A thought of completing your dissertation successfully makes you edgy, right? Occupied with several responsibilities, you manage hard to take out sufficient time for writing down your research. And, even if you decide to take the plunge, you hear an unsolicited voice of your inner critic.
What is inner critic? It is an inner critical voice or subpersonality which judges your work and demeans you. At some point of your life, you must have been beset by nagging thoughts like “You are not good enough,” “You will fail to complete this,” “Forget about your goals as you are a loser,” “You should give up,” and what not!
Over time, you unconsciously let these destructive thoughts crawl into your life, which make you despondent every time. Inner critic badgers you even when you pen down your research; you start to think that you are an unsuccessful researcher, your research doesn’t have the potential to get published, and you will never be able to get your research document approved. This obviously troubles you to successfully complete your research project. Sometimes you fail to trounce over your inner critic as you feel anxious while writing your dissertation. So the real challenge is to fight against this inner critic and let your own creative voice dominate over it.
Notice the voice and motivate yourself
Inner voices come from your subconscious, often built on the basis of your previous experiences. However, this is necessary to pay heed to it as it keeps you from embarrassment, jibe and danger. When the voice evokes thoughts in your mind such as “I cannot do it”, “I will not succeed”, “I am not ready”, and “This is perilous,” believe in yourself and your inner voice, but you should be able to identify the moment when it starts to plague you. Try to notice when it is undermining your abilities and holding you back from meeting your objectives. So when your inner critic obstructs you to achieve your goal, you should convince yourself to withstand it that you can do it even though you face difficulty.
Confront your inner critic
The best way of getting past your inner critic is not to respond to the directions of negative thoughts, but to keep your own stance above your inner critic. Think of what you want to be and what you want to achieve. Your inner critic can scream at you, but try to identify it and act against the damaging thought process. The weaker your inner critic goes, the stronger you become.
Alter your behaviour
Once you identify how your inner critic affects your behaviour, you should start acting against it. This might be difficult at first, but the process of overcoming your inner critic and tapping into your real inner voice can be uplifting. However, it can cause lots of anxiety because negative thoughts are deep-seated beliefs that are very challenging to uproot. In the beginning, they can be extremely louder, but as you start ignoring them, your real inner voice becomes louder and stronger than your inner critic.
If you get overwrought by such nasty thoughts while writing your research, don’t let them down you. Every time you tame the critic, you get one step closer to your creative scholar voice.