The voice in your head

I carry a running commentary in my head all the time. I think most of us do.

The other day I missed an easy shot while playing pickleball, and immediately I said: “What’s wrong with you?”

While practising GMAT questions, ever happened with you: You make a “silly mistake”. When you realise your mistake, you tell yourself: “Oh man, you made such a silly mistake. How dumb!” Or maybe even: “You are so dumb”.

What’s wrong with … you?
You are so dumb.

That voice comes up a lot. Sometimes it’s blunt. Sometimes it’s subtle. But the pattern is the same: a mistake happens, and suddenly there’s a judgment.

But then when you think about it, who’s actually speaking here, and who are they speaking to?

Because when I look closely, I realise it’s me saying this… to myself. Which means, inside this one brain, there are actually two “parts” at play: one part doing the talking, and another part listening.

The two parts

Let’s give them names.

• Part 1: the critic. Quick, sharp, convinced it’s helping.
• Part 2: the listener. Usually quiet, usually just absorbing whatever Part 1 throws at it.

Many call it self-talk. But, there’s no conversation happening. It is kind of like a school teacher scolding me and me just standing there staring at the floor.

But there’s one key difference. While I might be listening to the school teacher, I would typically not agree with them. I might not respond, but in my mind I’m pretty resolved that what she’s saying doesn’t have any merit. But when I talk to myself, I typically accept what I say without any hesitation. I say to myself: “You’re so dumb!”. And that becomes a part of my identity. Maybe I am dumb.

That’s where we can make an intervention. Instead of me just sitting there, listening to part 1’s critical judgments and feeling bad about myself, my part 2 doesn’t have to just sit there. It can talk back.

The shift: conversation, not one-way communication

What if, instead of silently taking the hit, Part 2 actually responded?

Here’s one that plays out often:

• Part 1: “You’ve put in so much effort on this topic and you’re still making mistakes. What’s wrong with you?”
• Part 2: “Wait. What exactly were you expecting? That effort guarantees perfection? Hasn’t my accuracy already improved in this topic? Isn’t that the metric we should be tracking, instead of perfection?”

Notice the difference? The first voice criticizes, the second voice questions the assumption. And suddenly, it’s no longer a verdict being handed down. The second voice is trying to come up with a solution that would actually help. It isn’t just accepting a harsh judgment about itself at face value. The situation isn’t someone talking down at someone else while they just listen. It’s a conversation.

That’s the bigger point here. Don’t just let it be one-way communication. Don’t just absorb. Respond. Not retaliate, mind you. Respond.

A checklist for talking back

So how do you actually do this? It helps to have a small script in mind.

1. Spot the critic.
   Catch the moment Part 1 shows up with its sweeping judgment.
   “You’re hopeless at this.”
2. Ask what’s being assumed.
   What hidden expectation is inside that jab?
   “Hopeless? Or did I just miss one inference because I rushed?”
3. Respond with evidence and specifics.
   Ground it in reality.
   “Actually, I nailed 3 out of 4 of those passages. One was messy. I don’t think that makes me hopeless. Does it?”

That’s it. Three steps.

Spot → Question → Respond → Address any retorts → Repeat.

Conversations you can have with yourself

Let’s make this real. Here are some common GMAT situations where Part 1 shows up, and how Part 2 can respond.

Scenario 1: “I knew this but still got it wrong”

• Part 1: “So silly! Come on, do better.”
• Part 2: “Hold on – if the concept was in my head, then the gap is in application, not knowledge. That’s useful. I don’t need to re-memorize the theory. I need to work on getting better at applying the knowledge I already have. The mistake probably didn’t happen out of nowhere. Perhaps there’s a gap I need to address.”

Scenario 2: “I need to finish GMAT prep quickly”

• Part 1: “I want this done ASAP. Best way is to grind — do as many questions as I can every day.”
• Part 2: “But wait, what actually leads to improvement? Is it the sheer number of questions, or how much I learn from each? Practice helps, yes, but practice without analysis is just repetition.
  Think about it: the real driver is depth. Taking time after each question to ask: Why did I make this mistake? What tripped me up? Could I have solved it another way? Those reflections are what compound into real skill.
  So the factor isn’t how many I practice, it’s how much I learn from each question that I practice. To maximize learning, I can’t just rush. I have to go deep.”

Scenario 3: “I need to hit two minutes per question”

• Part 1: “The way to get faster is to impose strict time limits. Two minutes per question, no matter what. If you’re taking more time, come on – work faster!”
• Part 2: “Is my issue really speed? Am I going slow because I’m lazy?
• Part 1: “Umm … no.”
• Part 2: So, does regularly reminding myself: “Go faster” really help? I’m not going slow on purpose, am I? I need more time to be able to answer the questions properly right now.
• Part 1: Then how will you answer questions within 2 minutes on the exam?
• Part 2: Let’s think about that. Is that really how we learn anything? Did my son learn to run by setting a stopwatch? No. First he sits. Then crawls. Then stands. Then walks. And only then, runs.
  When I learned how to drive, remember how I did not focus on speed at all initially. In fact, I never needed to take lessons to learn to drive faster. As I got better at driving, I could automatically manage to drive faster. It was a natural consequence.
  If I give myself the time I need now to solve with full clarity, speed will follow as a consequence. Speed isn’t an input. Speed is an output.”

Scenario 4: After months of preparation, you take a mock test and you get a score much lower than you expected. In practice you were answering questions with a very high accuracy, yet you score 405 on the practice test.

• Part 1: “All this effort and nothing to show. You’ve wasted all that time. Damn!”
• Part 2: “It might be taking it too far to think that I have wasted all the time. I did improve in many aspects, didn’t I? My understanding went up, my accuracy in various question types went up.”
• Part 1: Then why did I get such a low score?
• Part 2: Maybe there are more things at play that impact the score than just high accuracy practice.
• Part 1: Like what?
• Part 2: E.g. I got stuck on one question that took me 8 minutes. That caused panic to set in and then I screwed up the rest of the section. Perhaps I need to develop the skill of letting go.
• Part 1: But you knew that you shouldn’t spend 8 minutes on any single question. Why did you? What’s wrong with you?
• Part 2: With respect, that isn’t helpful. Perhaps it is one thing to know what needs to be done, and another thing to actually do it in the moment. May be I need to improve this skill.
• Part 1: How do we do that?
• Part 2: Now that’s a helpful direction. Let’s figure out how to improve this skill.

Tip: One way to improve the skill of letting go: Give yourself too many questions to do in too little time. e.g. 10 questions in 15 minutes. So the starting point is that anyway you cannot all 10 questions properly. So, try to find the 6-7 questions out of the 10 that you feel you have the best shot of getting right. And take quick calls about which questions to skip. This will help you develop a knack for noticing the difficulty and complexity of a question, and get better at letting go.

Scenario 5: Peer comparison – so many people get done with the GMAT within 3 months. You’ve been at it for 6 already.

• Part 1: Everyone else gets done so quickly. Why are you taking so long? Are you really that dumb?
• Part 2: Now wait a minute. Let’s assess this more. Is it really everyone who gets done quickly? I know of a few people who took much more than 6 months also, no?
• Part 1: Well, yeah. But why do you want to compare yourself with people who haven’t done great. To succeed, you should learn to emulate your betters.
• Part 2: Ok, sure. But still, to think that ‘everyone’ gets done quicker is wrong. Moreover, my last two months have been super-hectic at work. I have barely had any time to study. So, to just add those two months to my GMAT prep time and then compare with someone else’s 3 months isn’t an apples to apples comparison.

Scenario 6: “I studied 8 hours this week”

• What happens: You squeeze in 8 hours of study despite brutal workdays.
• Part 1: “You could have done more.” (and you feel guilty)
• Part 2: “Really? I had 12-hour workdays and 2 hours of travel every day. And I still carved out 6 study sessions out of 7 days. That’s fairly consistent, no? Do you see a way I could have taken out more time without compromising on sleep, gym, family?
• Part 1: You watched 3 episodes of that series this week. Did you really need to do that?
• Part 2: I was feeling pretty exhausted. I need a release. I think I am entitled to some free time. I am not a robot, after all. And that’s anyway 30 minutes a day. It’s not like I spent 5 hours on Netflix everyday. I think for me to be able to take out 8 hours consistently for the last few weeks despite the hectic schedule should be appreciated instead of reprimanded.

Scenario 7: You consider an option for a while. But eventually you mark another one. Turns out the initial one was correct.

• Part 1: “See? You always over-think.”
• Part 2: “Not over-thinking—unclear thinking. I wasn’t solid on why one option was better, so I drifted. The fix isn’t to stop thinking. The fix is to build clarity earlier so I don’t wobble.”

I could go on about how illogical my (our) self-talk often is.

But, it is important to note that the voice that criticizes isn’t the enemy – it’s just raw. And the voice that listens doesn’t have to be silent. It can respond. But the second voice isn’t trying to get into a fight or win an argument. It is trying to have a logical conversation with the first voice to help see things the way they are and not the way they are hyped up to be. (A low GMAT score means you need significant improvement in GMAT related skills. It doesn’t mean you are dumb.)

Harmony, not animosity

I’ll reiterate:

The point of this exercise isn’t to start a fight with yourself. It’s not Part 2’s job to shout back louder, or to “defeat” Part 1. That just turns the inside of your head into a noisy debate club.

Part 1 isn’t evil. It’s clumsy. It is working the way it knows the best. It believes it is passing those harsh judgments in your best interest. The intent is right, the way it goes about is not.

So what’s Part 2’s job? To build a friendly relation with Part 1. Don’t just accept Part 1’s judgments at face value. Question them. If you see flaws, discard them. And help Part 1 see the flaw in their logic.

Instead of treating Part 1 as an enemy, treat it like a teammate. Through these conversations we just want that Part 1 and Part 2 come on the same page.

The takeaway

We’re not trying to shut down part 1. Think of it this way:

Don’t silence the critic. But don’t surrender to it either.

Give it a seat at the table, but treat it as an equal and not as some higher entity who knows it all.

The inner critic’s not going to pack up and leave. It thinks it’s doing us a favour. So stop wishing it away. Invite it in. But you don’t need to accept things the critic states at face value. You can apply critical thinking to it. You can also set some ground rules: No vague labels, no name-calling. Only specific, constructive alerts that I can actually act on.

After all, the inner critic might think it is doing it all for our benefit, what it doesn’t realise is that the negative impact of all those judgments cause much more harmful than any benefit that might come from the criticisms.

Let’s tame the inner critic. Maybe it becomes a cheerleader one day.

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