jump right into the content, exploring various factors that contribute to this form of the Inner Critic, typical challenges and issues that result from it, and ways you can address the potential source of your Inner Critic struggles and move into a new headspace – all supported by research.
From there you’ll move on to the best part: one or more relevant exercises to put the concepts immediately into practice and start removing blocks to your creativity.
Exercises: Creative Doses
Because of the mind’s capacity to heal itself through mental training, much in the same way that medicine helps the body heal, the exercises in this book are aptly named “Creative Doses.”
The exercises are designed to throw your Inner Critic off guard, confuse it, give it a job, and distract it — all to break the stronghold that it has on your thoughts.
Similar to the way some medicines become more powerful over time, the potency of the Creative Doses is cumulative: the more you use them, the more effective they will become for you in creating a new mindframe.
In some ways, however, the most important thing may not be the exercises themselves but rather the philosophies that underlie them. These four principles are the essence the of the book, the underlying foundations for every exercise.
1 ChangeIt’s really the brain’s capacity to think differently and consequently change itself – neuroplasticity – that is the true underpinning of this work, and what will facilitate your transformation.
2 AwarenessWhen we think negative thoughts mindlessly, we fall victim to them. However, when we raise our awareness of our thoughts and know when the ones we want to weed out come up, we can take action.
3 AttentionChanging the brain is driven by where we place our focus. Our work in this book will rely upon our commitment to shift our attention to focus upon the thoughts that support our creativity and sense of self.
4 Self-Kindness and Self-CompassionYou’ll find the Inner Critic is born of the habit of self-chastisement. We will actively practice generating and directing the same compassion to ourselves as we would to others, and then actively be more kind and supportive to ourselves. In fact, one way to approach the Creative Dose exercises is to think of them as a kind future self talking to your current self, or even as a kind and compassionate version of your current self talking to your past self.
Creative Dose Structure
Each section of content has one related Creative Dose, sometimes two. The Creative Doses are tools and techniques that combine various modalities:
psychology tools
self-coaching techniques
mental reframes
mind-body hacks
productivity practices
visualizations
written exercises/writing assignments
quizzes
mindfulness practices
even improv techniques
While all Creative Doses open with a purpose to prepare you for the upcoming content, you will find the exercises follow several different structures. So that you know what to expect in terms of the brainpower and time needed to devote to them, here is an explanation of each:
1 SimpleWhat you see is what you get. The exercise is complete as is and has no additional steps, parts, or options, and often can be done in less time than the other exercises in this book.
2 StepsWhen you see that an exercise has steps, this means that there are multiple parts, with each part building upon the previous one in the sequence.
3 OptionsExercises with multiple options are those in which you have a choice: you can do the work of each option, or you can pick and choose among them. If you do choose to do all of the options, it’s not necessary to complete them in any particular order.
4 PartsExercises that have parts are substantive: each part could easily stand alone as an exercise by itself. Thus the parts of the exercise could be done independently from one another as separate exercises. Exercises with parts also usually require more time and thought.
5 Bonus ActionSome of the exercises have a “Bonus Action” which takes the exercises even further.
Online Companions
In several places in the book, there are links to download companion materials to the exercises online. These links are footnoted on the same page so that you can find them easily.
Guidelines for Success
This book is densely packed with a lot of information. It will probably take time to digest and assimilate all of it. To get the most out of the content and the process you’re about to embark upon, here are some tips for success.
Choose Your Path
The book is designed so that if you really want to get to the guise of the Inner Critic that affects you the most strongly and learn about the solutions for it, you can go directly to any particular chapter. In fact, there is a quiz in Chapter 2 that will help you identify your predominant Inner Critic guise so you will be able to do just that.
However, I recommend that you read the book in order from the beginning to the end. The chapters are written in such a way that each one builds on content in the previous chapters. Chapters 1 through 4 in particular are best read in sequence, as it is in these chapters that I lay out the foundational concepts.
Write It Out
For the exercises in this book, I encourage you to actually write everything down by hand instead of on a computer. Writing things on paper actually has an impressive array of benefits that will help in your process. Writing activates more parts of the brain than typing does, focusing and engaging the brain to digest information and learn from it, while helping the brain to develop and grasp new ideas and concepts.1 While it strengthens the memory – it’s easier to remember things that you’ve written down – writing also triggers deeper parts of the emotional brain. So make an effort to write it out to work it out.
Dude, Where’s the Writing Space?
You may be thinking “Okay, I’m supposed to write it out, but there are no lines for it in the book!” There’s a reason for that.
As much as I love reading self-help books, I’ve never been a fan of the lines provided for doing the exercises. Between you and me, I find them somewhat intimidating, or more accurately, accusatory. Why? They highlight the fact that I’m more interested in thinking through the exercises and finding out the next bit of information than writing my thoughts down. Additionally, due to my reverence for books, I abhor writing in them.
Personally, I find lines confining. My preference is to write on blank paper, free of lines so that neither my ideas nor my thinking are constrained.
So instead of providing space to write in the book, I recommend that you use the companion Banish Your Inner Critic Journal, or get a dedicated notebook of the variety that you like best, and use that to do the exercises in.
Give Yourself Time to Process
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