When the Inner Critic is Not Enough

Tonight as I read the last chapters of Adapt (by Tim Harford), I gained more confidence on what I have been doing thus far in ny life. I have never been interested in self-help or inspirational books and I almost ignored this book at Booksale except I got curious and leafed through the book, which was a good decision, and decided it's worth occupying a space in my collection.

How timely that at the moment when I am facing a tough challenge I should be reading this. The universe indeed is a funny place and the fates always have a way of bringing us what we need at the appropriate time. We just need to listen to those little voices from deep within.

For instance, now on page 277, I just have to stop and blog to write about how the critic in us can most of the time, fail us, and how we need to surround ourselves with the right people who have the courage to tell us ugly truths to our face and who trust that we can recover from a bruised ego.

"We need whistleblowers in our own lives to warn us about the 'latent errors' that we have made and which are just waiting to catch us out. In short, we all need a critic, and for most of us the inner critic is not nearly frank enough. We need someone who can help us hold those two jostling thoughts at the same time: I am not a failure- but I have made a mistake."

Because most of the time we think we're all high and mighty, we have a set of ideals and as much as possible we'd like to think we follow these ideals as we navigate through this very complex world. But then again when self-righteousness takes centerstage, you try to justify everything even though deep inside of you you know it's wrong, or a no-win situation. Most times it's easy to get carried away because of a quick apparent happiness but which is doomed from the beginning. The human brain is a marvel, it's something that conjures awesome ideas but it sadly also has the capacity to self-destruct.

Psychologists have what they call cognitive dissonance, that ugly, inconvenient situation in which the mind finds it hard to reconcile two contradictory thoughts simultaneously. When faced with such a challenge, one either engages in denial or chase after losses, or go into "hedonic editing" mode. (The latter term was coined by Richard Thaler, author of Nudge.) Denial occurs when we dismiss outside criticism and attempt to silence it. Chasing after losses contribute to more losses as one tries to erase past mistakes. Hedonic editing is when we convince ourselves that the mistakes do not matter.

So thinking of my recent conversations with friends, I feel thankful to have people who can admonish me and believe in my inner strength. They know that I know when I am having mistakes but they emphasize them not to hurt me but to illustrate a point, that there is room for improvement, that there is something I need to work on lest I regret it later. And I'd rather hear awkward truths than listen to hollow praises. No wonder lately I enjoy the company of people older than me.