5 Ways to Tame an Unruly Inner Critic

Are you good at being kind to yourself? 

Think about that for just a moment. 

For many of us, it’s easy to be kind to others. Being kind is valued and encouraged from a young age in our communities. What seems to be lacking is the idea of being kind to ourselves. 

Sure, we need to take care of ourselves, but it’s not really considered a problem if we consistently put others before ourselves. In fact, it’s almost looked at as a good thing in many cases - especially care-givers. 

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that for many writers, we are harsh in criticism to ourselves.

So it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that for many writers, we are harsh in criticism to ourselves. We berate our writing, even when it’s not that bad. And rarely is it THAT BAD. I see this all the time as I work with beginning writers, or writers who have faced nasty criticism before. 

This harsh criticism comes from our inner critic. 

Our inner critic is mean. 

It’s not always mean, but it happens enough of the time to be (at best) a nuisance or even (at worst) a deterrent from getting any writing done at all. 

What is an Inner Critic? 

If you’ve heard the term before, the inner critic is probably a familiar idea. You know your inner critic, or rather, they know you, better than anyone else in the world. 

If you haven’t heard of the idea of the inner critic, you might be asking, “What the heck is that?” 

Your inner critic is that little voice in your head that critiques what you do. In writing, it’s that little voice that questions things like whether a sentence is coherent, or whether XYZ is the right word. It’s the whisper (or bullhorn) of doubt when you write something that just doesn’t feel right. It’s the voice that, at the end of the novel, goes “Does the whole thing suck?” 

The problem isn’t that your inner critic is there.

Everyone has an inner critic, and it’s likely you’ve heard it before, even if you didn’t know what it was called (or if you call it something else). Some of us are good at ignoring it, while some of us battle to not take it as direct truth every single time it makes a comment about our progress - or lack thereof. 

Incidentally, this voice also sometimes gives us praise! Things like “wow, what a great phrase!” The problem isn’t that your inner critic is there. The problem is that a lot of times the criticism is worse than warranted and yet somehow gets more attention than positive comments your inner critic might make. 

Inner Critic

We Are Our Own Worst Critic. Really. 

Whoever said this out loud first was absolutely right. We absolutely are our own worst critics! Unfortunately, writing seems to bring out the worst inner critics. 

There are several factors that go into making our inner critic so mean: 

Self-Esteem

It’s hard to be nice to yourself when you don’t believe you’re worth it. Self-esteem plays such a big role in our lives, but we don’t often notice how it trickles into things like our writing. If self-esteem is low, the inner critic in our mind sees this as a weakness and takes advantage of it. 

Confidence

Even if we have a good self-esteem, it doesn’t mean all of us are confident writers. We all have days where we doubt ourselves, but a constant lack of confidence in our skills and abilities becomes a big problem in making real progress. The inner critic sneaks in and scares us away from getting feedback, or even sometimes continuing to write at all. 

Prior Experiences

Friends, I’ve talked to A LOT of writers. And almost everyone has had a bad prior experience with writing. Whether we’ve gotten bad feedback, or been told we couldn’t (or shouldn’t) write, the differences lie with how each of us deals with it. 

You can’t be a failure because it’s something that happens, not who you are.

Some writers are resilient enough to push forward and grow from it (which is healthy), while others unleash the inner critic who rips up the last shred of our confidence. Some of us even let these experiences define our writing or ourselves for long periods of time (that was me). The inner critic sneaks reminders of these experiences in when we try to move forward with our writing.

Beliefs About Writing & Writers

While we are growing up and learning to write, we learn some weird things about writing. Somewhere along the lines we learn that writing is a talent that only some special people have, and the rest of us shouldn’t even bother trying to succeed as writers. (This is 100% false, friends.) 

We also learn that unless you become a mega-star writer like J.K. Rowling, writing can’t make you any real money so we should probably like something else along with writing - it can only really amount to a hobby. (Also untrue.) Our inner critic feeds these ideas back to us when we think about starting new creative projects or taking a leap and following our big dreams. 

Beliefs About Success & Failure

How we define success and what constitutes failure also weighs heavily on our ability to be successful writers. We feel like we are only successful when we finish something, and/or that we’re a failure if we pivot to something new when a project just isn’t working out. That’s a misconception. Anytime you make progress it’s a success. Small progress is still progress!

We have to actively change these ideas we’ve accumulated about success and failure in order to move ahead.

The other misconception is that a person can be a failure. The truth is, failure is an event. It’s not a person. You can’t be a failure because it’s something that happens, not who you are. Sure, some people have lots of failure on the record - it’s become common to say things like “FAIL” and laugh. 

We have to actively change these ideas we’ve accumulated about success and failure in order to move ahead. Our inner critic has a feeding frenzy when it thinks there’s any chance of failure because it knows it can convince you that failure is permanent - it’s you - when it’s really just an event.  

Strategies

5 Things to Do When Your Inner Critic is Particularly Self-Deprecating

So what the heck do you do about this inner critic voice? 

The bad news is you that can’t just get rid of it. 

The good news is that there are some simple things you can work on to make your inner critic work for you and not against you.

These 5 simple strategies are to:

Take a Deep Breath & Acknowledge Your Feelings

Before you do anything else, take a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. Dealing with a mean inner critic can be extremely frustrating (just like dealing with a mean person out in the real world), so you don’t want to go in with fists ablaze. 

Dealing with a mean inner critic can be extremely frustrating, so you don’t want to go in with fists ablaze. 

Once you have taken your deep breath (and a few more, if that helps you cool down) acknowledge the fact that your inner critic does have feelings. They might even have a little validity! That does not mean you have to let the inner critic or comments run the show. 

Tell Your Inner Critic to Back Off!

Chances are, if someone insults you, you probably respond to them with some kind of “back off” message, right? Treat your inner critic in the same way. 

If you don’t use strong language or harsh criticism with others, you don’t need to be saying it to yourself. Tell that little voice to take a hike! It can come back when it has something productive to say.

Make a list of regular negative comments like “this sucks” or “you should have been able to do this better the first time” and make a focused effort to stop using them & letting your inner critic use them on you. 

Explore the “Why”

As with most things, it’s generally helpful if you know why your inner critic is being a jerk.

Remember the factors: 

Self-Esteem

Confidence

Prior Experiences

Beliefs About Writing & Writers

Beliefs About Success & Failure

What’s gotten into your inner critic that’s making it say such harsh things?

What’s gotten into your inner critic that’s making it say such harsh things? The more you know about it, the easier it will be to debunk those comments. 

Take Some Critical Distance from Your Writing

I’m a big proponent of regularly taking critical distance from your writing, but especially at major milestones. This means walking away lock, stock, and barrel from your project for a set amount of time. Your inner critic won’t be as active during the distance because it’s not looking at the same writing you’ve been pouring over for weeks, months, or even years. 

Critical distance also helps you get a fresh perspective and new eyes to take back to your work. This is helpful in keeping our inner critic at bay because it knows we’re making needed improvements already - no need for another naggy reminder. 

Get Feedback from Someone You Trust

Feedback is so important to the writing process. It can also be scary! But, when your inner critic tells you that something you wrote is terrible (even if you don’t quite believe it), consider having a trusted writer friend read it and give honest commentary. 

In order for us to get an honest self-critique (and helpful feedback from others), we need to tame that beast and keep it under control. 

Having someone else look at your words can help you identify places that need work, but it can also help satiate that inner critic voice that’s chomping at the bit for things you might need to fix. Your inner critic will have much less to say when your trusted reader likes your work! 

You’ve probably heard your inner critic, and even if you are good at silencing that voice, it can sometimes get out of hand focusing on the negatives. In order for us to get an honest self-critique (and helpful feedback from others), we need to tame that beast and keep it under control. 

The great thing about taming the beast (besides satisfaction) is that none of the strategies are overly complicated. This doesn’t mean they are easy - don’t misunderstand - these things take hard work. But, they are 100% worth the effort, and you will start seeing a change in your inner critic when you start purposefully implementing them. 

My challenge to you is to choose one strategy and try it the very next time you sit down to write something. Whether that’s a blog, a creative piece, or a piece of artwork. Work on that strategy and just see what happens. I bet you’ll find it improves your writing experience. 

When you do try these tips, or if you have other experiences with how to deal with a mean inner critic, I’d love to hear about them! Find me on social media, drop a comment below, or email me at rachel@capturingyourconfidence.com!

Let’s chat because you, my friend, are on your way to great writing.