7 Famous Women Advise How to Shut down Your Inner Critic ...

1. J.K. Rowling

It’s crazy to think about J.K. Rowling failing at anything, but believe it or not, before she rose to fame and fortune, her manuscript for the first Harry Potter novel was rejected by a host of publishers, and this continued recently when she released rejection letters from publishers for her crime novel under the false name Robert Galbraith! Her message for shutting down your inner critic is to simply “learn to fail”, and then you can move on without being hurt every time.

2. Dame Kelly Holmes

Dame Kelly became the UK’s sweetheart in 2004 when she raced to double gold at the Olympic Games in Athens. Though she was a world class athlete for the majority of her career, she didn’t always finish in the places that she wanted and deserved to, so in order to keep going she told herself that “regret is worse than failure”. It is more satisfying to try and to fail than to never try at all.

3. Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg has one of the most high profile jobs in the tech world as the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, and she has confessed that she experienced a lot of self-doubt in her early career years. Her advice on how to deal with such emotions is to “take a deep breath and speak up anyway”, because if you stay silent, you are never going to be heard.

4. Dita Von Teese

Dita Von Teese is the most famous figure in the world of modern burlesque, and being in a business that is so focused on women’s bodies, it is important for her to have self-belief and project an air of irresistible confidence. For Dita, the trick to shutting down your inner critic is “don’t tell people your flaws”. If nobody else knows what your weaknesses are, then they cannot use them against you to make you feel inferior.

5. Arianna Huffington

As the co-founder of the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington has been at the forefront of her business for years. She has repeatedly appeared on the Forbes List of Most Influential Women, and she believes that you can kill your inner critic by evicting “the obnoxious roommate in your head” that is always telling you that you cannot achieve your dreams.

6. Emma Watson

For somebody who was thrown into fame and fortune so young, Harry Potter star Emma Watson has a refreshingly level head on her shoulders. When her inner critic is battling with her and trying to tell her that she is not good enough or doesn’t deserve the success, she simply asks the question “if not me, who?”.

7. Michelle Obama

As First Lady, Michelle Obama has been universally loved the world over, and her campaign to empower women and young girls will continue long after her family has left the White House. She offers the advice to “paint a picture of yourself” in your mind including everything that you want to achieve, and then keep this picture in mind when making life decisions along the road. Decide who you want to be and go for it.

When you look these over, you’ll see they are all quite simple pieces of advice. But sometimes simple is just the best.