feelings and emotions that have not seen the light of day for some time. Make sure that after you’ve read the information and the exercises, you give yourself time to mull things over and see what comes up for you. There’s no need to rush this process. Your Inner Critic has been there for a long, long time. Give yourself adequate time to transform it.
Last but not least, here is my creative counsel: final recommendations for getting the most out of this process.
1 Set your intention to start the process of silencing your Inner Critic
2 Understand that this is a long game — not a sprint.
3 In place of only celebrating accomplishment, give yourself credit for effort. In other words, don’t wait to give yourself kudos until you have been able to do something “perfectly” or have arrived at some point of completion. Congratulate yourself on having started the process at all, and continue to congratulate yourself for sticking with it.
4 Be kind to yourself. Now’s the time, you’ve beaten yourself up enough.
Read and Revisit
This book is only as powerful as your application of the concepts contained here. Don’t just read the book – really make an effort to put the foundational principles and exercises into practice. And bear in mind that sometimes we need to return to a book to really take full advantage of the teachings in it. As you change and develop, you will be ready for new information. Something that only partially resonated when you read it the first time may be exactly what you need for a breakthrough when you revisit it the second, third, or even fourth time.
The Origin of the Inner Thoughts
The inner thoughts at the beginning of each chapter are not fabricated. Rather, they are from attendees to my Banish Your Inner Critic keynote and creativity workshops from 2015 to 2016. I lead an exercise that I got from my friend and colleague Jessie Shternshus: I ask everyone to write down one fear that they have around creativity, crumple the paper into a ball, and then throw it across the room. Then I have everyone pick up a paper ball that lands near them and share what was written there out loud. I’ve gathered these “snowballs” to use as examples of actual fears gathered anonymously from professionals just like you. The “snowballs” come from attendees at conferences like Adobe Max: The Creativity Conference, HOW Interactive, the British Columbia Chapter of the American Marketing Association, MinneWebCon, UX Lisbon, UX Australia, Delight Conference and others.
Disclaimers
This book is not intended to be a substitute for the advice or care of a trained mental health professional, so readers should consult with one regarding any serious matters relating to your mental health or concerning serious mental health conditions. The information contained within this book is strictly for educational purposes. If you wish to apply these ideas, you are taking full responsibility for your choices, actions, and results.
For the anecdotes at the beginning of the chapters, the names and identifying details have been altered or changed complete to protect the privacy of the individuals. Actual names and details were used only with each individual’s permission and blessing.
Last but not least, know in advance that “earworms” – pieces of music that get stuck in your mind that are incredibly difficult to dislodge – may be caused by certain chapter, section, or subsection titles in this book. The only known antidote for a pervasive earworm is to replace it with another. I apologize in advance. If it makes you feel any better, I had the song “Emotions” by Samantha Sang and the Bee Gees running through my head the entire time I was writing Chapter 1 – and that subtitle didn’t even make the final cut.
Chapter 1 | Why Banish the Inner Critic?
This chapter examines:
Creativity and Creative Flow
Inner Critic Origins
Creativity v. the Inner Critic
The Need to Reclaim Creativity
A Call to Action
“What is this self inside us, this silent observer,
Severe and speechless critic, who can terrorise us
And urge us on to futile activity,
And in the end, judge us still more severely
For the errors into which his own reproaches drove us?”
— T.S. Eliot, The Elder Statesman
Our Intrinsic Creativity
The idea first comes to you unbidden. A glimmer on the edge of your perception, it’s hazy, not fully formed, its edges fuzzy and indistinct. “Where did that come from?” you wonder briefly. But once you put your full attention on the idea, the longer you focus, the more clear and distinct it becomes. You begin to feel a welling within: a push from your gut and a quickening of your heart.
You have to capture it, this idea. You grab a piece of paper and jot down notes or do a quick sketch. Or maybe you record a quick voice memo on your phone. But the idea won’t leave you alone, and returns to you with increased insistence and clarity. Your brain starts to explode with related ideas as you start to connect the dots. Your imagination takes over, visualizing how to execute this concept that has stolen your attention.
Nothing – no mental barrier of self-doubt or questioning – comes between you and your creative work. Nothing in you says “no” or
“I don’t know.” Instead, everything in you says “yes” as you begin the process of making your idea manifest. And the more the details fall into place like puzzle pieces coming together, the more “yes” you feel. A rush of energy flows through you, compelling and motivating you to prioritize your brainchild. Interest, curiosity, and fascination take over.
Hours fly by as you are engrossed in your project. In the midst of making, you feel clear, super-focused, and confident. Once you’ve finally acted upon your idea, you feel a sense of completion and satisfaction.
While it is not the same for every single creative endeavor, this is the essence of the experience. Most people coming out of the throes of creating will tell you, face aglow and eyes still shining, that the experience, on the whole, was amazing. Regardless of whether you were designing an interface for an app, getting down ideas for your startup, writing a blog post, developing software, cooking a six-course gourmet dinner, or choreographing a performance – the process going on in your head and the sensations you were having were universal.
In fact, in my keynotes and workshops, one of my favorite pieces of audience participation is when I ask the attendees about what creative flow feels like for them. The responses – regardless of the audience location or demographics – are remarkably similar. Here are the words that come up time and time again:
Timeless • Connected • Happy • Good • Strong • Clear • Focused • Confident • Alive • Vibrant • Energized • Everything flows • Euphoric • Trance-like • Enjoyable • Empowered • Capable
When we are creative, we are blissfully “in the zone,” engaged in soul-satisfying making and producing. In his book Creativity, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the pioneering researcher who first identified the state of flow, says, “when we are involved in creativity,
