Writers, You’re Gaslighting Yourself + How to Stop and Recognize the Truth. Guest Post by Rachel May

Your inner critic is the voice in your head that whispers lies in order to keep you safe from shame and failure. It’s the voice that critiques everything you do because it wants you to stop what you’re doing and stop being vulnerable. While it’s trying to protect you, what it’s really doing is killing your creativity. When you gaslight yourself, it’s coming from this inner critic.

So many writers avoid doing work to understand and acknowledge this inner critic voice. Instead, they focus on knowledge of writing craft as the key to finishing a fantastic book. If they can just watch enough videos, read enough books, learn enough then a book will flow from their fingertips and be everything they imagined.

The opposite is true. In all of our 1:1 coaching experience, writing mindset is just as important, if not more so, than knowledge of the craft. Learning to recognize your inner critic and cultivate a healthy writing mindset is crucial to determining how you approach each facet of your writing life.

An unhealthy writing mindset is letting the inner critic’s lies take over and rule your writing process. It’s when your inner critic voices are so loud they are literally debilitating, keeping you from the page and from the fun of writing.

A healthy writing mindset is learning how your inner critic speaks to you and how to speak to it. It’s recognizing when a sneaky little lie is making its way into your brain, and being able to stop it in its tracks. It’s understanding where those voices come from and learning to love and honor that place.

A strong, healthy mindset is at the core of your ability to write the book of your dreams. Without starting the writing process at mindset, you could be damaging your chances of finishing the book of your dreams without even realizing it. Let’s break down some common ways you’re gaslighting yourself, so you can recognize your inner critic voice and begin to write differently.

“My writing struggles are all in my head.”

You’re frustrated. You feel alone. You find it hard to come to the page. Something feels off about your writing practice. It’s not as fun or fulfilling as it should be. But then you tell yourself it’s not real. It’s all in your head. You just need to sit down and write. If you just psyched yourself up, if you just got over whatever it is that was bothering you, you’d be fine. Nobody else feels this way, so why do you? You must be dramatic.

This lie stems from a desire to bury uncomfortable emotions such as doubt or uncertainty. Writing is a vulnerable act; you are putting yourself out there regardless of whether someone is currently reading your work. Writing is exposing our very hearts and minds to the world through our words. So when our bodies feel this vulnerability, or we experience doubt with whether or not we can pull this off, we begin to belittle ourselves and undermine the actual emotions we’re experiencing. We bury these feelings by telling ourselves these emotions are wrong or that they don’t exist.

Here’s the truth:

Writing doesn’t always feel good. It’s okay to not enjoy some parts of the writing process, and every writer experiences mental struggles along their journey. Frustration, doubt, worry, stress, etc. are all normal parts of being a human, let alone being a writer. Telling yourself that your emotions are invalid is a surefire way to begin resenting yourself and mistrusting yourself. When you start to bury or belittle your experiences, reach out to another writer and share what’s going on. Sometimes just speaking about what you’re feeling and voicing the concerns in your head and being validated for them can be enough to unlock the issue and regain your motivation.

“I’ll never be able to get good at writing because I have too much on my plate.”

You have so much to do that you fear you can’t put the time and effort required to be ‘good enough’ into your writing practice. You worry about everything else on your to-do list or all the other things you want to do, and you fear you’re going to run out of time. If you can’t get good at writing, then your book will never be good. Next comes the killer lie: why waste time writing if you’re never going to be good at it? That’s what your inner critic is truly whispering to you.

This lie stems from feeling overwhelmed paired with fearing failure. Those that fear failure usually have very high expectations of themselves, so the (false) idea that they aren’t good at something is hard to swallow. It becomes easier to just want to give up, rather than to recognize how this lie is destroying your mindset. Your inner critic is trying to protect you from harm by protecting you from the vulnerability of learning and growth.

Here’s the truth:

First, every single person in the world juggles a massive amount of things each day. Realistically you can’t expect yourself to do everything all at once. It’s a recipe for damaging burnout. Instead, accept that it is okay to learn slowly. It is okay to take breaks from writing. It is okay to switch your focus. Your writing will be there. No matter how you show up, you will continue to grow.

Second, whatever ‘good’ means to you is probably stressing you out. Believing you’re never going to be ‘good’ at writing is setting yourself up for failure. What does good mean? How will you recognize when you’re good? How much time does becoming good require? You are aiming for a standard that you cannot define, and therefore you’ll never reach it. Your fear of failure pushes your body into fight or flight mode, because you equate ‘goodness’ with worthiness. Writing is a skill that takes time to develop. Even the most successful writers are still growing that skill. You are already good because you are already a worthy and valuable writer.

“If I have to make big changes, I’ve failed.”

You finish a draft, you’re over the moon, but then you begin to realize maybe it’s not as perfect as you thought. Maybe there is still work to be done to mold it into the vision you hold in your head. Heaven forbid, there might even be a lot of work left. You instantly feel discouraged. Is any of this even good? Am I a good writer if it’s still not done? This story sucks. I suck.

This is another fear of failure issue, likely with a large dash of perfectionism thrown into the mix. You want your work to be perfect, you’ve attached a value or worth to your story (and conflated that value to equal yourself), and now that it’s not perfect, you begin to fall apart. This happens to every single writer, even professionals and even book coaches.

Here’s the truth:

Realizing that you need to or want to make changes to your story does not mean that you’ve failed. It means you are experiencing the fundamental truth of the writing process: revisions are necessary. It’s part of the process. Believing that imperfection equals failure is killing your mind’s ability to see the value of your work. It requires a lot of self-love and nurturing of your inner voices to recognize that your value as a person is innate and outside your story. Once you hit the point where you accept changes as a regular part of the process, it becomes a lot easier to look at revisions with a clear heart and head. You can even begin to celebrate and revel in the process.

Where can I go for help?

Some of the lies we tell ourselves are so ingrained in our subconscious that reading a blog post and recognizing them does nothing to untangle them. If you’re feeling this way, consider these two things: therapy and community.

Writing mindset struggles are usually deeper than writing itself. Therapy is a safe space to explore how perfectionism, imposter syndrome, low self-esteem, high expectations, and more may be showing up in your life.

On top of therapy, finding a community of other writers does wonders for supporting you when these thoughts feel crushing. You are not alone. There are other writers out there who struggle with the same things, who can help you recognize when you’re gaslighting yourself, and who can help you break free of the cycle.

As book coaches, we work with writers in many different ways to build a healthy writing practice. In our 1:1 coaching programs, we work to develop the best writing process for you while recognizing what our inner critics are saying and how we can heal them. In our lifetime membership program, Tenacious Writing, we cultivate a community of writers who are dedicated to building healthy mindsets, improving craft skills, and supporting one another along the writing journey. We want to help you become the writer you’re meant to be!