from Ideas
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Your inner critic
The only thing that gives your inner critic a voice, is fear. The inner critic's advice is therefore useless since it's not based on fact, but on fear. Learn to turn your inner critic into a positive, encouraging voice. Talk to her.

If that little voice is telling you that you will fail, ask your inner critic why she's saying that and what she is basing it on. If your inner critic is muttering that you'll make a fool of yourself, ask her what the big deal would be if you did. Challenge your inner critic and get the better of her.

Perfectionism
Don't mistake perfectionism for a positive trait. Perfectionism often delays creative dreams. Perfectionists tend to do a lot of internal judging and always think that nothing they do is good enough. Their mantra is `not yet’.

Not good enough yet, not enough money yet, not there yet. Embrace your imperfections. Just let rip and paint or write a few lines and let it out. Put it in a safe place. Don't look at it for a while, then look at it again – is there room for improvement or do you simply want to fiddle with it because of your own insecurities?

Baby steps
If you're scared to tackle your creative dreams, then take it one step at a time. Suppose your dream is to go to Paris and paint. You could start by buying a travel guide to Paris. The next month you could apply for a passport or have yours renewed. Baby steps ... but in the right direction.

Letting go
To create is a wonderful thing. Always remember that there is no such thing as good or bad creativity. Playing around with paints and creating something that looks chaotic and faintly odd, is perfectly acceptable. Creative does not necessarily equal commercial.

Creativity is about letting go. It's about writing down the thoughts in your head, dancing to the beat of your heart, singing to the tune of your soul.

In other words, write that poem, even if it's a silly one; make a cushion even if the stitching is uneven; try your hand at baking a cake or kneading your own bread, even if it flops the first time. In the end you've created something. And that will feel great.