There is a voice that reviews everything you do. It pipes up when you finish a piece of work, before you speak in the meeting, and on the drive home afterwards. You have lived with it so long that you assume it is you.
It is worth checking that assumption, because when you listen closely, the voice gives itself away. It has favourite phrases. It has particular accusations it returns to. It has, if you pay proper attention, an accent. And the accent is not yours.
The commentary you never commissioned
Start with what the voice actually says, because its material is remarkably consistent.
“That could have been better.” “Don’t speak unless you’re sure.” “You’ve missed something, you always miss something.” Notice that these are not fresh assessments of the work in front of you. They are stock lines, delivered on schedule, regardless of what you have actually produced. A fresh assessment would vary with the evidence, which is rather the point: this commentary was written long before today’s evidence existed.
That is your first clue that something odd is going on. Real judgement responds to the thing it is judging, and the voice mostly does not.
Where the phrasing came from
Here is a pattern I have met many times, in composite form.
A capable professional notices something strange about how she prepares. For clients, she preps thoroughly and efficiently, then delivers. For internal audiences, the people inside her own organisation, she prepares twice as long, over-builds every deck, and pre-answers questions nobody ends up asking. Same skills, same subject matter, double the labour.
When she finally examines the difference, it is not about the stakes. Objectively, the client work carries more risk. The difference is who she hears while she works. Internal audiences wake up a particular commentary, in a particular tone, and the tone belongs to a manager she worked for years ago, the one who reviewed everything with a red pen and a raised eyebrow. He has not seen her work in a decade. He is, nonetheless, supervising the preparation.
She thought she was hearing her own high standards, when what she was actually hearing was a recording.
Your judgement, and the judgement you absorbed
This is the distinction that matters, and it repays careful attention.
Your own judgement is something you built. It draws on your experience and your sense of what good looks like in this specific situation, today. When it finds a flaw, the flaw is specific and the fix is usually obvious. It is also capable of concluding that something is good enough and meaning it.
Absorbed judgement arrived differently. It was installed early, by people whose approval once felt like safety, and its verdicts were written years before your current work existed. Which is why it never varies with the evidence, and why “not good enough” arrives before it has properly looked.
There is no shame in having taken these voices in. Absorbing the standards of the people who mattered is how every child learns the world, and it almost certainly powered a good deal of your success. The only question, and it is a live one, is whether a verdict recorded decades ago should still be chairing today’s review meeting.
Placing the voice
So here is the practice for the week, and it is deliberately small.
When the commentary starts, do not argue with it and do not obey it. Just place it. Ask: whose phrasing is that? Whose standards is it applying? You are doing nothing more than the professional in the story did, noticing that the commentary has a source, and that the source is not the present moment.
Some people find it helps to file the recording accurately. “Ah. The red pen manager.” Nothing dramatic happens when you do this, and that is rather the point. A recording, once recognised as a recording, can be heard without being obeyed.
If this resonated, don’t just rush on past it. Take a little time with the question of whose accent your inner commentary carries, because there is usually a specific answer, and finding it changes how the voice lands.
We are working through precisely this territory inside The Overachievers Club right now. This month’s series, The Approval Pattern, spends eight modules tracing how these borrowed judgements got installed and what it takes to put your own judgement back in the chair, and the conversation is happening this month, not someday: https://KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/work-with-me/the-overachievers-club/
If you would rather dip a toe first, the Overachiever Archetype quiz takes a couple of minutes and shows you which version of these patterns you are most likely running: https://KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/work-with-me/the-overachievers-club/what-kind-of-achiever-are-you/?#quiz
This week’s episode of The Overachievers Podcast walks the same ground from a different angle, if audio is more your thing: https://KeithBN.link/TOP
Connected Podcast Episode
030 – The Critical Voice
You think the critical voice in your head is yours. Listen more closely. It has favourite phrases, a particular tone, and an accent that isn’t yours.
Relevant Related Blogs and Episodes
The Voice That Sounds Like Standards
Perfectionism doesn’t sound like criticism. It sounds like care. That’s exactly what makes it so hard to question.
When Your Greatest Strengths Are Also Your Biggest Problem
Your biggest frustrations might be coming from your greatest strengths. Here’s why overachievers keep hitting the same patterns, and what to do about it.
Episode 006 – When High Standards Turn Into Self-Pressure
Why do high standards feel heavy? Discover how to spot when they turn to self-pressure, and the mindful shift for sustainable success.
Episode 008 – Separating Identity from Achievement
Discover how to separate your self-worth from achievement and build a stable identity beyond results with Keith Blakemore Noble.
