Stop Killing Your Ideas

“You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you
write with someone looking over your shoulder, you’ll never write.”
— Nikki Giovanni, poet

Some of our most precious time is during the moments of ideation, brainstorming, musing, and contemplation. These are times when we are playing with ideas and seeing how they connect and inform each other. During these times in particular, we need the Inner Critic to be unobtrusive and quiet. As we are all too aware, this is when it tends to weigh in the most and we become the most self-critical. Instead of easily accessing ideas, we feel they are maddeningly just out of reach.

As an over-zealous protector, your Inner Critic does its job a little too well. When we think self-critical thoughts like, “This idea is dumb, so I’m not going to attempt it. I’ll wait until a better idea comes along,” or “I’m wrong,” or “it will be boring and suck,” we are making either a conscious choice to withhold ideas or an unconscious one that inhibits the generation of ideas. When we do that, we are committing what writer Matthew May refers to in a recent online article as “ideacide,” a process of self-censoring he considers “the highest crime against creativity.”

It’s the Inner Critic in the form of High Self-Criticism that causes us to commit ideacide and to “reject, deny, stifle, squelch, strike, silence and otherwise put ideas of our own to death, sometimes even before they’re born.” We do this for fear that we’ll be judged, criticized, or ridiculed and that our ideas will be evaluated negatively. The resulting self-doubt and over-control interfere with our ability to be creative. If any ideas do make it past the Inner Critic’s stalwart efforts to block them, they are stunted and weak from their ordeal.

Ironically, being overly self-critical and committing ideacide heightens the likelihood that the very outcomes we fear will come to fruition.

But ideacide is detrimental to more than ideas. When we commit ideacide, while destroying the sprouting seedlings of ideas before they reach the light of day, we also mentally beat ourselves up and destroy our self-confidence. Furthermore, ideacide also affects the people we work with. Being highly self-critical blinds us to the prospect that even if our ideas are not fully formed or brilliant, others could benefit from them. Our ideas could be a catalyst that sparks variations to build upon, or even other great ideas.

For writers especially, poet Nikki Giovanni’s quote above about being “unintimidated by your own thoughts” is spot-on. But because not all of us are writers, I will be so bold as to alter her quote to make it more applicable to everyone:

“You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts, because if you create with someone looking over your shoulder, you’ll never create.”

Think back to the last time you were in the creative zone with your work and remember the thoughts you were thinking and the feelings you were having then; what do you find?

Were you concerned about how interesting your ideas were or afraid they were intrinsically wrong? No!

Were you panicked or anxious about bringing your idea into the world or afraid you wouldn’t do it justice? No!

Did you feel like you could learn what you needed to bring your idea to fruition? Yes!

Did you feel like you could do it? Yes!

You were able to feel positive and confident because no mental critic was looking over your shoulder. Your Inner Critic was, at least for several shining moments, deliciously and beautifully silent.

When you are so highly self-critical that you commit ideacide, you’ve let your Inner Critic stand over our shoulder and assume the role of a manager or director you can never impress. Your Inner Critic is far too high on the organizational chart of You Incorporated.

Let’s demote the Inner Critic from director/manager of your creative life to a position lower on the org chart, and reassign it to a support role that is more commensurate with the level of responsibility and importance that we want it to have.

This post is an excerpt from book Banish Your Inner Critic, under the chapter heading “Cease Self Censoring.” Reprinted with permission.