{"id":20368,"date":"2021-07-18T05:06:54","date_gmt":"2021-07-18T05:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?p=20368"},"modified":"2021-07-18T21:23:29","modified_gmt":"2021-07-18T21:23:29","slug":"turn-inner-critic-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/","title":{"rendered":"Turn Your Inner Critic Into An Ally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Alignment-XXI.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-39664\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"781\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII.jpg 750w, https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII-408x425.jpg 408w, https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII-700x729.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Your inner critic can be a terrible adversary or a powerful ally. Which one it becomes depends on how you relate to and use it. Like any animal, proper care and feeding can work wonders while neglect and abuse can produce monstrous results.<\/p>\n<p>The inner critic\u2019s powers of analysis and forethought are truly exceptional. Your inner critic is a protective mechanism. Its job is to help you avoid potential dangers. It\u2019s excellent at identifying weaknesses or shortcomings that if left uncorrected and allowed to continue unchecked may have adverse effects. It can quickly identify potential areas for improvement. It can provide all sorts of extremely valuable feedback.<br \/>\nBut, the inner critic has its limitations. The inner critic speaks from a point of fear. It motivates with fear too. It\u2019s a pessimist. It\u2019s often accurate, but never infallible. Because of this, it isn\u2019t good at being supportive but instead may create doubt and insecurity. Its criticism may not be constructive if its feedback isn\u2019t placed in a useful context. If it goes too far astray, its effects can produce negative results and even lead to paralysis.<br \/>\nSo how can you turn this powerful voice from enemy into ally?<\/p>\n<p>First, consider the inner critic a trusted ally \u2013\u00a0one with limitations. Whenever you hear the voice of the inner critic, ask if what it has to offer is helpful. If it is, use its feedback to improve your results. If it\u2019s not, calmly acknowledge it, tell it you value it as an ally both in the past and in the future, and clearly state the reason(s) you\u2019ve decided to make the choice you\u2019re making. Tell it you will continue to consult with it in the future.\u00a0 Your inner critic will believe you if you make a regular habit of\u00a0consulting it &#8211; and even respect you for doing it. You might even give your inner critic an alternate project to work on in the background while you&#8217;re busy with other things. Stay calm; your inner critic can feed on negative emotions. Once you\u2019ve made your decision, be firm. Remember, like a child having a tantrum, there may be times it needs to be silenced. But don&#8217;t silence it for too long. Many of the things it has to say can be extremely useful\u00a0if you remember its strengths and limitations.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/creativity\/vision\/writing\/\">Read more in my Creativity Resources.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/workshops\/\">Learn more in my Creativity Workshops.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your inner critic can be a terrible adversary or a powerful ally. Which one it becomes depends on how you relate to and use it. Like any animal, proper care and feeding can work wonders while neglect and abuse can produce monstrous results. The inner&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[103],"tags":[6,104],"post_folder":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Turn Your Inner Critic Into An Ally - John Paul Caponigro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turn Your Inner Critic Into An Ally - John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Your inner critic can be a terrible adversary or a powerful ally. Which one it becomes depends on how you relate to and use it. Like any animal, proper care and feeding can work wonders while neglect and abuse can produce monstrous results. The inner...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-18T05:06:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-18T21:23:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"johnpaulcaponigro\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Turn Your Inner Critic Into An Ally - John Paul Caponigro","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Turn Your Inner Critic Into An Ally - John Paul Caponigro","og_description":"Your inner critic can be a terrible adversary or a powerful ally. Which one it becomes depends on how you relate to and use it. Like any animal, proper care and feeding can work wonders while neglect and abuse can produce monstrous results. The inner...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/","og_site_name":"John Paul Caponigro","article_published_time":"2021-07-18T05:06:54+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-07-18T21:23:29+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII.jpg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"johnpaulcaponigro","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/","name":"John Paul Caponigro","description":"Illuminating Creativity","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Alignment-XXII.jpg","width":750,"height":781},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/","name":"Turn Your Inner Critic Into An Ally - John Paul Caponigro","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2021-07-18T05:06:54+00:00","dateModified":"2021-07-18T21:23:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/858a1050968a36008905f1980aae47b0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20368\/turn-inner-critic-ally\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Turn Your Inner Critic Into An Ally"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/858a1050968a36008905f1980aae47b0","name":"johnpaulcaponigro","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/309d46e93fff33337943899d8f3269cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/309d46e93fff33337943899d8f3269cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"johnpaulcaponigro"},"url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/author\/johnpaulcaponigro\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20368"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39666,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20368\/revisions\/39666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20368"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=20368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}