As I’ve worked with writers over the years, I’ve come to believe about 95 percent of the work of any creative is cultivating the right mindset.

If we get the mental game right, everything else tends to work itself out.

Obviously there are multiple facets to the mental game. I want to talk about just one of them here, and its importance cannot be overstated.

I want to address the tendency we have to beat ourselves up.

Photo by Amandine Lerbscher on Unsplash

The Truth about You

There is a part of you that is unfinished and imperfect. There is a part of you that’s probably going to eat too much dessert at some point this week. There is a part of you that’s not going to show up for your creative work the way you would’ve liked.

That part exists because you’re human, and the response I’ve observed among so many writers is self-flagellation.

I’m not talking about constructive self-criticism. When you journal about the day you just completed and you point out a few things that could’ve gone better and you’ll try to do better next time, that’s constructive self-criticism. And I’m a big fan of it.

But often we are engaged not in constructive but destructive self-criticism. We call ourselves names. Silently or sometimes audibly, we say horrible things about ourselves. We give in to a pervasive mood of self-defeat and sorrow. And we stop creating today because of what happened yesterday.

Two Subtleties of a Creativity Killer

Toxic self-criticism is subtle in at least a couple of ways. The first subtlety of this interior voice of death is that we may not even know we’re doing it.

This is why the first step to beating it is awareness. The next time you fall short of your ambitions, try to notice how you respond internally to yourself. Step back and simply notice.

The second subtlety of destructive self-criticism is that it somehow convinces us we need it. It tells us we are weak to avoid it. This is a lie.

We are not weak if we silence this voice. In fact, when we say goodbye to destructive self-criticism, we demonstrate our knowledge that it does not actually help us do our work. That’s the truth.

Try This Instead

Once you’re aware of the fact that you’re beating yourself up, try this instead. Show compassion for that part of yourself. Nurture and cultivate some love for it—for the part inside that’s unfinished, imperfect, has a way to go, makes mistakes.

This, after all, is what you would do for your children, your friends, your family, anyone you care about. You would show love and compassion for these unfinished, unsettled, imperfect parts of other people. So why shouldn’t you show the same for these parts within yourself?

You and your art will be better for it, I promise.

Postscript: How This Blog Post Came About

I run a training and community hub for writers who want to get published called BookCamp. One of the features of BookCamp is a weekly coworking session on Monday mornings in which my assistant or I offer a brief word of encouragement or inspiration before we start a 50-minute countdown clock.

The 3-minute video below (originally shot on December 21, hence the corny, festive background) is a recording of one of these words of encouragement, which eventually led to this blog post. Enjoy!

Question: When have you noticed the voice of destructive self-criticism? You can leave a comment by clicking here.