Calming the Inner Critic and Getting to Work - Allegra Goodman

Thought Piece Response

When I was reading this article by Allegra Goodman, I couldn’t help but think of myself when I used to free write a few years ago. Goodman points out the critic in your head that keeps you from accomplishing something truly masterful. I believe this “inner critic” is not only in our head for writing, but it’s in our head when we’re in a stressful situation or when we are unsure about which direction to take in life. I know for a fact that this critic or “voice”, as I like to call it, gets in my head whenever I’m pitching on baseball team. I constantly think to myself about the batter hitting a homerun if I throw a fastball on an 3-2 or 2-2 count, or if I don’t fake a move to first base the first base runner will steal second. It’s that voice that plays tricks on us and keeps us from pursuing our dreams or moving forward in our lives. In fact, all of my baseball coaches and trainers have said baseball is a 90 percent mental game, and only a 10 percent physical game. I like how Goodman relates this critic, or voice, to writers and their problems with writing stories or new novels. She points out how old writers are dead and that their ideas and masterpieces are left to the history books, and that we should focus on ourselves and our writing, not the writing of a deceased individual. This is a great point, and I find it a source of motivation for me to think how the great inventors and genius’s of the past would never have accomplished anything had they told themselves that something could not be achieved. It’s also my belief that this world wouldn’t move forward and become more advanced unless we had thinkers, writers, inventors, or engineers who could tune out the “inner critic” and set out to accomplish extraordinary things with great ideas. In my opinion, you should ignore the past and another person’s accomplishments, because yours are still in the making and yours will be unique and incomparable to another individuals achievements. This is my take on Goodman's "inner critic" when she is writing and how the "inner critic" can also be related to my life through baseball.