I don’t know about you, but I have a very loud, insistent, and mean roommate. Sometimes he’s quiet and well-behaved, and we maintain an amicable truce. Other times – most often when I am trying to produce something brilliant – he’s raucous and destructive, yelling demoralizing epithets at me and keeping me from doing the kick-ass work I know I can do.
I would love to kick him out: take all of his belongings and put them out on the lawn with a “FREE” sign on it all, change the keys on all of the locks, and refuse to receive any of his calls. There’s only one problem: he’s in my head. Don’t look at me askance; he’s not an “imaginary friend”. He’s the troll under my subconscious bridge. He’s my inner critic.

If you have a similar mental companion, check out the article “Banishing Your Inner Critic” that I wrote for the esteemed A List Apart to get a litany of tips and pointers on how to oust him from his post so you can claim your awesomeness and do great work.
ps – shout out to my dear friend and awesome writer in his own right, Daniel O’Donnell (aka The Oscar Delta), for doing an awesome first pass edit on the article for me! Teamwork rocks.
Originally published here.