Banish Your Inner Critic

Imposter Syndrome is that inner voice telling you that your work is not good enough or, even worse, that you’re useless as a person.

• Self-criticism can really put (and keep) us down.
• Suffering from ‘imposter syndrome’ is common among most of us.
• Even with those people where you least expect it, they often suffer from some form of self-criticism.
• Creativity comes from relaxing self-evaluation and self-judgment – and the self-criticism and self-doubt that result from them.
• Feeling like an imposter can impact one’s ability to be creative or try things.

Instead of applying self-criticism, we need to actively practice the opposite: self-compassion. 

Self-compassion is realising that self-criticism is the enemy and then acting to reverse its negative effects. Self-compassion also helps to unlock creativity. 

The two components of self-compassion:

1. Making a conscious effort to stop self-judgment.
2. Actively comforting ourselves, the same as we would do with a friend in need.

Awareness of your inner critical voice is crucial. This then enables you to see your critical thoughts for what they are: thoughts.

Being more aware of what your brain and mind do when sensing a potential threat in the form of being judged and receiving criticism will encourage the development of a calmer part of the mind.

There are a number of so-called cognitive distortions that are relevant to the Inner Critic:

• Mental filters, or selective abstraction.
• Tunnel vision.
• Magnification and Minimisation or binocular trick.
• Overgeneralizations
• Jumping to conclusions
• Mind reading or hunches.
• Pessimism and catastrophizing a given situation by imagining the worst.
• Emotional reasoning.
• Thinking in All or Nothing terms(Black or White)
• Ignoring positive aspects of a situation
• Thinking everything is our own fault
• Mislabeling of characterizations

The good thing about negative confirmation bias is that it can be flipped to create a positive full-filling prophecy too.

Rather than walking around in a perpetual state of feeling that no one believes in you, you can be on the hunt for support. Take confirmation and use it as a force for good to seek out positivity rather than negativity.

Something happens and we imagine the absolute worst. Our mind plays tricks and we start ‘awfulizing’.

To stop this:

• First, on a piece of paper or in a journal, write down and answer the question: What I am afraid will happen?
• Next, write down a response to this question: What could happen?

If we actively apply realistic optimism, looking at the facts of the situation at hand without embellishing or minimising them, we can avoid a ‘spiralling’ effect.

There are a number of valuable tips to help you learn to take criticism well and use it to get better at whatever you are doing:

• Breathe.
• Detach from the situation or event mentally.
• Listen actively.
• Get specific demands and relevant, constructive criticism.
• Discover new perspectives.
• Be curious.
• Grow.
• Learn in real time.

Letting go of our preoccupation with the trajectory of other people’s lives, we can transform our envy from a stagnant, blocking force into a powerful motivator for growth.

The tools and ideas above help us reframe our self-criticism; seeing critical thoughts for what they are and combating them with compassionate thoughts.