Silence Your Inner Critic

The greatest hindrance to your creative process is your inner critic. That snide and antagonistic voice in your head frequently questions your word choice and scoffs at your melodies. It compares you to your peers and those ascending the proverbial ladder at a swifter speeds than you. Your inner critic injects your creative process with paralysis by sowing seeds of doubt. 

Silencing the inner critic is a battle that all creatives must fight, whether they're a nameless troubadour at an open mic or a megastar whose followers are legion. Ultimately, it is a battle worth fighting, for only by silencing your inner critic can you free yourself to experiment, fail, and find your footing. 

When you start to listen to your critic, I want you to give your permission to write freely. Remind yourself that it's ok if you make something mediocre or lackluster today. Remind yourself that creating is a long process and pushing through to finish a song will help you on your journey. Remind yourself that in order to edit something to your liking you must first create a rough draft. Remind yourself that you need to write 100 bad songs in order to write a few incredible ones. Make it okay to exist in a world where not everything is perfect and your inner critic's words will have no weight.

The struggle to push aside the critic in favor of the creative is a daily struggle. However, the longer you fight, the smaller the critic becomes. It may pop up stronger at certain points in your journey, but it can be pushed down again and again and again 

Do not let your inner critic win. So many of us deal with inferiority complexes or feelings of fraudulence. I want to remind you that your creativity is special and that your voice needs to be heard. Create - always - from a place of love and acceptance of yourself. And, when you hear that little voice in your head say "you can't do it," reply with a "yes, I can."