The Gremlin

OK, last week I told you about the Genius so this week we'll learn about The Gremlin. You are probably more familiar with The Gremlin than you are with The Genius. The Gremlin is the critical voice in you. The Gremlin tells you what it thinks you’re doing wrong and tries to make you feel guilty.

As we try to get more comfortable with asking our Genius for help or answers to our life problems, The Gremlin doesn't like it. So, it usually answers first--and often quite loudly--hoping you will think it's the Genius and do what it says. But, you'll know it’s The Gremlin answering, if you are feeling afraid, worried, angry or guilty.

The way to neutralize the criticism from The Gremlin is to not judge that part of you. Don't judge the critical part of yourself and soon it will grow weaker because you aren't giving it focus and attention. And, try giving it another function besides being critical of you. ie--instead of seeing it as critical, try to learn from it. If it tells you something "bad" about yourself, evaluate what it's criticizing and change that behavior before it becomes worse. Use its feedback constructively rather than assuming that the criticism is correct.


We are always choosing between living our life from the perspective of The Genius or The Gremlin. And, remember, when you’re held hostage by The Gremlin, you can’t be enjoying the freedom that The Genius offers.

You can either learn how to make the most out of the rest of your life or you can have anger, fear, worry and guilt, but you can’t have both. Luckily, the choice is yours.

As you start listening to The Gremlin less often, it won’t like it very much so it will crank up the volume on the anger, fear, worry and guilt. But, this is a good sign, because once you start feeling all those feelings more often you will know to just keep with it because things are about to change and The Gremlin is about to give up ground. Or, maybe disappear altogether.

Any anger you are carrying in you will act as a magnet and draw more anger to you. And, anger, fear, worry and guilt keep us from having what we want in life. So, getting rid of the anger is a step toward having more Genius in our life.

Assuming you’d rather live life with The Genius than The Gremlin, you’ll need to learn a way to minimize The Gremlin. One way to do that is by using what I call the “Getting Rid Of The Mad” list. I'll share the this technique with you in next week's post.

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