Silencing the inner critic (or at least giving them a name)

How I stopped letting my inner critic run the show (mostly)

Unfinished business

This time is gonna be different.

How many times have I fed myself that line? Jobs, every October 31st on the eve of Nanowrimo, hobbies (violin, jiu-jitsu, piano, pottery, calligraphy, Japanese, embroidery, drawing, just to name a few), second marriage. I tell myself, this time I will start something and follow through with it.

Take this Substack, for instance. I had the idea for it about a year ago. I planned for it, did the active procrastination of creating beautiful boards on Milanote to organize my ideas and maintain inspiration. I even created a Substack profile but couldn’t follow through on actually writing content. It’s infuriating—this habit of self-sabotage. I’m always afraid my ideas aren’t good enough, that I’m not good enough. So, I self-sabotage, procrastinate, and either work on projects tangentially or not at all, instead choosing to spend whole days bingeing TV shows or cleaning out closets.

I know my procrastination comes from fear and, based on experience, I know that the best way to get through it is simply to do the thing. But I tend to make things harder than they need to be. At least that's one thing I know for sure I’m good at.

Sure, I’ve got various Word documents full of random ideas and false starts, but nothing that feels worth posting.

Certainly nothing that my inner critic, Kimberly, would approve of, anyway.

Meet Kimberly, la saboteuse

Kimberly is kind of an asshole and is constantly trying to convince me that no one would be interested in what I have to say, so why bother. I usually tell her to take a hike, but some days she settles in with a cozy blanket and cup of tea, all smug, and makes herself right at home.

If I had let her continue to harangue me, I never would have started this Substack. But I decided enough was enough. You can only prepare and plan and hem and haw for so long before you just need to hunker down and get ‘er done.

Your inner critic will try and convince you to never do the thing. That the doing of the thing is a waste of time and energy and no one will be interested in it and nothing good will come of it anyway so don’t even bother starting. Kimberly has kept me from pursuing business ideas, leaving bad relationships, and writing that novel which has been kicking and screaming to get out of me. She basically wants me to believe I’m not good enough, nothing I ever do will be good enough, so I shouldn’t even make an attempt because I will more than likely fail and will look back on all that time and effort and wonder why I hadn’t just listened to her in the first place and spent that time on the balcony with a book and glass of lemonade.

My inner critic has always been with me. Like a particularly obnoxious conjoined twin who wants to pull me one way when I want to go the other. It wasn’t until recently, however, that I gave her a name. I imagined my inner critic as a snooty, gum-popping blonde and, as a nod to one of my favorite movies, You’ve Got Mail, I decided to name her Kimberly because I also imagined her to be as vapid as a 22-year-old cocktail waitress (no offense to bottle girls or 22-year-olds). And it’s always nice to put a face to a name, so I decided my inner critic would look like Lucy Punch (also no offense to this brilliant and hilarious actress) because, as she was once quoted in an interview:

"If the character is smug, bitchy, trashy or has dubious morals, call me!"

Kimberly is all of the above.

I strongly recommend giving your inner critic a name and a face.

They’ll be easier to tell off.

You don’t scare me

Sometimes I imagine a group of inner critics at an ICA (Inner Critics Anonymous) meeting, swapping notes on how to terrorize their victims. They would be sitting in a circle on folding chairs, Styrofoam cups of shitty coffee in hand, in a dingy, windowless basement room in a community center and Kimberly would stand, self-important grin on her face and say “Hi, I’m Kimberly and I’ve been an inner critic for 39 years.” “Hi, Kimberly,” everyone would mumble, silently judging her nasally voice and criticizing her choice of outfit, while at the same time fearing whatever comes out of their own mouths will sound stupid and wondering if their skirts are too short.

Because inner critics are just judgmental, insecure jerks with a fear addiction.

Drop a house on your inner critic

Inner critics thrive on fear, self-doubt and inertia. So, every time I write a post and hit “publish” or follow through on something I said I’d do, it’s like a brick squashing smug little Kimberly. Whenever I ignore her whiny complaints that whatever I am doing is taking too long or is too difficult so I should just quit while I’m ahead, another beam is added to the house I’ll eventually drop on her ass. Each time I complete a project, push myself out of my comfort zone or do something I’m afraid I’ll fail at, I’m adding the paint and functional yet stylish Scandinavian furniture.

Brick by brick and beam by beam, that house is gonna fall out of the sky and bury her under a pile of all my accomplished goals. All that’ll be left is a pair of cheap, sparkly red shoes sticking out from underneath my achievements. And I’ll be dancing a jig, chanting “ding dong the witch is dead!”

So, in the words of Glinda the Good Witch, tell your inner critic, “You have no power here. Begone!”

And then build a house and drop it on that bitch.

Drop me a line in the comments

Who (or what) do you imagine your inner critic to be?