Hacking Your Inner-Critic for Creative Inspiration

When we think about our inner-critic, you know that annoying internal voice that tells you everything that you’re doing or have done is wrong. That voice that makes you second guess yourself. That voice that sometimes just won’t stop. It’s hard to think about that voice as anything but a negative obstacle to overcome, but I assure you, you can put it to use.

First, what else does that voice do? It also likes to play the part of the Monday morning quarterback with perfect 20/20 hindsight and proceeds to list all the ways you could have done things better. Think of all the cognitive power that your inner-critic uses against you in coming up with these “better” alternatives to everything you’ve done. Imagine if you could harness that in some way.

Well, have you ever watched a movie at the theater and you get so taken in by the story that your heart pounds during a car chase, you tear up at the loss of an endearing character, or you hold your breath awaiting the hero to complete a near-impossible task? Think about those experiences for a minute. You know you’re in a theater, you made a plan to go, you bought a ticket, hit the concession stand, and found your seat, all the while knowing to are going to watch a movie that was shoot, produced, edited, written or adapted, and the only real action happening in the theater is in the internal workings of the projector, yet a good movie can make you feel all kinds of emotions and even trigger physical responses.

How does this happen?

There is a term for this, it’s called the suspension of disbelief, and during this mindset, you put aside your conscious-critical factor, your inner-critic, which allows you to enjoy your movie-going experience. Now, your inner-critic is still there, but it will be quiet as long as the film doesn’t make a mistake that wakes the critic up. If you can see the strings holding up the rocket ship, if the storyline dramatically changes in the wrong way, if character actions don’t match the character development, if the movie does something that doesn’t make sense to you or that you think is just bad, then that inner-critic will wake up. However, when it wakes up it’s not criticizing you, it’s criticizing the movie and it’s also generating ideas on what the filmmakers should have done. When that voice criticizes you it is often a more emotionally charged experience, it can be easy to forget that that voice is waiting to criticize everything and everyone.

This is where the hack lies.

When looking for inspiration you can look at the exemplary works of others and generate a list of things you like, but the list will mostly contain what the others did right in their work. Great artists, creators, and thinkers can be sources of inspiration, however, we also become aware of the creative and/or intellectual distance between us and them, which usually leaves us in awe of the other and not in a position to criticize or to postulate improving on the other’s work. You must know where I’m going by now, right?

I’m suggesting you find inspiration by exploring mediocre and outright bad examples of other people’s work. Feed your inner-critic, give it things to criticize and it will give you ideas on how you could do it better. This will help you identify mistakes you might not even be aware of,  generate a list of things not to do, and a list of alternative solutions. Also, even in the worst examples of other people’s work, it’s rarely 100% bad. What I mean is that a bad film could have a great story but the production value was terrible, conversely, a film could have amazing cinematography and special effects but have a weak story or no character development. You could find a great seed of an idea in bad work, and because you consider it bad, your inner-critic will get to work pointing out everything that is wrong and how you could do it better. Put your inner-critic to work for you, keep it busy (maybe it’ll go easier on you), and find the inspiration for your next project.

What’s your opinion? Do you have any inspiration strategies or hacks? Leave a comment below.