Hello and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast and the team of LifeHacker,

where we help you improve your life one week at a time.

I'm Alice Bradley, editor-in-chief of LifeHacker.

And I'm Jordan Calhoun, LifeHackers Deputy Editor.

And today we are learning how to control that voice inside our head.

That's right, we're getting a better grip on our inner critic with help from psychologist Ethan Cross.

It can consume us, and we only have a limited ability to focus at any given time on a problem or a paper or an assignment.

And when we're consumed with chatter, that's soaking up all of the mental resources we have to focus, leaving nothing over to do what we need to do.

Ethan is a professor at the University of Michigan's psychology department and Ross School

of Business. He's one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious mind,

and his research explores how people can control their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to improve

their lives. Ethan just published his first book called Chatter, The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters,

and How to Harness It, and He joined us to talk about how our inner critic can both help us and

hurt us and the tools that we can use to manage it.

So, Jordan, how's your inner critic doing these days?

My inner critic is not in control of the car, but definitely in the passenger

seat, definitely there, maybe giving some backseat driving. And I do okay, I think, shushing

him sometimes. When you're talking to yourself,

are you talking in first person or third person?

Or like, who are you talking to when you're talking to yourself?

I'm not always aware that I'm talking at all.

I think that's part of the, for me,

...