Listen to your inner critic’s voice. If it sounds like an old coach or a harsh relative, it isn’t even yours.

The harsh voice in your head arrived from somewhere. It has a tone, a vocabulary, often a particular phrase, and if you listen closely enough it frequently turns out to belong to a specific person from years ago. Recognising the source does not silence it, and it does change your relationship to it, because a borrowed opinion carries much less authority than a private truth.

Next time it starts, listen to the sound rather than the content. Ask whose voice that is. Once you can name the owner, you can decide whether that person still gets a say.