Remember that our students are often surprised when they write down their experiences with each chapter’s credo. You might try the same thing each week. The discipline of analyzing your experiences brings new light.

Pay Attention to Your Thoughts

The first step is to become aware of the VOJ. People who have lived with this chapter’s credo are amazed at the number of negative and judgmental statements they’ve made throughout the day. One student counted eighty-seven negative judgmental thoughts on a particular Saturday and a hundred on Sunday. Usually the ratio of negative to positive thoughts is quite high - four to one, even eight to one. Several of our students used the metaphor of rodents to describe these thoughts, calling them mice, rats, or weasels.

So start noticing that the judgment is present. Tally your judgmental thoughts when that is feasible: during meetings and conversations, while driving, or when you are part of an audience and not really participating. Be especially alert to the VOJ’s presence when you have difficulty, feel fear, or feel depressed. Look to your body for clues; it will tell you when judgment is lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce. You might feel a heaviness in your cheat or an overall body tension. You might develop an upset stomach or a headache. Or you might feel blue…

Attack the Judgment

Once you’ve identified what your VOJ is saying, turn to it and yell. Keep the message short. A classic one is “Get the hell out of my life!” At this point, if the VOJ feels threatened, it might come back with a rational-sounding statement such as, “Yes, but you do know that jobs are hard to find.” This is simply a more subtle form of judgment at work. It pretends to be reality; it’s judgment in disguise. Yell at it, too - out loud if necessary…

Make the Judgment Look Ridiculous

Some people find that it is effective to take an especially bothersome statement of judgment and blow it up like a balloon until it bursts.

To do this, shut your eyes and imagine that you can hear and see a VOJ statement - maybe, “People don’t like me” - in its normal tone. Then begin to intensify and enlarge it, making it more and more strident, perhaps flashing in brilliant neon lights. Then make the voice scream out in a tremendous echo chamber, with mile-high letters in view of thousands of people.

If this works for you, you will find your own creative ways to intensify, enlarge, amplify, and explode the judgment. And you are likely to laugh out loud as you realize how significant and puny the VOJ really is - or would be without your attention to support it.

Managing creative processes starts with the understanding that it’s not a science—everything is subjective; there is often no right or wrong. The passion it takes to create something is powerful, and most creators are understandably sensitive when their vision or execution is questioned. I try to keep this in mind whenever I engage with someone on the creative side of our business. When I am asked to provide insights and offer critiques, I’m exceedingly mindful of how much the creators have poured themselves into the project and how much is at stake for them.

Designers learn to have lots of wild ideas because they know that the number one enemy of

creativity is judgment. Our brains are so tightly wired to be critical, find problems, and leap to judgment that it’s a wonder any ideas ever make it out! We have to defer judgment and silence the inner critic if we want to get all our ideas out. If we don’t, we may have a few good ideas, but the majority will have been lost—silently imprisoned behind the wall of judgment our prefrontal cortex has erected to safeguard us from making mistakes or looking foolish.

Create-Destroy

… The creation of new higher-quality alternatives requires that one try hard to “destroy” any existing alternatives, exposing their fault lines and internal contradictions. I call this discipline create-destroy.

Trying to destroy your own ideas is not easy or pleasant. It takes mental toughness to pick apart one’s own insights. In my own case, I rely on outside help—I invoke a virtual panel of experts that I carry around in my mind.