Talking to Ourselves

I don't know if it's exactly the same thing, but one of my tactics for learning new things - especially technical things - is to explain them in detail to my inner voice and have them (me) judge it.

My inner voice is usually pretty reliable in giving feedback like: "dude, that made no sense, you clearly don't understand that" or "good job! You should write a blog post!"

I was in a class back several years ago where the instructor gave a memorable less about inner monologues. He pulled up two volunteers and asked one to explain a new concept to the other. Good, fine, everything went well. The second person repeated the concept back clearly and in their own words.

Then the instructor asked them to explain a different concept. This time the instructor whispered in the second person's ear (loud enough for the class to listen), "you're stupid, you're never going to understand this, everyone thinks you're an idiot, you should just quit," and on and on. And of course the person hadn't retained anything. The point being just how much negative self-talk interferes with learning and communication.