And How to Demote Your Inner Critic

Disclaimer: I haven’t done any formal research on this (or any) subject. You will find no evidence of systematic investigation or academic rigor here, other than that achieved by watching YouTube and Instagram for a whole lot of hours. Nevertheless, I’m super stoked to share with you what happened when my role at work got eliminated last fall and why each of us deserves to spend at least some of our time doing a thing we really enjoy.

Becoming a wood artist crept up on me. I’ve tinkered over the years with practical woodworking projects like fixing cabinet doors, mounting bookshelves and troubleshooting the assembly of an improperly manufactured POÄNG armchair from IKEA, though my girlfriend insisted I botched the assembly. Not true.

I have always admired the POÄNG armchair on account of its stylish curved lines in bentwood, providing nice support for the neck and comfy resilience. Comfy resilience? I don’t know what that is — the last part of that sentence came from the IKEA catalog.

But it’s true that I’m captivated by the free-flowing lines of the chair’s bentwood, indicative of the endless shapes that wood can accommodate when cut, folded, glued or screwed. Living in a part of Washington State where the forests and beaches of the Puget Sound offer a never-ending supply of “found” wood, I began having visions of what a piece of driftwood or hunk of fallen timber could eventually become. Not so much chairs or dining tables; it’s way easier to grab a KLIMPFJALL dining table from aisle 7, bin 21 if what you need is a place to sit and eat.

My interest lies instead in sculptural pieces and utilitarian creations that these treasures already resemble: spoons, trays, birds and whales, for example. I began collecting wood by the armfuls and it piled up in my garage. I also discovered that you can buy boxes of wonderful wood scraps from nice people on Etsy who deal in lumber and woodworking as a profession. My girlfriend complained about not being able to park the cars in the garage. This was true.

Because I had few tools and little knowledge with which to achieve my vision for these pieces, I turned to the web for education and inspiration. Videos like “Top 5 Deadly and Dangerous Power Tools,” and, “12 Power Tools That Can Kill You,” were worth the sobering watch. But far more important was observing incredibly dedicated and generous “makers” who tirelessly document their work and share their wisdom in order to make a living while also educating, inspiring and entertaining. Leah Houghtaling is one such gifted woodworker. Leah narrates the genesis of a clever creation of hers, and she appreciates letting things be as they are and allowing them to become what they “want” to be. Imperfections and all. Often it’s the imperfections or mistakes that ultimately make the piece.

I eventually purchased a modest array of hand tools for wood cutting and carving, as well as some must-have power tools. I was also fortunate to have access to a community woodshop where I could use larger, floor-standing power tools that I would never have the space for or could afford. One moment I would impress myself with a new skill or creation, and the next I would nearly destroy a tool or mutilate a piece of wood, frequently concluding that I simply didn’t have enough knowledge about the tools and that my skill level was basically: Loser.

Starting something new reminds us how important it is to tolerate our own incompetence and imperfection. And while these two words may sound familiar and accurate, they are also needlessly punitive and ultimately harmful. They lead us to give up before we’ve begun.

At the beginning of anything, we are, of course, beginners. And we will inevitably face outcomes that don’t match our expectations. But forgiving ourselves for not being experts, keeping our heads up and our minds open to learning from our mistakes allows us to continue on the path we’ve chosen. No doubt you will hear the voice of your inner critic trying to convince you that you’re not even qualified to be on the path in the first place. And that thinking is dead wrong. As record producer Rick Rubin writes in his recent book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being:

“Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not.

It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, ‘I’m not good at being a monk.’ You are either living as a monk or you’re not. We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.

The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.”

This “way of being in the world” amounts to enjoying the process — fuck ups and all — rather than focusing on outcomes. None of us does our best work with an “I suck” attitude. This turns out to be true for every “artist,” even when outcomes are critically important. Imagine a trauma surgeon faced with the daily responsibility of saving morbidly injured patients. Although the outcomes are critical, there are patients who cannot be saved and it’s crucial for the surgeon to accept their limitations and learn from the experience in order to improve and ultimately flourish in their work. This is “the way of being” in their world.

Learning to enjoy the process without reliance on the outcome will likely require you to sit down to a conversation with your inner critic. This intervention is simple but not easy. As you know, your inner critic relishes giving you a hard time for making mistakes or feeling unmotivated or not knowing just what to do in a given situation. This is unfortunate because it’s completely fucking okay for you to fuck up or to feel frustrated by fucking up. And while it’s virtually impossible to limit your inner critic’s airtime, you can definitely limit its authority.

Consider the role your inner critic plays in impacting your happiness and motivation and give serious consideration to a demotion. Tell your inner critic to take their shit, including their desk chair and stapler and move down to an office in the basement. This will allow you to prioritize other voices — particularly the voice of possibility and potential — reminding you that errors, uncertainty and redirection are all okay and simply part of the process.

If this all sounds like a plug for self-compassion, it is. But I promised myself I wouldn’t utter that term because it’s become a constant focus of those peddling self-help. And while totally warranted, self-compassion can be hard to hear about when our environment is thrashing us with negative data.

So I’m framing this in the simple context of a workplace intervention. Let’s call my inner critic Gary. You know this guy. He finds a problem with anything and everything. No potential risk eludes his radar, and he’s eager to share his concerns.

The next time your Gary gets in your face about something, you can say, “Gary, I fired your ass weeks ago. You know why? Because I want to hear what’s possible. Not what all the problems are.” This will get you past those challenging moments that threaten to kybosh your efforts to do something challenging.

Again, what I’m suggesting is simple but not easy. It will require repeated efforts to push back on your inner critic. And it may help to put a post-it somewhere or schedule an alarm that reminds you: “Fuck Gary!”

My neighbor’s small children were in their yard the other day playing and laughing, seemingly constructing something from a bunch of branches that had broken off a fallen Douglas Fir tree. As it turned out, they were about to teach me a lesson about the inner critic and joy. Their structure resembled a fort, but a pretty sketchy one at best. “What are you building?” I asked. “Nothing. It’s just some sticks,” they answered, happily.

Of course it was.

Starting A New Hobby: What My Research Shows was originally published in Sybarite on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.