Shut up Chad — How I owned my inner critic.
We sat down with Invision’s Seth Shaw to discuss imposter syndrome and how to silence that voice in your head.
Chad: Why’d you say yes? You’re out of your depth. Can you call in sick? Actually, isn’t it date night on Tuesday? I’m hungry. Let’s do this later after a trip to the fridge.
Meet Chad, my inner-critic. His role is to protect me from situations where he feels I’d be vulnerable, judged or embarrassed. His intentions are good but when he speaks too loudly, it can be crippling. I’ve only recently gotten to know and understand Chad, after being asked to talk about him on stage. After some deep self-reflection, I came to realise he’s always been there, but by giving him a name I’m able to firstly have a greater sense of self-awareness when he’s around. And secondly, I can keep him under control.
Attaching a label or name to one’s inner-critic isn’t a revolutionary new idea. In fact, there’s a story about the Buddha and the Demon God Mara, who would visit him in the form of troubling emotions (greed, jealousy, doubt, etc). Rather than fighting with Mara or ignoring him, the Buddha would say, “I see you, Mara,” acknowledging his presence before inviting him in for tea.
Our inner critics visit us in many forms. Sometimes it’s the unwelcome guest, Mara. Sometimes it’s just “the voice in your head” second-guessing everything. Or sometimes, according to the psychotherapy model known as the Internal Family System (IFS) it’s one of our subpersonalities like the taskmaster, the perfectionist, the underminer, and so on. No matter how they appear to us, acknowledging our inner critics really is the best place to start.
So that’s what I did the night before speaking at an Invision panel, when self-doubt was at its highest. What follows are the interview questions InVision’s Seth Shaw asked us to prepare for. As they are all on the topic of dealing with your inner critic, I thought I’d share how Chad and I both responded.
Seth: How we define success is key to understanding the context and nature of our inner critic. In that vein, what does “success” look like to you?
Chad: It doesn’t look like Dave, that’s for sure.
Dave: It’s completion. You then get feedback, which leads to self-improvement.
I’ve got so many ‘WIP’ side-projects and business ideas, but my biggest obstacle in achieving success is dealing with procrastination. Often the biggest challenge is starting something, and overcoming the inner-critic is part of that initial stage.
Chad: True, you’re great at not-finishing things… that report this morning, the travel request, and hey, where’s the rest of this spread? Who puts out crackers with no cheese?
Dave: Along the path to completion, I’ll be gathering feedback and continually learning. But being a perfectionist, completion in itself is a challenge as nothing is ever good enough and I know it can always be improved upon. I’m starting to sound like Chad.
Chad: Bang on.
Dave: One of the great things about working in product design is that constant iterations lend themselves to constant improvements. Of course this further fuels the pursuit for perfection. Even though it’s seemingly ‘finished’, a part of me thinks, it’s good but I’m just 90% happy with it. It’s OK, I’ll be able to hit 100% in the next iteration.
In addition to completion, I think success is also about positive feedback and recognition. To me, all feedback is positive because it’s insight that will make the product better. Critical feedback is especially valuable (though less of an ego inflator) as it gets you closer to the elusive image of perfection.
Seth: If you could design your inner critic, what would it look like? Why?
Dave: In an ideal world, the inner critic would be full of confidence. He wouldn’t be concerned about what anyone thinks. He’d do everything with absolute conviction and belief that everyone will love and adore his creative work. Chad would basically be Kanye West.
Chad: Imma let you finish, but…
Dave: Not now, Chad.
Like anyone, Chad (and Kanye for that matter) isn’t all bad. Chad himself has two sides. One is this negative, self-deprecating guy, who has my best interests at heart and doesn’t want to see me embarrassed. He’s worried about failure, he’s worried about the shame. He thinks somebody else could do this better. He’s too afraid to actually act, just in case it’s not perfect. He’s always there but I know he isn’t my true self. I can distance myself from him, like I am right now.
The other side to Chad is beautiful and positive, I call her Emily — she’s there to counter the darkness of Chad. Emily acknowledges all the negative self-talk and puts a positive spin on it with her growth-oriented mindset. So no matter how bad Chad gets, it’s good to know she’s hiding in there somewhere. I think every inner-critic needs a balance like that.
Chad: I knew it! There’s someone else. I thought we were bros.
Seth: Can you recount a time when the inner-critic’s voice was loud, and how’d you overcome it?
Dave: Yes, there was a design strategy deck that I took the initiative of creating.
Chad: Man were you out of your depth, what a stupid idea. I told you we should have redesigned some buttons instead.
Dave: It actually worked out really well. The growth-oriented voice (Emily) would say, hey, “this is your chance. Give it a go. Get some feedback from your peers. Let’s break it down into steps. Worst-case scenario, if the boardroom full of execs do rip this strategy to pieces, we’ll learn from this. We’ll iterate, and we’ll come back in a better position.”
Seth: What is your relationship with your inner critic? When did you first encounter it?
Dave: I see less of chatty Chad these days and more of Emily the growth engineer.
Emily: Good to be here.
Dave: Back in my early days as a designer Chad was a dominant force. He’d often say things like “dude, I’m not sure if you’re cut out for design. Look at this guy’s Dribbbble. It’s epic. You’re just not that good? You have the emotional intelligence of a rock. How are you going to empathise? Maybe you should become a recruiter.”
I think his voice was louder earlier in my career because the validation wasn’t there. It was also a case of ego playing a role, and being straight out of college, thinking I was hot-shit! Then reality kicks in when you realise what you think you know is actually a fraction of what others in the field know, which is illustrated in the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Seth: Have you found opportunities to utilize your inner critic in positive ways, or is it simply a negative force to be silenced?
Emily: He’s getting much better at learning to use the voice constructively.
Dave: I haven’t managed to silence Chad altogether. He’s there, I think he’ll always be there when I’m venturing into new and unfamiliar territory where confidence hasn’t been built. And that’s fine, he’s doing his job which is to protect my ego from harm.
Seth: When your inner-critic surfaces, what’s your advice for countering it’s negative effect?
Dave: There are three ways to progress when Chad’s around. It’s really all tied to building confidence in your own abilities, and understanding that it won’t always work out, but that’s OK. In order to build confidence, I focus on three areas:
Regular feedback
Firstly, asking for regular feedback from peers is so important. It mitigates the emotional attachment to a design that develops over time when working in isolation. Structured feedback is a great way to learn, while providing an opportunity to course-correct if necessary before investing too much time. The peer you’re seeking feedback from will also feel valued, because you’re indicating that you value their opinion. This builds trust and allows working relationships blossom.
Step outside your comfort zone
One good thing about Chad is when he’s around, it’s usually a good indication that I’m outside of my comfort zone or area of expertise. This is a great place to be as it means I’m learning something new, whether through research, feedback, or even failure. This all leads one way — to ‘Kanye West’ confidence.
Don’t compare yourself
Finally, if I’m always comparing myself to my design idols, (Alex Schleifer, Jon Maeda, Tobias van Schneider etc) then Chad will be back to remind me that I’m not there yet. That’s not to say their status and success is unattainable. I believe your own version of success is always attainable, you just need to have a goal, be realistic and get a handle on your Chad.
Or better yet, find the Emily around the corner.
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Special mention to Stephen Gates, who’s podcast ‘The Crazy One’ regularly serves as a source of inspiration, particularly episode #69 which is all about Imposter Syndrome. Also to InVision, for regularly hosting great events that bring the design community in Sydney together. And finally, to Julia Carter our incredible copywriter who’s nicely polished this article.
