I have an internal critic, although I don't always recognise it as one but this prompt made me pull it on to the surface. Mine doesn't really tell me that I am useless or that I can't do something. It just waits until I am alone, usually at night when there is nothing left to distract me, and then it starts comparing. "Look at where everyone else is." That is probably its favourite phrase. Its not telling me that I am failing. It simply reminds me that someone else is moving faster, earning more, building something bigger, getting married(especially this), buying a house, travelling, starting a company or generally doing something that makes me question whether I am moving fast enough myself or even moving at alll. I get self assessment is important, i wont lie to myself but sometimes it get a bit much.
The annoying thing is that this voice rarely brings itself out during the day. During the day, I am usually too busy to listen to it. There is work to do, things to write, messages to answer and a dozen other things competing for attention but at night, when I finally have nothing demanding my attention, the critic seems to clock in for its shift. It is almost as if my brain waits for the lights to go off before opening a spreadsheet containing everybody else's life. If my internal critic were a person, I think it would be my nosy neighbour. The type who knows who bought a new car, who moved into a new house, who got married, who got promoted and who is suddenly doing very well. He would probably sit outside in the evening with his arms folded, watching everybody come and go, keeping an unnecessary mental record of what everyone else is doing.
The crazy thing is that I know better, i truly do. I know that comparing my life to somebody else's is often completely irrational because I don't know the full story behind their life. I see the result but not the process. I see the new car but not the debt probably. I see the business but not the failed attempts that came before it. Yet knowing this doesn't always stop the comparison. Sometimes the mind doesn't need a logical argument, it just needs emotions or sentiment to fuel it or add gasoline to fire. I also think social media has made this critic particularly comfortable. Before, comparison was mostly limited to people around you. Now I can wake up and within five minutes see hundreds of people achieving things.
I am also beginning to realise that the critic isn't completely useless. Comparison can sometimes show me what I genuinely want. Seeing someone build something can remind me that I want to build something too. The problem begins when their progress becomes evidence against my own, but i do try to fight it , these days, when that voice starts talking at night, I am trying to ask a different question. Instead of asking, "Why am I not where they are?" I ask, "Am I where I was?" That feels like a much fairer comparison, maybe I am not where I ultimately want to be, but perhaps I am further than I was two years ago. My internal critic probably won't disappear, to be honest im not sure i even want it to disappear.