Humans in Healthcare: Chapter 13

Taming the Inner Critic with Dr. Kate Cozart, PharmD

What is an Inner Critic?

An inner critic is an internal voice telling you that you aren’t enough.

We often feel like we are the only ones struggling with an inner critic, but the truth is, it’s a nearly universal experience.

Can you relate?

Taming the Inner Critic is one part of Kate’s larger IMAGES Framework toward the most confident versions of ourselves:

Inner Critic
Metabolism for Praise and Criticism
Avatars
Ground View
Emotional Self-Regulation
Saboteurs

Below, Kate will share her backstory to the inner critic framework followed by the tools within her framework.

☑️ And for extra credit, be sure to read to the end for two extra resources:

• extra tips on how I work daily to transform my inner critic to an inner coach

• a quick reference guide to Kate’s framework

Kate’s inner critic backstory:

You aren’t enough. You don’t deserve a platform to speak. You will never succeed as an author. 

These the first words I remember my Inner Critic telling me when I was 8 years old.

Earlier that day, I was at the Young Authors’ Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, an opportunity to meet other children writers and published children’s book authors as well. Excitement and nerves all rolled into one culminating moment to share the story I had spent months writing. The year before, I had written a story and read it to the audience, but this year, when it came time to speak—I froze. My passion for writing was instantly stifled by the voice telling me I could now never succeed as an author.

My Inner Critic had appeared and would shadow me for the next 25 years.

In 2020, everything I thought I knew changed. There was a drastic change in healthcare, which coincided with another very important change—the birth of a precious boy named Cavern—growing our family and giving our son Cub a baby brother. In those first months of 2020, my Inner Critic told me a lot of things. I shouldn’t have chosen healthcare. I can’t excel as both a provider and a mom.

My Inner Critic tells me things that are often rooted in truth, at least in part, yet they cause me to feel shame, which reminds me of an important distinction Brene Brown’s works have taught me. When you think of the “thing” as bad, you feel guilt, but when you see yourself as bad, that’s shame.

My Inner Critic’s goal is to bring shame rather than positive change. If I make a mistake and immediately think that no good healthcare provider could have ever made that error, this isn’t going to bring growth, but rather shame.

Once I know who’s talking, I can start taking the steps needed to tame the voice of the critic. When I pre-identify those Inner Critic thoughts, I am able to shut down the process much more rapidly.

This framework is my map to helping every one of us tame that Inner Critic voice and find hope for lives where we can fully love ourselves.

Taming the Inner Critic Framework

Would 10/10 People Agree?

The first tool I use, and use often, is a simple question: “Would 10/10 people agree with me?” If the answer is no, then I need to find an answer grounded in truth and not my Inner Critic thoughts. I think back regularly to the early years after residency, especially those first months when I began practicing independently as a clinical pharmacist practitioner in diabetes management. Among those thoughts, I replay the first time I knew I’d made a mistake. No harm occurred but that didn’t matter because at that moment, I thought I was alone. It seemed like an unforgivable mistake as a new clinician.

After months went by, I asked a few colleagues about the situation. They consistently responded with, "I've done that too" or shared their own similar stories. Their empathy was the cure for my shame.

Talk To Yourself Like Someone You Love

The second tool I recommend is asking yourself if you’d ever talk to your best friend like that or stand by quietly if someone else did. It is often much easier to show compassion for others than for yourself, and this re-frame can help bring empathy from an outside perspective. If the words are untrue or unkind, this question stops me in my tracks.

Highlighting Your Strengths

The third way to turn down the volume of your Inner Critic's voice is to focus on your strengths. If you’re not sure what your strengths are, there are numerous strengths assessments that can help. When you know the things you are simultaneously good at and energized by, and choose to intentionally us on them, they will begin to speak the loudest.

A recent example of my Inner Critic's voice is regarding me writing a book. I've already shared the very personal story of my Inner Critic at age eight telling me I would never be an author. So how did I get here – a published author? AJ Harper has a phenomenal book on writing, and in 2022, I read the words, "The first draft is just math," and everything changed. I excel at math, and by focusing on my strength, I knew I could write a first draft.

Name Your Inner Critic

The fourth tool I use to tame my Inner Critic is naming her. I will be transparent that I was very skeptical of this when I read of this process, but once I tried it, the shift in my mindset was undeniable. One of the things my Inner Critic reverts to often is unkind words about my body image. I've now named the Inner Critic that speaks negatively about my body "Sam." Because she has a name, it's much easier to tell her to go away. Sam is right that I'm not perfect, but Kate has the power to step in and tell Sam to go away because perfect is not (and never will be) the goal.

Don’t Should On Me

Sometimes I think our Inner Critic’s voice comes from the internalization of words of shame that others have spoken to us. My next tool is simply asking myself whose voice is really saying this comment. Am I hearing that I should be perfect or skinny or better because of a voice that said that to me? When I acknowledge that, I just echo the words of Julianna Glasse and reply "Don't should on me."

Practice Self-Compassion

It takes compassion and courage to win over shame, and sometimes that compassion is in the form of self-compassion. When faced with criticism, we often feel defensive or crushed, but we can turn the tide by practicing the self-compassion we deserve. Self-compassion builds resilience and empowerment. Science has shown that our brains are drawn to negative thoughts, and often this coincides with the activation of the fight/flight/freeze response. Self-compassion drives us away from the activation of this sympathetic nervous system response. One of my goals as an author is to fill the world with people that no longer buy into the lies of the Inner Critic, and by practicing self-compassion, we can use our newfound energy to fill the rest of the world with compassion and empathy.

Neuroplasticity & Cognitive Flexibility

The science of neuroplasticity tells us that our brains evolve in response to our lived experiences, and we can train our brains to think in new ways. Our brains are programmed for negative thought loops, and we experience surges in brain activity when we face negative stimuli, so it is often hard to re-route those thoughts, meaning we get stuck buying into the words of the Inner Critic. Neuroplasticity forms the basis for our ability to have cognitive flexibility, and by making little shifts in our thought patterns, we can learn to break the automaticity of neural pathways.

Create a Gratitude practice

Creating a gratitude practice is associated with increased happiness, better sleep, better physical health, less fatigue, and less burnout. This can simply be creating a list of people you are grateful for, allowing yourself to fully experience awe, or journaling your wins. When the Inner Critic tries to bring you down, gratitude can elevate you.

How Kate puts this framework into practice

How does this look in practice? When my Inner Critic tells me, "You shouldn't be such a slob," I start by telling Sam to go away. I next recognize that my strong reaction is because of how much I don’t want to disappoint my family. I then reframe the thought, since using should is not a valuable way to bring about change. I practice self-compassion by reminding myself that my lack of organization is often a result of being pulled in a million directions as a wife, mom, medical provider, writer, and speaker, and I affirm that 10/10 people would not think of me as a slob even in my moments of disarray. I focus on my strengths, like my love of learning, which helps me continue to grow and share that growth through writing and speaking. I then express gratitude for my home and create affirmations like: "I will not let anyone ‘should’ on me" and "I have a gift worth sharing." One final reminder that is crucial in my life comes from Romans 10:11, which reminds me that He is enough, so I am enough.

If you’ve ever struggled with your own Inner Critic, it’s now up to you to turn these tools into actions and start taming your Inner Critic today.

☑️ For extra credit: Click here to learn about how Amy transforms her inner critic to an inner coach (complete with some fun graphics!)

🗄️ Resources for humans (in healthcare)

Download the quick guide or click on it to reference the link version!

About Kate

Kate Cozart is a pharmacist, educator, and advocate for wellness in the workplace. She has a passion for writing and speaking on all things well-being – especially psychological safety, impostor syndrome, the inner critic, resilience, burnout, and compassion in medicine. Her chapter on Taming the Inner Critic can be found in the international multi-author book Things I Wish I Knew, published in 2023 by Elite Impact Publishing, and this is just the beginning! She also is the creator of The Confident Provider Academy, which focuses on transformation from burnout and impostor syndrome to confidence and hope. Recent honors include being selected as Outstanding Student Preceptor for 2022 by the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists and serving as the 2023-24 Chair of the American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists Section of Pharmacy Educators Advisory Group on Development of the Educational Workforce.

🤝 To connect with Kate:

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