9 steps to make peace with your inner critical self
So you want to create, express yourself, play with paint and create masterpieces?
wow
And now you prepare the paints, the papers, the canvas and you start, the big work is started. . .
At this moment, as if it were part of the materials and tools, ready to crush your creativity with your dreams and hopes – the little devil comes
your ‘inner critique’ voice
As if it wearing a pair of glasses to look more closely at what you were doing to take away the joy of creation.
You can hear it’s familiar voice very sharply:
- Who the hell are you that you can imagine you can paint?
- What do you think makes sense to waste your time?
- You are not able to do what you thought, it won’t go to you, because you’ve never been good in it
- Colors are terrible and do not match
- Let those create who have talents, you never had
- Time and money is wasted, expensive paint why would you use, give them to those who can paint
and so on . . .
And you look at what you did and quietly, sadly agree with the sound, and pack your painting equipment nicely and never paint and draw again.
or yet?
Believe me my dear, you did not accidentally joinedt. I have heard such and similar internal criticism, or I still hear sometimes, but I defeat it.
I know it is terrible to create pictures that you or your inner voice don’t like.
I know how terrible it is to have a beautiful picture in your head that you imagine, but the picture you paint is not even close. You are so disappointed with the end result, because it is so far away from what you liked to create, that you never try again because you do not want to experience this emotional pain again.
What do you think is there the solution to overcome or rather silence your inner critical judgments and change your depressed, hopeless, and desperate feelings afterwards?
Here are a few ideas, try it:
Examine the motivation of your critical voice, find out where and how you feed.
You may not go alone and need external help, but first look at it because it may only be fueled by a past event.
Your inner critical being is mostly fed by fear, and want to saves you from further pain and failure. You need great courage to protect yourself if you know its nature and how it works with you, maybe you can make friends with this inner emotional part and íou can let your self-criticized.
In any case, notice when these criticism voices appear in you and release them with a smile.
Allow, accept and celebrate your mistakes and anything wrong you did 🙂
We learn everything through learning, walking, speaking, driving, reading, counting, our profession, first we need to learn the basics and do a lot of exercise. What if you were saying that walking wasn’t going to go because I fell in the first attempt, so I’m not trying again.
In any learning process, we make a lot of mistakes to learn how and how not things work.
You must make a mistake to find out what works and what doesn’t!
That’s not to say that you accept the mistakes, but make a mistake leisurely. If you never do anything wrong you will learn much less.
So let yourself make the wonderful, fantastic mistakes, messes and celebrate because they are wonderful learning experiences, as you will be a better ‘artist’.
Edison said:
“I did not fail, I only found ten thousand paths, which is not workable.”
Well, you take it too that you didn’t make a mistake, but you found a way that would not lead you to where you want to go and look for another! Essentially, never give up!
Time is important – follow the small steps – The real masters are learning through a lifetime!
Explain your inner critical voice that it takes time to master a skill. Just as a baby needs more than a year to learn for a safe walk. Anything you want to become a professional you need plenty of time. Do not wait for your first painting or drawing to be like others who has been pacticing for several years or decades. There is hardly anyone in the world who would have painted a wonderful masterpiece for the first time. You have to work a lot for it, practice it, make mistakes that you can learn from. If you have the urgent feeling that you need to create a perfect piece instantly, sit down, let go on to the surface and find out where that feeling comes from, what it is, why it is so important.
Compare your creations only with your own older works to see development and not compare to the work of other people.
You’ve heard the quotation attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, which says “Comparison is the thief of joy,”
It simply destroys self-confidence. It’s a very thin border to be inspired by other artists or compare yourself to others. Don’t do it for your own benefit. Compare your works to your previous creations to see how much you have learned, how much you have evolved. Show your development to your inner criticism and it will make it quiet.
Remember: Never compare your initial steps to the multi-year experience of others as if you were comparing the bike with the car.
Explore why you’re doing it all.
If you notice that you are creating for the praise and recognition of others (our natural desire to be recognized and loved ) try to focus your attention on the joy of creation and what it means to you.
By the way, if you create for other people’s recognition, your inner critical voice will be much louder and take away all the joy you could find in it.
You heard from me: The road is the important not the end result.
Don’t compare your value with your ability
You are a perfect whole in yourself. The wonderful manifestation of the universe. You are precious and as perfect as you are. Your value will not increase if you make beautiful paintings and do not fall if you do not impress anyone with your creations. There is no correlation with your worth eg. with the ability to create a painting.
I’m not what I reach.
It is important to clarify this: you are not bad if you paint a ‘ugly’ picture. It is difficult for many people to accept and manage in a good place to bring their worth into line with their abilities. If you recognise that you’re still valuable, lovable doesn’t matter what kind of paintings you create! And the sooner you accept it the freer you will be able to create.
Reduce your expectations
If you start the creation with expectations, then the inner critical monster will settle on your shoulders and will watch out for your fault with big eyes. If you reduce your expectations, you give yourself a great space, air, freedom, courage to discover and experiment.
Focus on your creative journey and not the end result.
Of course I love it when I like the end result, but if I let go of the expectation and enjoy the creation, I always like the end result better. If you put the focus on the creation instead of the final result, your critical voice will calm down and you create a much freer and more playful mood.
Letting go of perfection / pursuit to be perfect
Who always wants to create a perfect creation is the maximalist. Those who are maximalist, have great expectations of themselves and want to be successful in everything they do. If you fail to create this perfect bubble around you, you may feel that your whole life has slipped out of control. Strives for perfection, but life is constantly proving that there is no perfect, only FAIRLY GOOD / GOOD ENOUGH category.
Don’t make impossible expectation in fromt of you, try to let go of your maximalism. For me this is the hardest, I was also a maximalist and sometimes I am. So don’t always want to be flawless and perfect! Let go.
I hope I helped with this couple of thoughts.
The most important thing is: