There are three things I encounter daily that I hate:

Powdered Coffee Creamer: This is a bane on modern day humanity. Terrible Drivers: I firmly believe the sign of our ability to survive as a species is decided during the morning commute, and it’s not looking good. My Inner-Critic: The dictator with an iron first in my head that is a major pain in my ass.

This article isn’t about powdered creamer and my conspiracy theory that it is created in a top secret government lab to test insoluble materials. Nor is it about my belief that drivers should be threatened with prison time for rubber necking. No. This article is just about #3, the inner critic.

The term “you are your own worst enemy” seems to be a virtue if you want to become a writer. In fact, it is often the case that terrible writers — the ones filled with confidence and endless optimism — often lack it. This of course justifies the myth that you must be miserable to be a writer. I believe in that myth, on one condition alone.

You WILL be miserable as a writer is you are constantly battling your inner-critic.

Your inner critic if your self-doubt and your self-loathing. It is your own consciousness turned rogue, a traitor against its motherland. It will stop at nothing in preventing you from achieving something out of the ordinary.

You want to write? Nope. You’re not good enough to do that. You don’t even have shit to say. Say you did actually have something to say, well, who the fuck are you? Who would even listen to you? No, no, no writing is not for you.

Sound familiar? I bet it does. You see, your inner critic feeds on insecurity and thrives on you remaining stagnant. It wants you to stick to the fresh paved road, not the unpaved path. It wants you to fall into old habits, to stand at the waters edge but never jump in because you open yourself up to all sorts of risks if you do that. Your inner critic is just trying to protect you, it is singular in that purpose. It is extremely good at doing what it is supposed to. Acknowledging it exists is one thing, but to fight against it is to fight against your very nature. It would be the equivalent of going up against Muhammed Ali the first time you string up your gloves.

See that? That’s you on the ground there.

Your inner critic has unlimited energy.

Your inner critic has unlimited excuses to tell you.

Your inner critic has unlimited distractions to provide you.

Your inner critic can disguise emotions into fears, and you can’t even tell when those fears are justified or not.

We are weak in comparison to our inner critic because our inner critic thrives on our satisfaction and comfort — the singular goal of all human beings. It will do anything to prevent you from becoming uncomfortable, including driving you to madness. It is a vicious, unbeatable enemy.

So if we can’t fight it head on, what are we to do?

Out run it: The hardest part about writing anything is getting started. This is where your inner critic thrives. The best thing you can do is just begin. Just start writing. If that means outlining for you, then start doing that. If you prefer to just write, then do that. The more time and space you give your inner critic, the stronger it becomes. Out think it: Have a back up plan for when your ideas inevitably stop flowing or slow down. For my 1K-a-day project that means working on a separate project rather than my main one. For you that might mean something different, but no matter what this means for you, make sure you have something related directly to writing or improving your writing to fall back on. Starve it: Your inner critic needs fuel to continue its corruption. What it feeds on comes in many different forms like negative blog posts or articles(i.e. posts about the ‘decline of publishing’, writing salaries falling, etc…), searching Google for something related to ‘how to make money as an author’, or even reading about another authors success. All of these things are a double edged sword. On the one side they can inspire you. They can inform and mold your goals. But on the other side these can allow little niches for your inner critic to reach its tentacles into. Anything that gives you any doubt or room for comparison is something that your inner critic will magnify to meet its own goals. To build up its presence in your thoughts as a demagogue inciting fear and whipping your emotions into a frenzy. Avoid anything that doesn’t simply address the craft of writing or help you to improve your own personal skills.

Do everything you can to improve every day. Stop thinking so much and just do the damn work. Acknowledge your inner critics presence and then snuff it out by sheer number of words, and before long you’ll have a finished piece in front of you.

Don’t give in to your own insecurities, keep fucking writing.

This post is part of the 1k-a-day project (original post:https://medium.com/@wilkfx/introducing-the-1k-a-day-project-418f4e28dbd#.u65tgopk5)

Project Metrics (updated daily):https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UxdDt7tqjeh1qVxFOjHwvzuN5N2PCPEv1BYY9IZp6Vs/edit?usp=sharing