in December was 20 17, 20 18, so a little early snow for us here. Kids had the day off yesterday. I am recording this on a Saturday while they are at their ninja class, but yay. We are in it. I love this time of year. I posted on Instagram. You guys might have seen, um, we live out in the country and our living room has a 10 foot ceiling. Those two aren't related, but I'm telling you both things for whatever reason. And, and I love Christmas. It's my favorite time of year and we have, we've been in this house, it's our fifth Christmas moved during the pandemic, and I have always wanted a big Christmas tree because we've got a high ceiling in that living room. And we have always ended up with like a little eight foot tree. Which is not little, but in a room that is 10 feet tall, it's. It looks small and it makes me sad. And so I, uh, kind of put my foot down in a nice way, but I said, Hey, look, I want the Christmas tree to touch the ceiling this year. Like I want a tree that takes up the whole space. And my husband understood the assignment when we brought the tree in. He had to cut a little bit more off to get it to stand up straight, like wedged in on the ceiling. So it's perfect. It's beautiful. It makes me very happy. Whatever holidays you are celebrating, whatever brings you joy this time of year, I hope that you have those moments too. You can go look, over on Instagram if you wanna see a video of this crazy big tree that we have in our living room. It's got lights on it. We're gonna put the, the ornaments on today. But yay. Other big changes. I have updated the homepage and the coaching page of the Women Lead Well website. I would love your feedback. Head over to Women Lead well.net. You'll see the homepage that's got links over to the coaching page. But let me know what you think I'm at at Women Lead well over on Instagram. you can catch me on LinkedIn, you can catch me on Facebook. But let me know what you think of the new website. I would be delighted to get your feedback. And then also the Success Blueprint, the goal setting, goal Achievement Mini course, five module mini course. You can still get it. It's still available,$26. and you can see that@womenleadwell.net slash blueprint. I'll have it linked in the show notes below, but you've got, when this airs, three weeks left. I'm looking at the calendar on the corner over here. Three weeks left in 2025. So take a little time, get ready. Make 2026 your best year yet. Today we're gonna talk about wrapping up 2025 with a little less stress, a little more joy, a little more fun in the holiday season. Thanksgiving is behind us, and so we maybe have already experienced a little bit of this, but today we're gonna talk about your inner critic and frankly, how to make it through the holidays without your inner critic sending you off the rails. many of us, spend time with loved ones over the holiday season, and those loved ones are often well intentioned, but they can also not be helpful. Right. Like if, can we just be frank, right? They can say things, they can ask questions that are not helpful, and it's always worth asking yourself when you're in those conversations with other family members, are you the one who's not being helpful? Yeah. Maybe do a little self-reflection on that too. But for today we're gonna talk about your inner critic and how during the holidays that self-doubt, that self-criticism, that self-condemnation. It can amplify. It can get really loud. And I'm gonna tell you my sweet friend, it does not have to you. It, it will do, but you don't have to let it stay loud. So what we're gonna talk about today are a few things, three or four things that you can just. Do in your life now to start to quiet the voice of that inner critic. And we're also gonna talk about turning the volume up on your inner cheerleader'cause she's in there too, rooting you on. Let's dial her up and dial down the inner critic. So three or four things that you can do just in general to help quiet the inner critic. Amp up the inner cheerleader. And then we're also gonna talk about some things you can do in the moment when you're having those intrusive thoughts or when you're talking to your aunt or uncle or mom or sister or coworker, whoever, who were saying those things that trigger the inner critic to get real loud, right? And you start that spiral of thoughts. What are some things you can do in the moment to stop the spiral to break the pattern? And again, to dial up the inner cheerleader in the moment. And these are things you can do in public. You can do'em during the holiday party. You could do it at Christmas dinner, you can do it at the Hanukkah celebration. You could do it anywhere. I wanted to make sure that I gave you things that you can do that are unobtrusive to help you regulate and help you feel better in the moment without being embarrassed, without having to pull yourself out of the conversation and go somewhere to regulate. So here we go. We're gonna start with the things that you can do just today, just right now. Not triggered inner critic, not loud, but just as you're listening to this podcast, as you're doing whatever you're doing. So thing number one, set an intention for how you wanna feel during this season. What do you expect of this holiday season? Not what do you dread, not the negative Nelly inner critic expect, well, not what the inner critic expects this season, but what do you expect out of this holiday season? Our inner critic thrives in comparison. Particularly those comparisons where it tells us that we're coming up short, right? And so don't play that game. when you name the experience that you wanna create. And so maybe that is my intention for this holiday season. Is ease, I intend to take a step back and slow down, and that's actually what we're gonna talk about on the podcast next week is, is finding those moments of quiet in the holidays. So maybe that's your intention. 2025 has been intense. The next three weeks you intend to step back and just float through. Okay, well then maybe you're not going to all the happy hours and the holiday parties and the gift swaps and the whatevers, and so when other people start talking about it, instead of you having that fear of missing out the fomo, you can say, Uhuh, it was always my intention. This is what I want. Right. Maybe you're the opposite. Maybe you intend this season to be about connection and the crazy, right, the, the tree that scrapes the ceiling in your living room and all of the chaos that comes with it. Okay, great. Well then maybe when you see the woman who has the perfectly curated pictures on Instagram and her in the apron and baking the thing and it looks so beautiful, and you start to feel like, oh, well, that I didn't do that well, okay, but that wasn't what you wanted to do. Right? You wanted the crazy chaos. Great. Right? So set that intention for the holiday and that intention. Is what helps you evaluate when that inner critic voice comes up that you're not doing enough. You aren't enough. the critical voice inside your head that we all have that intention becomes the buffer. Because you can say, Didn't mean to. Nope, not that wasn't for me. So no, you can't make me feel bad about it'cause I never wanted it to begin with. It becomes easier to release that mental chatter in the back of our mind. So that would be thing one. Set your intention. Thing two is just create an anchor. I don't know how else to say it. Find something that you can do. I'm gonna say every day if you can. And it does not have to be big. It could simply be that as you drink your cup of coffee in the morning, if you're a coffee drinker, that you take a moment. To pick three things you're grateful for or maybe you take a moment every day over your lunch break to journal on a particular topic, and I'll share with you now, I'll, I'll talk about it later. I've got a thought catching journal prompts, a set of free journal reflections on the women Lead well free resources page over on the website. That is great for connecting with your inner critic and breaking that. That doom spiral that we can find ourselves in. And so maybe it is every day at lunch, you take a minute and you just answer one of those journal prompts. Whatever it is, find the anchor that helps you feel regulated. Maybe it is a walk, maybe it is some form of exercise. Maybe it is some form of meditation. Whatever it is. It doesn't have to be big. It can take you. A minute. It's the habit of doing that thing that is so powerful. When we feel regulated, when we feel safe in our body. The inner critic is there. Inner critic's always gonna be there. That's just a facet of life. Okay? Okay. Alright. Inner critic's always gonna be there, but it doesn't have to be loud in your mind. And the more regulated, the safer you feel in your body. The quieter your inner critic is going to be, and the more naturally your inner cheerleader is gonna come out. And so find that practice. And look, I'm gonna say this isn't just for the holidays. I'm gonna say you start this habit now and you bring it with you into 2026, and it might evolve over time. Things naturally do, but you find something that you can do every day. To help you feel safe, help you feel secure and regulated in your body. And when you do that with consistency, the inner critic's voice will naturally get quieter again, always gonna be there. I don't wanna set you up of unreasonable expectations and are critics part of us, but, but they can get pretty quiet and you can do it. Okay, so now. That was number two, find your anchor, find your daily habit. Number three, and I love this one, is to name your inner critic. Look that voice in your head, your inner critic comes from an actual human being who has been a part of your life, probably in childhood. So it's probably the voice of a parent or an extended family member, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa. Maybe it's a teacher, maybe it's a coach, but it is some human being from your past. Who put that voice, the specific language, the specific type of doubt, or the specific type of criticism is tied to an actual human who you know in your life. So if you know who that inner critic is, name it. If it was your Aunt Pam, then okay, then when that voice comes up in your head. Oh, I'm failing. Oh, I'm not doing enough. Oh, I'm lazy. Oh, I'm fat. Oh, I'm whatever You can say, oh, aunt Pam, man, aunt Pam, she was always such a grouch. I love her, but she don't know me. She don't know, right? So name the inner critic and now look, you might not know. By name, where that voice is coming from. I, I have an inner critic. I do, she's been pretty loud in my past. She's a little quieter now, but I can't put a name on her, like who she was speaking into my life, she or he, right? So I call my inner critic is Sheila. Sorry if there's any Sheila's listening. I love you. But I just had to give her a name and for whatever reason, that's just what popped up. So, okay, so when I get those thoughts of I'm failing, this isn't working, I'm not good enough, I'm not working hard enough, I'm lazy. Whatever my inner critic thoughts are, I say, Hey, Sheila. Wow. Alright, Sheila, you're getting a little spicy today. Sheila, do you need something? Can I love on you a little bit? Do you need a little love today? I show her a little compassion and she usually gets pretty quiet then. Right. So name her. And that helps you create the distance so that you don't feel the thoughts in the same way. You've got some distance from the thoughts. And that can be really, really helpful. And then the last thing that I would say. Is to another way to create distance. So this would be thing four and you, you can do this in the moment or you can just do this kind of as a general reflective practice is to take that voice, whatever the thought is that's coming up. And I'll take the example of I'm lazy. I get that one. I, that's one of my inner critic voices is that I'm not working hard enough and I love my dad, but that comes from, he never called me lazy, but hard work and like consistently being in motion and consistently doing and performing was big for him. And. It's just part of his generation. he's a silent generation and that like incessant working was just grounded into him. And he, he put it into his kids in a very well-meaning and loving way. But so I get, I'm lazy as part of my inner critic voice. And so I get curious, I say this a lot on the podcast, don't I? Curiosity, not, judgment. I can say, okay, so inner critic, when I hear this, I'm lazy. What do I want in this moment? what is behind that? Is it that this thought is helping me to show up most fully as my best self right now? Because it is always possible That I am stepping back. And shrinking and playing small. in a moment where I truly do wanna step up and lean in and take that, that step and build the momentum. And the, I'm lazy is not a helpful way, but is a, a way to move me toward my best self and my highest good. And so I get curious and I say. Voice. Sheila, are you telling me I'm lazy? Because? Because there is goodness in me taking action right now. Or are you telling me I'm lazy because I have a strong pattern of feeling like I can't rest and be safe and be good and be valuable at the same time. And I get curious about it and sometimes it is that she is moving me toward my best self. So, okay. I rephrase it. It's not that I'm lazy, it's that there's this opportunity that I actually want to pursue and sometimes it is, oh no, I just don't feel safe taking a moment to sit down. Well then. How about I practice and that takes the judgment off of it and it lets me see this moment as something that is for my good. And so the fourth, you can do this in the moment, but you can also just do it as a reflection as you look at your habits and patterns, is to get curious what are the things that your inner critic says to you most often, and what might they mean? How might they serve you, the actual good of you? And again, it might not be by listening to the, oh, you're lazy, but what's behind that? What is the message behind that? That I need to learn? That it is safe to rest that serves my highest self, and sometimes I play small. And so maybe what serves my highest self is stepping out. Maybe, right? So get curious, think about it. So those are things that you can do all of the time, and as you do those things. You start to build habits and patterns of creating a little bit of distance between you and that voice of the inner critic or the message of the inner critic. It helps you get curious and to start to naturally reframe those messages in a way that do truly serve your highest self. And you are the one who decides what that looks like, not that voice that's coming from your past. And then the last thing that I wanna say here, and then we'll move into other things you can do in the moment, um, is to feed your inner cheerleader. Just like we have our inner critic telling us what's wrong about us, we have an inner cheerleader telling us that we're amazing and that we can do amazing, awesome things. And so I would encourage you to spend some time every day. This is why I make such a big deal about gratitude and the things that I'm grateful for. Is to spend a little time every day thinking through what you did great today, thinking through how you were amazing today, how you showed up in a way that you're proud of yourself today, and start those thoughts, habituate those thoughts by thinking them intentionally more often throughout your day, throughout your week, throughout your month, and over time. Remember the reticular activating system that our mind in an effort to, to filter all of the sensory inputs that we give every second, our mind silence is. something like 96% of all stimuli to just focus on a very select few. Well, okay. When we intentionally think those positive thoughts about ourselves, we're telling our reticular activating system that we wanna hear more positive thoughts about ourselves. When we allow ourselves to doom spiral on all the things that are negative, when we let the inner critic's voice get loud, we're telling our RAS that we want more of that because it's what we're putting our attention to. So you have to intentionally pro your brain is the algorithm. Think of it that way, right? Your brain is the algorithm. You're training the algorithm, you're training your brain to bring you more positive thoughts about yourself. So dial up the inner cheerleader intentionally. You've got to make the choice to do it. And now how do I do this? I can do it when I'm brushing my teeth. I'll be thinking those positive thoughts to myself. I can do it while I'm driving to pick the kids up from school. Right? Habit it, stack it or tie it to something so that it becomes habitual over time, that you're gonna have those thoughts while you're doing the thing, but you just have to be super intentional in the beginning. So what do you do in the moment when you feel triggered? Here are five things that you can do. Thing number one, just start naming neutral objects around you. This tells your nervous system. It tells your body that you're safe. Why? Because right now, pillow on chair, that doesn't threaten me. Right? Snow on ground not threatening. There's no emotional resonance to it. And when that inner critic gets loud, the emotional resonance goes up, right? It skyrockets. And so you start candle, you start bringing the emotional resonance back down coffee mug. Oh, there's a positive association with that one, right? And so that helps your mind get back on neutral footing signals security, and it helps you settle back down. It breaks that cycle. You just wanna get in and break the loop, So that is using your eyeballs to look at things. Two, you can do the same thing but with a physical touch. And I did this just recently. We were, traveling for Thanksgiving. And I can sometimes get a little anxious when there's a lot of people around and the noise gets high and it's tight. I said, a value of mine is freedom, right? When I feel confined, um, I can just get antsy, like, let's go. I don't like waiting in lines. I don't like waiting the last three minutes for something to start, like I just wanna go and do. I don't like the artificial, I'm stuck in the holding pattern. Well, we were in a situation, we were stuck in a holding pattern, and I could tell I was starting to get antsy, like the skin crawls. I've talked about this before. And so I just did the this, right? You take for those of watching on YouTube, if you're listening to the audio, you can't hear, but I would just tap my thumb to my pinky, then my thumb to my ring finger, then the middle finger, then the pointer finger, and you just tap your thumb to your fingers. And it's bilateral movement.'cause I'm using both sides of my body at the same time, and that signals safety to the body. And so I just did that while we were waiting to move forward and it, everything was fine. It didn't feel great, right? But I also named it said, okay, right now I am feeling this way. I'm feeling a little anxious. I wanna get moving. And I just did, so just the physical touch. You can, a lot of us are wearing sweaters this time of year. You can just rub your hand very unobtrusively on a sweater, or if you've got fuzzy pants on or what, whatever it is. Just something, use the sense of touch to help signal safety to the body. And again, you can do this out in public. Nobody has to see you. Nobody saw me tapping my finger. I wouldn't hold my hands up. Then I had them down low. Nobody was looking. You can intentionally relax the muscles in your jaw. A lot of us tighten our jaw when we're tense. When that inner critic gets loud, we can clinch our jaw. So if you intentionally say, just as you're standing there having conversation at the holiday party, can I relax my jaw? I do this a lot'cause I wear glasses I like. T tighten up the muscles in my face to hold the glasses up. Can I relax my face right now? And just let the muscles in your face relax. Can I relax my shoulders as I stand here? And just as you're sitting there, as you're standing there, no one's gonna know you're doing it. You just intentionally start to relax the muscles in your body. And as you do that, you're shifting attention away from the negative thought. To signaling safety in your body. And as you do that, that naturally reduces the volume of that inner critic. And the last thing that you can do, and we're gonna wrap up, is that you can, as you breathe in, exhale longer than you inhale. So we've talked about this before. You inhale through your nose, hold it at the top. Exhale through your mouth. A lot of times if you're intentionally doing breath work, that exhale is gonna have, a sound to it. You're going to hear the breath as you exhale it, and you could do that maybe in a crowded venue, but you might not wanna do that, in public all the time. That's okay. The key is that you exhale longer than you inhale. So inhale through your nose, hold it at the top, exhale for longer through your mouth. You don't have to make a noise doing it, you can do it silently. I do it all the time. And again, you do that for a minute. Get a few of those breaths in, a few of those breaths out. That helps with your vagus nerve, it helps with your nervous system and it helps you to feel safe. So all of that, will help just. Shut off the inner critic in the moment. You're shifting your attention away from the inner critic to safety in your body, and that just turns down the volume. So I hope those were helpful for you. I hope that can help you navigate the inner critic, uh, and, and maybe some uncomfortable social situations that we tend to have through the holidays. And I hope that you will join me next week when we talk about the gift of stillness. Winter is such a powerful time of year and. We can gloss right over, we can just barrel right through it trying to get to spring. And when we do that, we lose some of the magic of the season. And so, uh, we're gonna spend some time next week talking about how you carve out time for quiet and reset and renewal during a busy holiday season. Now, if this episode spoke to you, I would love for you to share it with a friend who's running on empty. We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you could leave a review, I would love you very much. I mean, I love you anyway, but I would be so very grateful to building those reviews on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube. It really does help a little podcast like mine get some traction and get shown. To more women who could benefit. Please don't forget, you can always grab one of our free resources, like the Thought Catching Journal prompts or, the Yearend Review. All of that is available on the Women Lead Well website, and I will link it in the show notes below. Remember, joyful, sustainable, and authentic Leadership is possible. And you deserve to enjoy every minute of it. Until next time, I'm Becky Hamm, and this is joyfully Unstoppable.