Banish Your Inner Critic Read online

  Based on several years of research on the creative process, articles written and presentations developed and delivered around the world, survey feedback, coaching clients, and most importantly, talking with conference and workshop attendees and other creatives of all sorts in multiple industries, I know that the Inner Critic is the largest block to creativity that exists.

  To create, we need to acknowledge the Inner Critic and the damage it does to our work life, personal life, and general well-being.

  To create lasting change, however, we really need to learn how to break its power over us so we can regain our capacity to create.

  I wrote this book because I want you to be able to work better, produce more, and create with a higher level of excellence than you already do. By identifying and disempowering the various forms of the Inner Critic that plague us, we can remove the barricades standing between us and our full creative expression. This book will help you do just that.

  However, I also wrote this book because I feel your pain. I know the topography of self-criticism personally: I have struggled with a particularly mean and relentless Inner Critic that has made me miserable at for most of my life. Because of my own Inner Critic, I have traveled far and wide in the lands of self-judgment and self-doubt, dismissing the creativity that I did have, believing that my work wasn’t good enough, and being so focused on what others were doing that I couldn’t see my own strengths or progress.

  Imagine being able to create without the internal mental friction of the Inner Critic. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? It’s not just a pipe dream – it can be done. I know because I’ve experienced it myself.

  You see, not only do I write this book from the standpoint of someone who was unsure that she was truly creative; I also write it from the standpoint of someone who has finally silenced her Inner Critic, who embraces and owns her creativity, and who now feels unstoppable.

  Triumphing Over My Own Inner Critic

  There are those who, by either good fortune or hard work, are not afflicted by self-doubt and don’t seem to have much of an Inner Critic at all. And then there are the rest of us: we who struggle daily to maintain a modicum of self-assurance as we go through our work and personal lives because of the barrage of self-critical inner dialogue that is our constant companion.

  I used to be in this latter group – until I had an experience that changed my life. Let me tell you what happened.

  When I wrote my first book, The CSS Detective Guide, the experience did not start out all sunshine and Santa Claus. I landed a book contract from a serendipitous meeting at a tech conference party, and I was thrilled to be on track to achieving my two big life goals:

  Becoming an author, and

  Using my expert status to become a speaker.

  There was only one problem: I was terrified.

  The first two days of my unrealistically aggressive schedule (four and a half months to write a 250-page tech book) found me sobbing on my couch. And let me be clear about this: I wasn’t sniffling quietly and dabbing at my eyes with a tissue. Oh no. I blubbered while sitting on the side of my couch, as my tears flowed onto the plush sage green fabric of the pillow I clutched to my chest. My fears of not knowing enough, looking stupid, being judged, being a fake and a fraud, and not being good enough all plagued me to the point of near-paralysis. Finally, on the third day I bucked up, put on my big-girl pants, and finally sat down to the very hard work of...researching. You know, the incredibly advanced and rigorous task of looking up articles on the web, reading them, and then earmarking relevant information to put in my book. Yes, it’s true: I had worked myself up into an emotional froth over something that I could practically do in my sleep. As a friend of mine would say: Crazypants!

  During the next eight months of writing my book (because doing it in four and a half months was completely untenable), I came up against that inner critical voice that tried to block my ideas and creatively paralyze me almost daily. This voice told me every day that

  my ideas were stupid

  even though I had taught this subject for five years at a college level, that I wasn’t enough of an expert on it

  my web designs were amateur and simplistic

  people would judge me negatively and criticize my book for not being in-depth, complete, or advanced enough

  That’s right: every day.

  The way I often describe the experience is that instead of exercising creativity, I practiced its evil twin: destructivity. With every fearful thought of not being expert enough, not knowing enough, wondering if my writing was any good, and doubting my ability to design websites, I tore myself down. To try to build myself up, each day I had to focus on what was directly in front of me and do my best to ignore my anxieties about my perceived deficiencies. But they were still there.

  Sometime in the fourth month of writing, I’d had enough. I needed

  to figure out how to turn off (or at least manage) this unending parade of self-critical thoughts. I did a little bit of research on self-criticism and found out about this thing called the Inner Critic. Although I didn’t know it, something clicked inside of me, because a few days later, an idea for a presentation came to me in the shower. Still dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, I grabbed pencil and paper to jot down four pages of notes. A few weeks later, I was awakened at 5 a.m. by an idea for a creativity-busting workshop. Something big was brewing in my subconscious.

  However, while I was designing the website for The CSS Detective Guide, I had a truly magical experience that changed everything.

  To have my book’s website up before I spoke on a panel at the major tech conference South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive at the end of the week, I sat down to create my website mockup in Photoshop from a sketch so I could code it more easily. Much to my surprise, my quick sit-down consumed me, so much so that I was an hour and a half late going to a friend’s house for dinner. Through the whole evening, I longed to return to my designing, so when I got home at 12:30 a.m., I thought “I’ll just do a little bit and then go to bed.” 1 a.m., then 2 a.m., and then 3 a.m. rolled by, and I just couldn’t stop. With my favorite jazz playing in the background, I was in the high of creative flow as I experimented with color, typography, and layout. It was sheer bliss.

  Finally, at 5:30 a.m., still fired up about designing, I stopped because I knew that if I didn’t, I would surely get a migraine the next day. Buzzing from the creative juices coursing through me, I did my best to go to sleep.

  Waking up again a mere two hours later, I was eager to get back to my creation. My whole body effervesced with energy. In fact, I was beyond blissful: I was euphoric. I felt a continuous rush of excitement and power similar to that of being in love. I felt like I could do anything I put my mind to. I felt like the ultimate version of myself: I felt the full power of my creative potential.

  Only in retrospect did I understand why this was such an incredibly powerful peak experience: it was the first time in so long (maybe ever?) that I had experienced creating with no internal self-critical commentary: No thoughts of, “Is this any good?” or questioning my abilities. No comparing my design to those of other people.

  No worrying about what other people would think or say about it. For the first time in eight months, I experienced criticism-free creating.

  That day I made two monumental realizations:

  First, that the absence of my Inner Critic allowed my creativity to flow! Because it was quiet, there was space for my creativity and ideas to come out to play.

  Second, that creativity is power, and it’s a source of power that each and every one of us has.

  Unfortunately, most of us rarely tap into our creative power. Why? For the same reason I sat on my couch and cried for two days instead of starting to write my book. Because of the litany of self-critical thoughts and the self-doubt that they generate. Because of the Inner Critic.

 
Immediately following those realizations, I had an even deeper epiphany: helping other people reach the feeling of being energized and completely alive by allowing their creativity to flow was what I wanted to do with my life. Why? Because when we remove the blocks, we can access this source of personal power. And when we learn to remove the blocks to more regularly access and channel our creative power, we can transform our lives and the lives of others – and change the world for the better.

  I became obsessed: I threw myself into learning about the creative process, specifically how to remove creative blocks. No matter which approach I studied, whether it was based on psychology, neuroscience, productivity, or practicality, they all led back to the same place: the Inner Critic.

  Completing my first book did indeed become the springboard for becoming a speaker in the tech industry. Once I had established a good reputation for myself, I shifted to speaking about the creative process, removing creative blocks, and silencing the Inner Critic. As I suspected, the content resonated deeply with audiences. When I took my presentation content a step further by writing an article called “Banishing Your Inner Critic,” the response was phenomenal. Hundreds of people posted and shared the article on social media for several days. It even got celebrity attention: on Google+, actress Felicia Day shared the article and vouched for the techniques that I shared. All of the responses validated what I had suspected when the idea for the creativity talk first came to me the shower: the Inner Critic is a problem that everyone has and that everyone needs help with.

  During the next few years, through the feedback from more talks, keynotes, workshops, several more articles, coaching clients, and heartfelt emails from attendees and readers describing how much the information spoke to them and altered their lives, I knew it was time for me to reach an even wider audience. I knew then that I had to take my content to the next level and make it more accessible to even more people. The indications were clear: it was time for me write a handbook on how to Banish the Inner Critic. Through this book, I could help people reclaim their creative power and start achieving more success by silencing their own voice of self-doubt.

  It’s Time for You to Triumph Too

  You’ve felt lost and in a stupor, wandering your own wastelands of self-criticism. Fortunately, you are about to (re)discover your Creative Self and your Creative Power, and break yourself out of your Inner Critic-induced trance.

  In this book, you will

  learn the origins of the Inner Critic

  discover the one brain function and three skills that you already possess to vanquish your Inner Critic

  learn multiple methods to deal with the fear of being negatively evaluated by others

  discover how to transform highly critical self-talk into that of approval and encouragement

  work on bolstering your sense of self to feel that you and your ideas are good enough

  acknowledge, unblock, and enhance your creativity

  channel your now flowing creativity as a force for positive change in the world

  You, my friend, are a pathfinder, and this book is a manual to guide you along the path of silencing your Inner Critic. Through the pages of this book, I’ll be your mentor, providing you with necessary information to change your thinking habits, and your coach, cheering you on as you release your inner critical thoughts and replace them with thoughts that support your creativity and motivate you to do your best work. Through this process, I’ve totally got your back.

  But the best part is that through using the tools contained in these chapters, instead of being your own worst creative enemy, you’ll have your own back too. By the end of this process, you’ll only value and respect your creativity more, but you’ll also end up liking and appreciating yourself more on the whole. Furthermore, you’ll find yourself free from the weight of worrying about what others think, and you’ll be able to break away from the restrictions of shoulds, musts, and oughts. You’ll escape the trap of comparing yourself to others, and you’ll drop the belief that you don’t know enough or that you need to figure everything out by yourself.

  Are you ready to start looking at the ways your Inner Critic shows up, discovering how to face your fears, bringing mistaken beliefs to the surface of your awareness, and moving beyond them to reach your own unique form of empowered creativity on the other side?

  Read on, because we are about to embark on a journey to quiet that insidious Inner Critic so you can unleash your creativity, let your true talents shine, and start doing your best work – and ultimately, live your best life by channeling your creative power for good.

  Let’s take the first step to a whole new world right now – together.

  How to Use This Book

  This book is your map for the journey back to your Creative Self.

  It’s jam-packed with approaches for raising your awareness of behaviors and habits that are counter to your creative well-being, best practices to keep you from being creatively blocked from day to day, and techniques for profound and lasting change.

  Because it is a road map, to make the best use of it, you need a key and legend, right? This information will help you to better navigate your way through the book and know what you’re looking at when you get to it.

  The Content

  Each chapter has a similar structure. Each has an overview of the topics covered, then kicks off with an anecdotal story of someone who is struggling with the particular guise of the Inner Critic covered in that chapter. A checklist of thoughts of people who share that particular form of Inner Critic will help you determine whether and how much you can relate.

  Then you’ll jump right into the content, exploring various factors that contribute to this form of the Inner Critic, typical challenges and issues that result from it, and ways you can address the potential source of your Inner Critic struggles and move into a new headspace – all supported by research.

  From there you’ll move on to the best part: one or more relevant exercises to put the concepts immediately into practice and start removing blocks to your creativity.

  Exercises: Creative Doses

  Because of the mind’s capacity to heal itself through mental training, much in the same way that medicine helps the body heal, the exercises in this book are aptly named “Creative Doses.”

  The exercises are designed to throw your Inner Critic off guard, confuse it, give it a job, and distract it — all to break the stronghold that it has on your thoughts.

  Similar to the way some medicines become more powerful over time, the potency of the Creative Doses is cumulative: the more you use them, the more effective they will become for you in creating a new mindframe.

  In some ways, however, the most important thing may not be the exercises themselves but rather the philosophies that underlie them. These four principles are the essence the of the book, the underlying foundations for every exercise.

  Change

  It’s really the brain’s capacity to think differently and consequently change itself – neuroplasticity – that is the true underpinning of this work, and what will facilitate your transformation.

  Awareness

  When we think negative thoughts mindlessly, we fall victim to them. However, when we raise our awareness of our thoughts and know when the ones we want to weed out come up, we can take action.

  Attention

  Changing the brain is driven by where we place our focus. Our work in this book will rely upon our commitment to shift our attention to focus upon the thoughts that support our creativity and sense of self.

  Self-Kindness and Self-Compassion

  You’ll find the Inner Critic is born of the habit of self-chastisement. We will actively practice generating and directing the same compassion to ourselves as we would to others, and then actively be more kind and supportive to ourselves. In fact, one way to approach the Creative Dose exercises is to think of them as
a kind future self talking to your current self, or even as a kind and compassionate version of your current self talking to your past self.

  Creative Dose Structure

  Each section of content has one related Creative Dose, sometimes two. The Creative Doses are tools and techniques that combine various modalities:

  psychology tools

  self-coaching techniques

  mental reframes

  mind-body hacks

  productivity practices

  visualizations

  written exercises/writing assignments

  quizzes

  mindfulness practices

  even improv techniques

  While all Creative Doses open with a purpose to prepare you for the upcoming content, you will find the exercises follow several different structures. So that you know what to expect in terms of the brainpower and time needed to devote to them, here is an explanation of each:

  Simple

  What you see is what you get. The exercise is complete as is and has no additional steps, parts, or options, and often can be done in less time than the other exercises in this book.

  Steps

  When you see that an exercise has steps, this means that there are multiple parts, with each part building upon the previous one in the sequence.