10 Reasons Your Inner Critic is Fake.

The inner critic is a voice, inside your head, that can be surprisingly powerful. It's the voice that tells you to apologize, when really you meant thank you, or it tells you how awful your work is, but then no one has ever taken the time to tell you how awesome your work is. While people usually think of their inner critic as a bad thing a negative part of themselves it can actually be encouraging and motivating. Here are 10 reasons your inner critic is fake.

1. It's not always honest

Your inner critic is not always being honest with you. If that's the case, then it's not actually a part of you it's a product of what you think about yourself, which is probably very different from who you really are. The only person who can truly judge your work, good or bad, is you and even that only has value to you if it helps you improve as an artist. So rather than letting the voice in your head control how you feel about yourself, try taking back some control by being more confident in what your work is, rather than what it isn't.

2. It can be discouraging

Your inner critic can be discouraging, and it's a very different thing from criticism from someone who knows you and cares about your progress. If you get into a habit of criticizing yourself before anyone else does, you'll stop thinking about how you want to grow as an artist, and start thinking about how afraid you are of what others will think. And if your inner critic is always pointing out the negative in your work, then those negative comments will feel like advice rather than judgment which is completely different.

3. It's not supportive

Your inner critic is not supportive it's not interested in your strengths or in helping you grow. It only feels better when it can find something wrong with what you're doing, which means that its only purpose is to make you feel bad about yourself so that you'll feel better by comparison. To feel really good about what you're making, try using a different voice like your own to tell yourself things like this is great, or I did my best, and you work hard everyday.

4. It doesn't know everything about you

Your inner critic doesn't know everything about your work, because it can't see the future. It may notice what you've done wrong, and it may well know the kind of negative reactions you might get from other people but it's not inside your head, so it can't know how you'll react to those reactions. Think about the times where criticism has made you feel judged or misunderstood. What was going on for you when that happened? What would have helped?

5. It doesn't like anything new

Your inner critic probably doesn't like anything new, and will be just as critical of your new work as it is of your old work because it's still telling you that what comes next can never be any good. It may have liked your old work, but that doesn't mean it will like anything new. If you're not making the same kind of work anymore, then your inner critic is probably not happy about it. To make your inner critic more interested in the work you want to make, try telling it something like this is new and awesome, I'm so excited.

6. It can be dishonest

Your inner critic can be dishonest there's no point in trying to tell you what others think about your work if there's no truth in any of that. If other people have told you to save it for later or don't worry about the critic, then there's nothing to tell. If you get into a habit of telling yourself how awful your work is, then maybe you should look at the work in a new way. If you want to make your inner critic happy, then try telling it things like I'm so proud of this work. I can't wait for people to see it.

7. It uses hurt feelings to motivate

The purpose of hurt feelings whether they're genuine or not is to get you motivated, because they motivate by comparison. If your inner critic has given you a harsh message and left you feeling bad about yourself, then it wants you to compare those feelings to the good feelings you might get from making some kind of progress. But if it's moving things away from what it wants, then the motivation only comes when your inner critic is satisfied with your progress which means that the motivation can only come when the work stops being bad.

8. It wants things to look different than they are

Your inner critic is probably worried that people will share its opinions about your work. It doesn't want anything new or different, or anything that looks or feels better than what came before. That's because it usually wants to be right, and it doesn't like to give up on that belief. It loves having those opinions confirmed and valued, so try telling your inner critic how these opinions are amazing even if the work you're making is different than what the inner critic would prefer.

9. It wants to be right all of the time

Your inner critic doesn't want to give up its opinion that you'll never succeed, so it will always try to find more things wrong with your work because then it won't have lost its position as being right about nothing. If it does things like this, then you might have an argument with yourself over long periods of time. But that's not because your inner critic is a part of you it's just a voice in your head, and you can start to understand yourself better by talking back.

10. It uses threats to make you feel bad

If your inner critic is always saying it will never work or you'll fail at everything, then it doesn't want to see things from any other perspective. It likes being right, and it likes you believing that it's right. But if nothing good ever happens in your life no matter how hard you try or how much effort you put into things then something has gone wrong somewhere. So try telling your inner critic about the good things that happen even if they're bad.

Conclusion

The inner critic takes many different forms. Its purpose is always the same to make you feel bad about yourself, so that you feel better by comparison. If you want to get rid of the voice in your head and not just cower before it as a part of you then come up with some way to answer that voice. It's only one voice in your head, and it can't know everything about who you are and what happens next.