Artistry and self-loathing go hand in hand to the extent that’s it’s become almost cliche. Whether it’s music, programming, painting or any other creative outlet, we are all our own worst critics.

The problem is, unless your work is critiqued, it’s very difficult to improve. We can always get others to listen to our work, of course, but that opens all kinds of other issues. Your friends and family are most likely to be “yes men” because they actually care about you and don’t want to hurt your feelings. Random strangers on the internet don’t care about your feelings but their advice can run the range from “actually useful” to “internet troll” and everything in between.

No, the best thing to do in my opinion is to at least start with your own personal assessment…which unfortunately brings me back to my opening paragraph in terms of problems.

So what can you do? Learning to critique your own work without just attacking yourself is a surprisingly difficult skill to learn but it’s important enough to dedicate the effort. It will pay off in dividends both in your music but also in your mental health and even your other endeavors.

Let me get this out of the way, first: I’m not a professional therapist nor do I claim to be. Hell, I’m probably a poster candidate for why a person needs therapy but that’s well outside the purview of this article. What I’m giving here are some tips that I’ve figured out in my journey to stop letting my self-hatred interfere with my work.

Let’s say I’ve just finished a song….and by “finished” I mean “I’ve decided to stop working on it because I know I could tweak it constantly for the next few years so I just need to call it done and move to my next project otherwise I’m not going to get anything done.” Once I’ve hit that point, I take a minimum 48 hour breather. Usually over a weekend as I tend to finish my songs around Thursday or Friday. After that 48 hours, I do the self-critique and the following is my process:

1. Start out by telling myself that this is simply for future reference. This WILL NOT be a bash myself session.
2. Listen to the song and focus only on the good parts. No negatives here. Write down the stuff that I really like about the song. If I can’t find anything, I listen to it again until I find something I like. Ultimately, my goal is to actually list a minimum of 5 good things about the song.
3. Now comes the easy part: I listen to the song again and list no more than 5 things I don’t like about it. To borrow a phrase: you’re on a rain-slick precipice of darkness here. It’s far too easy to slip off and just start listing item after item.
   What if there’s more than 5? Trust me, you’ll likely run into one of those problems again. Procrastination is key here. Deal with those trolls when you cross the bridge some other time.
4. Now that you have your list of 5 things, write down how you could fix or avoid them next time. Maybe it’s finding some internet tutorials. Maybe it’s practicing/experimenting with a single technique or effect with no intention of writing a song out of it.
5. Make sure you note the project this critique was for as well as the date you did it. Now file it somewhere. I’ve got a folder on my computer with every critique I’ve ever done. All are nicely organized and easily navigated.

So now you’ve got this critique and, by limiting the size of it, you’ve limited the self-bashing to an extent. When it comes time for your next project, look back at this critique. Not just this one, mind you, but also pull up a few of the most recent critiques you did on similar projects in the past. For example, if my new project is an Acid House song, it doesn’t make sense to look at critiques for all my Lofi stuff from the past. Now that I’ve got those, keep in mind the “fixes” as I work. Try and take them into account as you go. If you feel you’ve corrected the problem in your latest one, mark it as fixed somehow in the original critique (I use the strike-through so I can still read it but it’s obvious I did something about it).

So now that you’ve done this, you’re magically cured of your crippling self-loathing, right? Far from it. What you’ve done, however, is shoved it to the side temporarily so you can be somewhat productive.

The biggest takeaway is to remind yourself that you will never make a perfect song. But that’s okay! No one has ever or will ever make a perfect song. All you can do is strive to work on the Sisyphean task of self improvement. Most of all: don’t compare your work to others. There will always be someone more skilled than you just as you will always be more skilled than someone else no matter what your skill level is.

Should you stick to only self-critique? Maybe when you’re first starting out. Ultimately, seeking out the advice of more experienced people can really help you get past a creative plateau. I’ve found a couple of really awesome Discord channels that have some “no trolls/no hate” style feedback rooms. The advice I’ve gotten from those has been incredibly useful. It took a while, however, before I had the confidence to post to them for the first time. Even now, I get a mild panic attack when I put my work out there for them to listen to. Learning to critique yourself properly first goes a long way towards thickening up your skin for a 3rd party review.