Feb 07, 2025

How to silence your inner critic enough to write publicly

Tips from UKGovCampers on how to get writing in the open

Georgina Watts is a Principal Consultant at Create/Change

I’ve been wanting to write publicly as a way to evolve my thinking, and engage and learn from others. But I’ve found my inner critic has often stopped me from even getting started, let alone pressing publish. I wanted to find out what others have done to overcome this, and give people with their own inner critic some tips and tricks to get writing.

I took the opportunity to explore this at UKGovCamp: an ‘unconference’, where the participants decide the topics to discuss. Attendees ‘pitch’ their idea for something to discuss and explore with others. It was my third time attending and I hadn’t pitched before.

It’s a supportive environment, but I was still nervous. With the encouragement of some lovely colleagues I stepped up and said to 400 expectant faces: ‘I would like to discuss ‘How to silence your inner critic enough to write publicly.’ That isn’t because I have any answers, but I hope some of you do.’

My slot was during the last session of the day. I spent the day connecting with others, learning from them, hearing different perspectives. I also used the time to think about how to ensure participants got the most from the session.

I judged that there would be some people who were shy and some more outgoing: some who had silenced their inner critic enough, and some who hadn’t yet.

I wanted to make sure that everyone in the room felt able to participate, and that all voices were equal

To achieve this, I planned for:

1) everyone to speak within the first 3 minutes of the session, as this increases the chances that they will speak again, and

2) the session to cater for people who like to think alone and those who think by talking.

I wanted a simple and non-threatening icebreaker

This would ensure everyone spoke at the start. I asked everyone to draw a ‘wild squiggle’ on a scrap of paper, and pass it to the right. Then I asked the next person to turn the wild squiggle into something, then tell everyone what they had drawn (no need to hold up).

An image of a 'wild scribble' which someone else has turned into a picture of a face.

A ‘wild scribble’ which has been turned into a face

I used a 1-2-all model to structure the session

Each person wrote their own ideas down first, then shared with a partner, then fed back to the group for a wider discussion. Dharmesh Chauhan introduced a variation of this model to me several years ago and I use it frequently, with good success. Liberating Structures has lots of good ideas.

I asked everyone to write down things they have done which have silenced their inner critic enough, or experiments they’d like to try. I asked people to focus on things which help them to write publicly, rather than focusing on the things that stopped them.

We had a mix of people who are frequently writing publicly, and those that aren’t.

The outputs

Ralph Hawkins kindly jumped in to take notes.

The ideas fell into 5 main areas:

Get support

- Co-write / pair up / write with someone else who is more experienced

- Seek out your cheerleaders (and be generous in cheerleading others)

- Ask people you trust to review your writing

- Tell people you are going to do it, to hold yourself accountable (even better if you’ve committed to appearing on an external blog)

- If there is a content writer around, they can be a great support

- If blocked, talk ideas through with a colleague or friend to organise thinking (it might help to record the conversation to capture any nuggets)

Build a habit

- Write it every week, it’s a muscle to exercise

- Keep a list of things you want to write about

- Do it in a way that you enjoy – this might mean starting with voice notes (Be More Taylor Swift), or in a physical notepad

- Have a structure you can fall back on to organise your thinking and writing

- Choose the right medium for you: this might be a speaking (so a podcast) rather than writing

Shift your mindset

- Think about your purpose: this could be a shift from thinking it’s about self-promotion to focussing on sharing your learning with your community; or that it’s about keeping a record of your work somewhere outside organisational boundaries

- Writing isn’t just an end: the process is also of benefit to develop and organise thoughts

- Write for yourself first, then think about whether to publish it

- Accept being vulnerable (and share that you are nervous with others) and that you might get criticism: it’s an opportunity to learn and grow. However, abuse is never okay and should be reported.

- Remind yourself how you read other people’s writing: generally people don’t read to be critical

De-risk it

- Don’t put pressure on yourself to be profound – saying what you are doing and what you have learnt (even acronyms) can be useful to share with others

- Start small: this could be audience size, the amount of time you input – practically, this could be through reposting an article with your own thoughts, rather than starting with longform content. Build your risk comfort.

- Create a pseudonym

Create focus

- Using a technique like pomodoro can be helpful (where you set a timer for e.g. 25 minutes, and you just write for that long)

- Even better if you spend a focused period just writing, with a separate focussed period to edit.

- Iterate whilst live aka publish then panic: there is nothing that helps to focus effort more than your writing being live and readable by anyone on the internet

The outcome

I have published this, my first blog in many years. And I was delighted that James Cattell has asked me to be on a UKGovCamp Podcast to talk about the session: I’ve asked some other participants to join too. A couple of people have said how useful they found the session and have since published blog posts, and it’s been a brilliant way to connect with others in my community.