Book Recommendation: Your Inner Critic Is a Big Jerk

photo by me

Every once in awhile, I come across a book I wish I had written. This is one of them.

One of the things I do with all my clients is help them identify (and manage) the critical and often sabotaging voices that speak to them as they go about their lives. What these uninvited mental guests whisper or shout at us often feels so true that a lot of the time we don't even question their pronouncements and potshots. We go through our days believing we're not good conversationalists, or that we're bad at writing, or that we deserve to be paid less than the new person with the advanced degree even though we have decades of real-world experience. We believe, because they tell us so, that our yearnings are selfish and that our ideas are boring. These voices can be super convincing. We often give up before we even try. Because, after all, these voices know what's best. 

The cool thing though? Once you notice the uninvited mental guests and figure out what they're up to, you can ask them to leave — or at the very least, knock it off. Your Inner Critic Is a Big Jerk by Danielle Krysa can be a helpful tool in that endeavor. What I love about it is that it's loaded with experiments and ideas for how you might battle or befriend your inner critic. As one of the blurbs on the book jacket reads, 'this is the book your inner critic really doesn't want you to read.'