Acting lessons: help kill your inner critic for good in 5 easy steps

Picture yourself at an audition. You’ve met the director, so you feel somewhat confident about doing well and getting a callback. This director knows you and your work. Confidence is going to help, as ‘auditioning’ and ‘confidence’ usually aren’t on the same page.

At the audition, the director says it’s nice to meet you.

There goes your confidence, there goes the natural dialogue flow; your lines lack connection and authenticity. You can do better, but you’re not getting a second chance. You leave, go home, and eat more ice-cream than is healthy.

Self-doubt is fuelled by our inner critic, the demon inside us who’s undoubtedly harsher and more dismissive than the world’s toughest critics. Inner critics have greater impact – for once a newspaper is printed, they’re just as quickly used to wrap fish heads. But your inner critic? They live rent-free in your head, and are seldom, if ever silenced.

To move on and develop your skills on the stage, you need to be able to silence that critic by knowing what it is that is inspiring the criticism, and what you can do to not have those thoughts be the ones that dominate your life.

Here’s five tips to help make it happen.

1. Know what it is that these thoughts are

A lot of times those negative thoughts stem from unworthy, unmerited insecurities. If you take enough time to listen to what you’re saying to yourself, you’ll discover those criticisms are at best, baseless, and at worst, ridiculous. You’re not the worst actor in the world (Steven Seagal is).

2. Ask yourself what advice you’d give to a friend

If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, why say it to yourself? If a friend shared their feelings of self-doubt, you probably wouldn’t say, “You’ve got a point there” or “That’s because you don’t have talent.” We’re often quick to self-apply these thoughts in our mind. If you offer friends compassionate words of encouragement, you should extend yourself the same courtesy. The author and life coach Iyanla Vanzant said, “Comparing yourself to others is an act of violence against your authentic self." She’s got a point there.

3. Replace the critical thoughts with more accurate ones

When every negative, critical thought, offer a counterpoint. When the inner critic tells you you can’t do anything right, consider the last thing you did do right; show them how wrong they are. Each time you think negatively, counterpunch with positivity. Follow “I messed up that audition” with “Remember when you nailed the audition and got the part? You killed in that.”

4. Imagine it were true!

Have you ever said anything dumb, or wrong? Yes, you’re a human being. It happens. Reflecting on it in the middle of the night, or when you’re brushing your teeth and having the words “You’re the worst actor alive!” actually come to your lips is over-extending the label a tad. You’re not the worst actor alive (Steven Seagal), you made a mistake once, and in all likelihood you’re the only person who remembers it.

5. Re-define what ‘failure’ is

If you replace your inner critic with an inner mentor, you’ll find that the mentor would say something constructive about failure.Failure is how we learn and grow, and the only people who never failed are the ones who never tried, were never challenged, and who have never developed as people. Failure is just a part of life we experience to understand the value success brings. For every experience you have, if they don’t work out, it’s a way to reflect on what you did wrong, and hopefully learn not to do that same thing again.