Controlling the Inner Critic

There are two immutable truths about creating. I have no idea what the first one is, but I do know that the second one is this: At some point during the creation of something new, a dark voice from the depths of your psyche will speak up and tell you it's not good enough. Depending on the particular act of creation and your own personal psyche, that voice will say "It's not great," or "It's awful, terrible. Really, it's the worst thing ever to grace the face of the planet, so why don't you just give up, go crawl in the corner, and die," or anything and everything in between.

This voice, my friends, is the Inner Critic. He rarely gets invited to parties.

Just how the Inner Critic first came into being is a story lost to the mists of time. Over the years, however, his own aggrandizement and increased sense of self-importance have led him to have the most crippling effect on budding Creatives. He keeps want-to-be novelists and painters from ever taking the plunge, causes budding sculptors and composers to stick their creations in a dark drawer or closet, and stops successful choreographers and craftsmen from letting some really incredible works make their mark on the world. I know of no creative person -- regardless of gender, art, experience, or success -- who doesn't feel the Inner Critic's potent words from time to time.

Here's the sad thing -- we need the Inner Critic.  The Inner Critic is the thing that helps us take an okay piece of work and polish it up into an outstanding piece.  Mr. Critic's fine discernment is invaluable to the improvement of a novel or a song.  The problem comes into play when we let the Critic have free rein of our heart and mind and let him go to town on a fledgling piece of work, ripping it to shreds before it's even poked fully out of its shell.

A new creation -- even one halfway or most of the way through its rough draft stage -- is a delicate, fragile thing.  When I start a new piece, there is a sort of ethereal quality about it, like a sold object forming out of the mist.  Until that piece has reached completion in its rough draft form -- and sometimes not even then -- there is still a sense of unreality about it, a feeling that any part of it could change at any moment.  None of it is set in stone, or even in balsa wood.

When the Inner Critic gets his way with a work at this stage of life, all he has to do is breathe in its general direction, and it can dissolve back into the ether like so much smoke.  A creation at this early stage is so fragile that most artists don't dare show it to any other living soul, even their closest friends or loved ones.  Yet these same protective creators will throw the door wide and let the Inner Critic come in, wielding his verbal machete and hacking it to death.

So, what's a creator to do?

Keep the Inner Critic out -- Not forever, but at least at first.  As you write a rough draft -- as I and so many others are doing during NaNoWriMo -- keep the door locked and the Critic out.  Let him know you'll let him in when the time is right, but that that time is not right now.

Ignore what the Inner Critic says -- No matter how hard you try to keep the Critic out, he will still make comments based on the brief glimpses he steals through the keyhole or the sounds he hears as you tinker behind closed doors.  When you hear those comments, smile, nod politely, then relegate them to your mental landfill.  If it suits your temperament, feel free to tell the Inner Critic what he can go do with himself.

Keep going -- Through the struggles to keep the Critic out, the fight to ignore what he says even when he has nothing to really base his opinions on, you must keep going.  No one -- not your significant other, not your best friend, not your Inner Critic, not even YOU -- are fit to judge your work before it has at least had the chance to reach the end of its rough draft stage.  Even then, put it away for a day or a week or a month before you come back to it.  When you do, you may be surprised to find it's not as bad as all that, and in fact, with a little bit of work, you and your Inner Critic might be able to turn it in to something really wonderful.


Notice this post isn't entitled "Silencing the Inner Critic."  That's because, in the long run, the Inner Critic is your friend.  All it takes is a little practice, however, to control him and make him do what you want him to, when you want him to do it, and not the other way around.  So, take some time, get your Inner Critic under control, then get back to the computer, keyboard, or drawing board, and get your creations out into the world.