Starving the inner critic

I've been told that not everybody has a strong inner critic sniping at them all day. This is the voice in your head that tells you you aren't good enough. Here are some ideas I have about starving the inner critic:

1. Give it a humorous name. Mine is Boris, after the cartoon villain the Bullwinckle cartoon. You can even imagine a cartoonish accent, like that of the cartoon. 

2. Give it five minutes a day. I learned this from a therapist.  You sit down for five minutes and just listen to everything the critic has to say, then you ignore it for the next 23:55. 

3. Don't argue with it. Realize that, by definition, this voice will only be critical. It's incapable of anything else.  Don't argue against it, ever. Just say, Oh, that's Boris. If you engage with it you are giving it a kind of legitimacy that it doesn't really deserve. Even if what Boris says has elements of truth, that doesn't mean he's ever right. Listening to the inner critic is just a bad habit.