The inner critic

Every industry is being disrupted, including what it means to be a celebrity. American celebrities used to be so out of reach from the population. They were silent gods and goddesses that lived on screens and the covers of glossy magazines. But as the internet has eroded the barrier of entry into creating and sharing creative work, we now have a different generation of “celebrity.”

There are youtubers with anywhere from 2,000 to 2,000,000 subscribers who are creating amazing content and enjoying varying degrees of notoriety for their work. And that is just one example. People are creating blogs and online businesses, and offering their amazing gifts to their audience.

One great thing that has come from this shift is that the “new celebrities” are more open about the struggles of creation. I’ve heard many of today’s thought leaders talk about their inner critic, that voice inside their head that whispers, “you’re not good enough,” “you have no business pretending to know what you are doing,” “you’re a fraud, and soon enough everyone is going to find you out.”

My inner critic most often tells me that I’m not working hard enough. I’m here to tell you that my superpower is working. I can work until my fingers bleed. I can work until the only thing stopping me is that the sun has gone down, and even then, we better turn the car’s headlights on so we can git her done. But if I stop working for a moment, the voice inside my head sounds the alarm that I should be working now, and forever.

So how do we silence this inner critic? I don’t know that we can. But we can recognize it for what it is. It’s just a thought, generated by our ancient brain that is trying to protect us from doing anything new or bold. So just like in yoga or meditation when a thought arises, we can observe it, and let it go. We can say thank you to our brains for trying to protect us, but we are just fine. We are good enough, we work hard enough. We push through despite the inner critic, and I believe this in turn will help us continue to do our best work when we face outward criticism as well. Because if we are doing brave, bold, honest work, then surely that criticism will come too.

So, inner critic, whose the fraud now?