Silence Your Inner Critic: 3 Steps to Overcome Self-Doubt & Become a Productive Part-Time Creator

Do you often find yourself staring at the blank page?

Overwhelmed by self-doubt and the urge to prolong procrastination?

You’re not alone.

Part-time digital writers often struggle to overcome this constant weight. It's part of being creative. It's a weight that's holding you back from doing actual work.

Overwhelm often leads to a ton of unfinished projects. Worse than that, unfulfilled creative potential.

I have been in this situation many times.

I’m going to share with you a few actionable steps that will allow you to silence your inner critic. These steps will make you a productive part-time creator.

The Perfectionism Trap

A lot of aspiring creators fall victim to what I call the “perfectionism trap”.

They believe their work needs to be perfect before they can share it with anyone.

The only thing this does is it shields you from judgement and failure. The two key ingredients to your improvement.

Here are 5 bad habits I have to conquer to avoid the perfectionism trap:

1. Lack of clarity

2. Fear of failure

3. Negative self-talk.

4. All-or-nothing thinking

5. Comparing myself to people more successful.

Fear not. You can overcome these bad habits and unlock your creative potential.

Step 1: Question your mindset

You first need to challenge all the negative self-talk.

Journaling is an excellent way of doing this. Write down what you’re afraid of or the thing that’s making you doubt your ability to do that.

Could be, “I’m afraid that my writing won’t be good and people will hate it.”

Start questioning this:

• What happens if the writing is bad?

• What happens if people hate what I write?

Answers:

• If the writing is bad, people won’t read it.

• If people don’t read it, does it even matter it was bad?

You can do this with every belief you have. Try to stick as many holes into your beliefs, proving them wrong one by one.

Step 2: Celebrate small wins.

Never let a victory pass you by, even the small ones.

Even the smallest accomplishments are wins that can help keep motivation alive. Acknowledge when you hit every little milestone, no matter how small it is. When you do this, you tell your brain that what you did was good and reinforce the need to do more of that thing.

If you do this long-term, you’ll start to see a shift in your perspective. Your mindset will be much more oriented toward the small things that lead to your overall growth.

Step 3: Focus on consistency, not perfection.

Commit to consistent effort and you will see significant progress over time.

Rather than writing 2.000 words one day, getting overwhelmed, and not writing again for two months, write a small amount every day.

Write the amount you can commit to.

Write the amount where you can feel satisfied about getting some writing done. And write an amount you can sustain, should you write that amount every day.

What matters is that you stop trying to be perfect, and start being consistent.

If you’re more of a batch writer, who likes to do larger sprints of writing, that’s fine too.

Remember the same rule. Reach the amount where you feel satisfied with the amount of work you’ve done, and that you can sustain over time.

If you commit to writing a lot once a week, it should be an amount you’re satisfied with and can commit to doing the same amount, at the same time next week.

Consistency doesn’t mean daily. Consistency means something you do the same way for a long time.

To silence your inner critic and overcome self-doubt is a journey, not a destination.

Embrace a positive mindset, celebrate your progress, and focus on consistency.

Then you can unlock your creative potential and become a thriving part-time digital creator. All without being held back by that voice of self-doubt that is inevitable for most people.

The trick is not to make it go away, it’s to make it hide in the background for long enough, so you can get some work done.

Key takeaways:

• Challenge negative self-talk and focus on progress.

• Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small.

• Focus on consistent action over perfectionism.

Start implementing these steps today.

Talk to you next week.

Peter :)