A healthy inner critic might be your best friend.

The inner critic gets a bad rap, because often when we're thinking of our inner critics, we're thinking of an unhealthy version that's mean or vicious or thinks that shaming us is useful. The one that tells us we're hopeless or stupid and nothing we create is worthwhile or will ever be good enough.

But, this isn't all an inner critic can be. There is such a thing as a healthy inner critic, who can grow to be one of our greatest supports.

Imagine you were trying to learn a new skill like drawing elephants while figure skating (unlikely, but that's what came to mind so I'm going with it).

Unhealthy inner critics lean towards destructive criticism. It tends to be personal and vague and therefore hard to act on. For example - "you've got seven left feet and you can't even draw a stick figure, who do you think you are to want to learn this ridiculous skill? You'll just make a fool of yourself and everyone will laugh". What are you meant to do with that? Nothing, since the unhealthy critic isn't about supporting your growth, and it's also not a 'protector' gone into overdrive. "You're hopeless and everything you do is wrong" isn't protection, it's internalised abuse.

Instead, a healthy inner critic gives constructive criticism that's focussed on a behaviour or action and it's clear how to put it into practice (though it might still be hard to act on, but that's because change can be hard, not because the advice is unclear). It might say "well, drawing elephants and figure skating are separate skills and you don't yet know how to do either of them, so perhaps let's spend time learning them separately before we try to combine them." A healthy inner critic is on your side - it wants you to succeed and is invested in helping you do that.

A while back I talked about asking 'what' questions instead of 'why' questions, and that can be a useful thing to start to teach our inner critic to support it showing up for us in healthier ways.

Instead of asking why (past focussed, tends to result in spinning in circles and lean into judgement and blame - why did I think I could draw an elephant? When I tried to draw tigers people thought they were sea monsters, this won't be any different./ Why can't I figure this out? It's stupid to even try. / Why does nothing I do work out etc.), encourage it to ask what (future focussed - tends to be constructive and actionable. What might I do differently? What smaller step could I attempt? What would be constructive here? What support could I put in place? What am I not quite seeing, that perhaps asking someone else's perspective might help me see?).

So that's your mission for the next while or for the rest of your life - when you notice your inner critic getting mean and personal and judgy and vague with its criticism, see if it might be encouraged to try being more specific and giving you something that's possible to act on.