You don’t have to stop criticizing yourself to move forward.

At any stage in a career, the critic in your head may make its voice heard. Repeating that you’re not talented enough. Your idea isn’t good enough. Art isn’t a worthwhile investment of your time. The result won’t be well-received. You’re a failure.

Harsh criticism is the utterly entrenched human tactic for getting people to change, just as self-condemnation is our instinctive strategy for self-improvement – yet it doesn’t actually work. It induces panic, shame and despair but doesn’t bring about the desired alteration.

Your habit is to find fault, criticize, judge and compare. Remember, what is is all that is. The alternate reality in which everything is as you think it should be exists only in your mind, and it exists primarily to torture you.

You need an inspector. The internal critic—it could play that role, if you could get it on track;