You may have more uplifting solutions, but I have to be honest: reality TV keeps me real. I turn on cooking shows or Project Runway or something similar when I am designing in the studio -- I don't really watch or listen but somehow the sound and audio keeps my inner critic occupied while the rest of me gets on with it!
Poking around looking for more ways to silence that inner critic, I found several posts and ideas -- many of them are ideas familiar, but they bear repeating.
- Psychologist and artist Lynn Newman on Tiny Buddhashares"5 Immediate Ways to Silence your Inner Critic."
- Try this exercise from Tasha Harmon, coach, to find out the real purpose that inner critic is hounding you.
- From the blog Beyond the Dream, "12 Ways to kickstart and boost your creativity."
One of my "mentors in print" Julia Cameron recommends that one give a name, personality and face to the inner critic to give one an even chance at talking back.
"I have an inner critic, a censor, whom I call Nigel. Nigel in my imagination is a gay interior decorator, who is British. Nothing I ever do is good enough for Nigel. I think all of us have our Nigels and sometimes people come to me and they want me to eradicate their censor. The censor never goes away, unfortunately. But we can learn how to work with it."
Read and work The Artist's Way if you really want help with that nagging critic. It worked for me!