As a leadership development coach, I was thrilled when I noticed that April’s Harvard Business Review was entirely devoted to the topic of failure — how to understand it, learn from it, and recover from it. It spoke about resilience — the capacity to rebound from failures and disappointments — and the importance of speaking to ourselves from a positive attitude that interprets experience as rich with lessons and opportunities to learn and move on.

Many of us, even very successful people, struggle with a harsh Inner Critic that tells us that we are not smart enough, talented enough, attractive enough, etc. The Inner Critic holds us hostage, inhibits our expression, creates fear and anxiety, and sometimes blocks our most creative output. The Inner Critic is an internal force that blocks the development of resilience by assuming and predicting bad outcomes. It distorts our perception of neutral situations by projecting a negative outlook.

Continue reading this article at The Huffington Post.