Amuse UX Conference 2017 — Takeaways Part 2 (Day 2 & Amuse Special Edition Meetup)
By: Krisztina Szerovay
Tags: Interaction Design, Amuse Ux, UX Research, UX Design, Ux Events

“ We have mental power tools we were born with — cultivate them, make them stronger!”

Banish Your Inner Critic v2.0

Speaker: Denise Jacobs (Twitter)

Talk: Banish Your Inner Critic v2.0

Swipe left: mentally replacing something you don’t want with something better. It is about the power to change your mind.

2009 SXSW Interactive: A moment happened that changed her life. “I’m looking for someone to write a book on how to troubleshoot CSS code.” And she said: “I could write that book.”

Mean voices in your head: the inner critic is no joke.

We all have mean voices in our heads. It leads to Impostor syndrome. The main concern with the inner critic: it blocks creativity (+ causes emotional damage). Creativity is power, it feels great being in a creative flow. Creative flow = there is no inner critic.

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for self-evaluation and judgement. When this part is quiet — that is when the ideas can come out.

The inner critic comes from the fears about ourselves. Plus the negative things we have heard from other people (especially in our earlier years).

Negativity Bias + Fear Conditioning: Let’s imagine you are a hunter-gatherer, in the woods, looking for food. You see a snake come out, then jump back. Later you see a beautiful butterfly. If you go back to that area, you are going to remember the snake.

Negativity Bias makes us scan for danger & negative things. Fear conditioning: it goes into the implicit memory — you don’t have to think about it (you can quickly access it as an automatic action)→ Same way when we get criticism. We will remember forever, and it affects our actions.

We have mental power tools we were born with — cultivate them, make them stronger!

#1. Powertool — Neuroplasticity: Our brain’s ability to shift and change in the face of different kinds of stimulus.

It is about what we think about the most. You keep walking down on the same path. If we start to think different thoughts: the longer we do this the more synaptic pruning will start to get rid of the former path.

#2. We can do this by Attention and Focus. Live test with our hands:

Look at your right hand Hold up your left, don’t look at it yet Shift focus from your right hand to your left Is your right hand still there? Yes. Are you paying attention to it? No. Does it matter what’s going on with it now that you are not paying attention to it? No.

Same with thought: the thoughts are going to be there, but the less you pay attention to them (+ the more you pay attention to different thoughts), the less strong these thoughts are going to be.

Attention is determined by 3 things:

How new and interesting the stimulus is The strengths of the signal (e.g. really loud) How much attention we pay

#3. Mindfulness: Presence of mind. We have to ability to know that we are thinking about something. Not getting wrapped up in what we are thinking.

#4. Self-compassion: If you had a friend who was having a really tough time, and came to you, you would be empathetic, you would care and really listen.

So many times we don’t treat ourselves that way. It is about treating yourself like you would treat a friend.

Recognize Your Inner Critic — finish these sentences:

If I _________, then people will _________.

I’m not _________ enough.

I can’t _________ because I’m not as _________ as others.

I shouldn’t _________ because I haven’t _________.

I _________ because my ideas _________.

(e.g. If I create something, then people will judge me; I’m not educated enough) → You will start hearing your inner critic.

Step into your creative power

Overcome self-doubt: she told a story, she was at a girl scout camp, age of 12. She drew a mermaid, and one girl said: “It looks like a frog”. She thought: “Maybe I’m not as good at drawing as I thought I was.”

Judgement Dread — I’m afraid of being wrong/judged.

Creativity Denial — I’m not creative at all.

It was an unsolicited mean comment that affected what she thought about herself.

Your thoughts aren’t true (just because you are thinking something…) You internalized the inputs from other people.

Cognitive reappraisal: Think like a scientist.

Take your critical talk (“I’m such a loser”)

Then turn it into a question (“Am I a loser?”)

You have to get evidence.

Rumination: When we have a thought, and thinking about it over and over again, auto-repeating. (Llamas, camels, cows: take food and chew it over and over again.)

2 kinds:

oppressive: something that happened in the past (“I can’t believe I did that…”)

anxious: “What if…?” — has not happened yet

You can trick your brain: take a squeeze ball, use your non-dominant hand.

Idea flow blocked: work with your hands! E.g. she made earrings. It truncates these processes in your brain. You can doodle, color books, play LEGO etc.

Owning your expertise: Her story about her basketball team. She was 182 cm tall, 14-year old. One would expect: she was playing well, dunking etc. But she wanted to go back to the library and read. During a game she tried to hide on the bench. Comparison syndrome: She thought that she is not as good as she should be being a tall black girl.

High self-criticism

Stop hiding in plain sight

Know Your Uniqueness Advantage: that sets you apart from other people. How much easier life is if you are who you are (instead of trying to be someone else)?

Inner Critic = Self-talk gone awry: self-talk is part of your actual thinking and how you motivate yourself.

Self-talk Reboot: Self-distancing. Refer to yourself by third person, by your name. Be your own coach of greatness (athletes use this technique).

Confirmation Bias: You think that you are going to see that thing, then you see that thing. E.g.: “All people are rude at the post office.” It works both to the positive and to the negative, so we can use that to our advantage.

Swipe File of Support: In marketing, a swipe file means little snippets of marketing copies (e.g. interesting headlines — later use them as inspiration). → collect nice things that others said about you (feedback, clients, conference, tweets, messages), e.g. “You did a great job.”

Start Doing Your Best Work: At the age of 24, she graduated, and her father asked: “What do you want to do for work?” Her response: “I’d like to be a writer.” Her dad’s answer: “Do you know how hard is to get published?”

Her dad was the first in his family who finished college, he was an optometrist, an aeronautical engineer and built experimental airplanes. He believed that artists starve, the creativity is something that you do in your freetime (not a job), and very few writers get published.

Deficiency Anxiety: Thinking that I’m not enough.

Reprogram your mind: research conducted at the University of Chicago about gestures and learning — making motions with your hand affects your learning.

We have a very common gesture we use often: swiping left. It is about deleting. (I don’t want it; Go away; Not good enough etc.) “It looks like a frog: swipe left on that.”

Taking in new information? Proficiency Anxiety: people think that they can’t learn information quickly enough (it is a type of Deficiency Anxiety). Hard to keep track of all the things. Technique: explain it to a Teddy Bear / 4-year old.

Be & Share Your Brilliance: You probably know something better, and it can be valuable to another person. Be a mentor, write blog posts, speak at conferences, teach workshops etc.

Step into your creative power: “I’ve got this!” By standing up to your inner critic. She became a designer, a strong player (& performer, and an author (twice).

It will help you to

be a stronger contributor (do what is meaningful),

be a collaborator (you won’t think that you do is not good enough) and

be a leader.

It is a process of continuous improvement. The potential for greatness is in all of us → our job is to figure out what it is. Allow yourself to be fully magnificent.

Get in touch with Denise Jacobs!

A question:

How do you activate your inner critic when it is needed? Research has shown that when you are self-critical, it damages your progress. Difference between the inner-evaluator and the inner critic.

Inner-evaluator: Knows what is good and what isn’t. It is about iteration, asking for feedback (tells you if you need to work a bit more)

Inner-critic: It is just mean. “I can’t believe you think it is good enough.”

Link: Denise’s website