Why It Might Be Time to Fire The Board…Or Maybe Just Restructure a Bit

“The opposite of people-pleasing is leadership.” Emily P. Freeman

Some people have an inner critic. I’ve got a whole board of them. Everything I say or do has to go through them. The Board runs my life, keeps me in line, keeps me from over-stepping, keeps me from breaking any rules.

They remind me all of the things I should and should not do. Sometimes they contradict each other, and I freeze, unable to make any movement, petrified of losing their approval or causing conflict of any sort.

The Board keeps me locked in perpetual cycles of shame, not able to move forward or grow organically, unable to be my authentic self for fear I will upset someone. They are always reminding me of someone that will be upset by or who will misconstrue my words or actions.

It’s exhausting trying to keep their approval. Yet, this is how I have spent the majority of my life so far—working overtime to appease every voice on that board. I’ve let them take the lead on every major or minor decision. They boss and bully me around and remind me all too often that, in their eyes, I am always either too much or not enough.

The Board—the inner panel of judges and critics, the mouthpiece of The Rulebook…

What are we to do with them?

I sat in the velvet, turquoise chair across from my therapist, complaining about how stuck I felt. I explained that every decision I made felt like it had to go through a rigorous approval process in my head. I was frustrated that I couldn’t just say what I wanted to say, do what I wanted to do, or create what I wanted to create without ending up in internal battles with the overly critical voices in my head.

Her next words shook me to my core, “It’s like you have a board of directors in your head. You listen to them more than to yourself. Maybe it’s time to fire them.”

Fire them. Yes. Simple. That felt…good. I got to work straight away, scrawling a letter of termination in my journal:

“To the Board of (No Longer) Trustees: I don’t trust you anymore to lead my life or make my decisions. I hereby terminate our professional and personal relationship…”

It was at this precise moment, barely two sentences in, that I began to envision the faces of “The Board” sitting around a crowded conference table. I scanned their faces with recognition. Each face represented a person or personality I had met in my lifetime. There were teachers, pastors, and other authority figures in addition to family members, old friends, and “frenemies”—one common thread being my desperate desire for their approval.

Despite most of them no longer being a part of my daily life, I was terrified to disappoint them still. I knew it was time to let them go. I had allowed them to live “rent-free” in my head, making decisions for me, for far too long. I knew what I had to do so I continued writing:

“I am choosing to be my own boss. I plan to lead my own life from here on out without asking your opinion anymore. I’m tired of listening to you instead of allowing myself to be authentic and true to myself—the person I need to love and approve of most. I’m embracing me with all my flaws and imperfections…”

Once again, my writing was interrupted by a vision of The Board around that table that seemed to be growing in capacity…

As I continued scanning the room, I noticed “Younger Me” on The Board, too. There were several past versions of myself around that intimidating table. There was the rule-follower part of me, the teenage me hiding behind her precious guitar, and Littlest Lauren—the version of me that existed before I learned all these “rules” with her fiery, opinionated spirit and outspoken voice.

I couldn’t just fire her.

Then, I noticed some other faces. People that I love and who I knew loved me—my parents, mentors, and even my husband and best friend. Why were they there? In the life I was actually living, outside of my head, I would want these people’s advice. Was it really the right call to fire them?

I recalled an article that I had read by Elaine Smookler, published in Mindful magazine, that invited the reader to “invite their demons to tea.” The article made the point that usually our “demons”— whether that be some strong emotions that we want to avoid like fear or anger or our inner critic—are usually trying to tell us something about ourselves. Sometimes, our “demons” have good points to make…BUT, that doesn’t mean they have the final “say-so.”

And I realized while trying to fire my own demons—a.k.a. The Board—that maybe I needed to stop avoiding them. Instead, perhaps I needed to hear them out. Once I did this, I quickly realized that the concerns they brought to the table were not all meant to incapacitate me or throw me into a shame spiral; Some of the concerns were…well, valid.

As I listened, their furrowed brows and withering stares were replaced with relief, compassion, gentleness, and something else I couldn’t quite name…humanity, perhaps?

That was it! Instead of staunch judges and critics, I began to see these faces as human. Once I saw them as human, I was able to offer them compassion and empathy. I could see their own fears at play and their reasons for saying the things they had to say. Maybe I didn’t need to fire them after all.

Still, I knew that something had to change. Even if people I loved were on The Board, even if they made good points sometimes, I could NOT allow them to be the ultimate decision makers. They couldn’t agree on anything anyway, and this lack of agreement made decision-making impossible. They couldn’t even agree on who was in charge.

And perhaps that was my own fault.

I had trusted The Board so explicitly for so long that I had lost complete trust in myself, and worse, I had lost MYSELF. I was never in a solid state, always morphing and forcing myself to fit molds that were not intended for me in order to keep others happy. Nothing worked, and I always felt stuck. Instead of taking charge, I waited and hoped that someone, someday would come along and rescue me. They would make things happen and give me permission to be myself. I dreamed of a sturdy, self-assured person who would teach me their ways, tell me what to do, and perhaps tell The Board to “shove it.” Respectfully.

But I realized in that therapy session and the journaling sessions afterwards, that the person I had been waiting for was ME. Instead of morphing into these unrecognizable shapes driven only by my desire to please others and win their approval, it was time for me to be my own sturdy leader.

And so, the necessary restructuring process began with the most important step: placing MYSELF at the head of the table. It was far past time for me to take the seat I had been avoiding. It was time for me to be the boss and CEO of my own life.

The question remained though, what to do with The Board who had been tasked for decades with making decisions that kept me in favor with others? I had realized through this process that “firing them” was not going to be the way to go. I’m not sure it would have been that easy, anyway. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t think we ever stop caring what others think entirely. So, what IS to be done?

Emily P. Freeman says in her book How to Walk Into a Room, that the opposite of people-pleasing is not NOT caring what others think; the opposite of people-pleasing is leadership. Leaders don’t NOT care what others think. They have to learn to care in a different way.

To me, this means allowing and even cultivating a safe space for others to voice their thoughts and opinions. It means listening, really listening, while remaining the sturdy leader who makes the final decision. Every successful person, business, or organization has people that they go to for advice and counsel, but ultimately, the leader has the final say. And so, the restructuring continued with my Board of Directors being put in their proper place of Board of Advisees.

Sometimes, they still get kind of loud and overly critical, and I have to remind them who is in charge. That’s me. I am in charge. I am the leader of my own life.

Perhaps you have your own “Panel of Judges” or “Board of Directors” that you find yourself having to answer to. I invite you to consider if it might be time for you to restructure as well. I’m not saying to fire The Board—sometimes they have important things to say—but maybe it’s time to find them more appropriate roles. Perhaps it’s time for you to finally take the CEO’s seat in your own life and stop trying to keep The Board and everyone else happy with your decisions. That is a fool’s errand, and we don’t need any more fools running things around here. We need sturdy leadership.

No more people-pleasing. It’s time to lead.

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