What blocks us from doing our best work? This is the question that Denise Jacobs, author of Banish Your Inner Critic, asks us in the opening keynote of #mtpcon San Francisco. We often think of our biggest blockers being external: a crazy CEO, recalcitrant CTO, surly engineers, or designers who just won’t do what we want them to. But what if our biggest blocks are actually in our own heads?
We all have negative thoughts. We tell ourselves that we’re not good enough, that we don’t know what we’re doing, and that everyone will figure out we’re frauds. These voices take over our mental bandwidth and hijack our decision making. This is our Inner Critic, and it stands in the way of us fully accessing our own brilliance. But imagine a world where we were able to fully show up in our po…