When I taught undergraduate writing courses, my most commonly taught course was an introduction to professional writing. This meant that while I would have a handful of English majors each semester, I also had a lot of students from other majors—students who didn’t feel comfortable writing, who didn’t believe they were good at it or could be.

Even when you are good at something, that inner critic can be a devious little monster. It tells us that if we are imperfect, then we are unworthy. It’s a feeling that many of us are familiar with from writing to other tasks.

And so with that in mind, I used to have my students do this exercise on the first or second day of class. It’s meant to be silly and off-the-cuff, as doing something a little silly can often loosen up that nervousness. (For example, I also made them link their own pinkies together and pinkie swear things out loud like, “I will turn my phone to silent” and “I will be kind and respectful in my feedback” and “I will make mistakes and I will learn how to fix them.”)

Now I sometimes will have coaching clients do this caricature exercise, too, when I feel their inner critic is getting in the way. Not because I think it will make it go away entirely—it probably won’t with only one tool to work with—but because personifying things in this way can often make it easier for us to see them, challenge them, and shoo them away.

Give it a go.

Journal Exercise: Inner Critic Caricature

Note: I didn’t come up with this. I’m guessing a fellow professor shared it with me and I adjusted it slightly to fit my classes, but whoever that is is long gone from my memory. Whoever you were, wherever you are, thanks!

• Think of a recent critical thought you had about yourself/your writing. Imagine a person or little monster over your shoulder saying these words in your ear.
• Write down: what does their face look like? Is their head huge and their body tiny? Or their head tiny and their body huge? Are their clothes absurd? Are they monstrous? Do they look like that bully from sixth grade?
• Exaggerate some ugly feature, like wild hair, ridiculous clothing, fingernails so long they’re spiraling.
• They start to say something to you about your writing. What do they say?
• They have an ulterior motive for what they’re saying. What is it?
• Something strange happens to the next sentence they say. Distort it somehow. Make it ludicrous, unreasonable, even silly, like its become high pitched or sounds like they’re speaking underwater. What is it?
• They get frustrated. Imagine them like a toddler throwing a tantrum. What do they do next?
• Let another sentence come from their mouth. Have those words also go out of their control. Maybe they start to hiccup between words or suddenly they sound raspy and far away.
• Add a few details about their face or expressions and how they change as this keeps happening. They look ridiculous—hilarious.
• Imagine yourself laughing. Your shoulders shake. Do they try to hold on? Do they roll off?
• They hate that you’re laughing at them, and they finally shrink away.

When the critical thoughts sneak back in, imagine your little monster over your shoulder again, and either laugh them away or give them a swift bop on the nose until they shrink again.