Image Credit: Banalities
CRITICS, CRITICS, EVERYWHERE
There’s no shortage of critics, in fact some are paid big bucks to give us an earful of their analysis but critics don’t change the world. Instead the world is impacted by those on the edge willing to take a chance at doing something significant while risking criticism and failure. Kenneth Tyan referred to the critic as someone who “knows the way but can’t drive the car.”
There’s the critic and then there’s everyone else – the athlete, the writer, the artist, the leader… you know, the people risking criticism by doing something. The critic is rarely the one with answers or historical achievement. He’s far too busy measuring the limit of possibilities to be bothered with pushing those boundaries to new heights. He can recount in painstaking detail what should or should not have been done, how things aren’t quite right, how they don’t measure up, align with, or stack up. He’s that guy. He’s the armchair quarterback who could have held onto the fumble and run the touchdown pass, nevermind that he can’t hold onto a job and the last time he actually ran somewhere was to the kitchen for chili-fries and a six pack. But isn’t there an element of the critic within each of us?
Somewhere inside each of us lurks an enemy ready to silence our best ideas and bury our loftiest dreams. It’s this internal critic who insists that limits must precede possibilities. He draws hard lines around our creativity and insists upon playing it safe to avoid unknown outcomes. He’s there to edit before we’ve even begun our “shitty first draft.” Why? Plain and simple, it’s much easier to talk about action than to take action.
When was the last time the critic within gave you permission to:
- Create something extraordinary?
- Restore something remarkable?
- Build something from nothing?
- Overcome seemly insurmountable odds?
- Become more than who you were yesterday?
- Help someone accomplish greatness?
- Give something with impact?
- Contribute something lasting?
CRUSHING THE CRITIC
There’s not a critic alive that can hinder the determined person who has a strong work ethic and purpose. Without the critic dictating the possibilities, we end up thinking and behaving differently. Suddenly our entire outlook shifts. Yesterday and tomorrow become lower priorities and right now becomes the most important moment. The critic is most concerned with past performances, and future uncertainties. It’s always yesterday and tomorrow… looking back and looking ahead… while missing the opportunity and beauty of the present moment.
The present moment is where we make things happen. It’s the only place where we can take our next action and discover the effortless flow that occurs only while we are taking action. In that moment, we aren’t thinking about the paragraph we just wrote, the ball we just dropped, or the last sales rejection received. We are caught up in what we are currently doing – capturing our words, catching the pass, or fulfilling a customers need. When we silence the critic, we are free to take chances and when we do that our passion can propel us to unknown moments of greatness.
We crush the critic when we:
- Give ourselves permission to have fun.
- Take action without analysis.
- Allow ourselves creative blocks without interruption.
- Remain in the moment.
- Fall in love with the process.
When the critic shows up, it’s important to remember the words of Theodore Roosevelt.
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
