When To Listen To Your Inner Critic - And When To Tell It To Shut Up
Ah, the inner critic. That little voice in the back of your mind can be a pessimistic downer that keeps you from achieving your dreams if you listen to it too closely. Plus, it's just no fun. But sometimes, in the right moderation, that inner critic could actually be helpful.
See, at the end of the day, that inner critic is trying to be on your side. It wants to protect you. Sometimes, it can be an overprotective mother hen, keeping you in the nest when what you want to do is fly. But if you learn when to listen to your inner critic - and when to tell it to shut up - you can channel that inner critic to help motivate you! So in today's blog, that's exactly what we're going to discuss.
When To Listen To Your Inner Critic
To Use It as a Warning Bell
Are you feeling hypercritical about a project that you're working on? Every time you go to sit down to work, you have all of these little protests going off in your head? it could be that your inner critic is trying to alert you that something is wrong with the project. After all, your inner critic is ultimately YOU. If it's throwing a fit, that's probably because something doesn't feel right to you.
Maybe the heart of the problem is that you feel in over your head, or there's something that isn't quite working about the project. If you use your inner critic as a warning bell, you can take the chance to pause and figure out what's wrong.
To Sharpen Your Skills
Your inner critic may sound harsh, but try to strip away all the insults and useless panics to get to the heart of the issue. As a writer, it might feel like my inner critic is telling me, "You're the worst writer ever!" But when I listen more closely, what I find is more accurate is usually, "You need to work on your description work!" And that's...great advice, actually.
Your inner critic can be an opportunity to sharpen your skills, if you listen to it closely enough to get to the heart of the matter.
To Gain a Better Self-Understanding
Remember what we said, that your inner critic is just you? If you have a contentious relationship with your inner critic, that just means you need a little more self-compassion and understanding. Instead of letting your inner critic yell at you and tell you everything that's wrong with you, try to have a conversation. Ask it, "Hey. What's really bothering you?" The more you learn to talk to your inner critic, the better you understand yourself.
When To Tell Your Inner Critic To Shut Up
When You're Playing Comparison Game
If your inner critic is throwing you into an extra inning of the comparison game, it's time to take a break. A little bit of healthy comparison with your peers might be a good thing: it can challenge you and motivate you. But too much only serves to be discouraging - and it can build up resentment. If your inner critic is complaining that you're not as good as so-and-so and never will be, it's no longer helping. Time to shut that down.
When You're Ruminating
You know when you fall into a spiral of negative thoughts that you can't seem to stop? That's rumination, and the inner critic is unfortunately pretty good at it. This can often happen when you know there's something to fix but you aren't able to do it right now or aren't able to do it on your own. So your inner critic starts spinning out of control to make up for it, but it only makes things worse. When you start ruminating, the best thing to do is to distract yourself and put your inner critic in time out. Tell it that you'll talk to it when you need it, and not before.
When You Can't Enjoy Your Work
If you're striving for motivation, often it's because you have a goal that you really want. You may have a dream job or project that you want to work on. For me, it's writing. But when my inner critic gets too strong, I find myself hating my writing - the one thing I'm usually the most passionate about. That happens because my inner critic is tired, and it's been wearing me out in turn.
So what's the best thing to do? Most of the time, take a break. I do something restful to remind myself why I love what I do...regardless of what my inner critic says.
Your inner critic can be a boon, but only if you know when to let it talk and when to put it away. Fortunately, Motivation Depot is here for you at every step of the process. Check out more of our blogs for extra doses of motivation!
