Hearing voices isn’t always a bad thing.
Think back to the teacher who challenged you most. The one who pushed and influenced your thinking more than anyone else.
Can you hear her voice?
When I’m faced with a challenge, I try to hear my mentor’s voice advising me. What would he tell me. How would he advise me to approach the problem.
I first encountered the strategy in Chaim Potok’s The Chosen. In it, the main character faces challenges by immersing himself in his studies of the Talmud and begins to anticipate the questions he’ll hear in class, culminating in an epic week-long interaction with his professor. He has so internalized his mentor’s mind that he has raised his own performance.
It applies just as well to voice students learning to practice or to my sons practicing piano: I ask my oldest, “what would your teacher say about that performance.” He already knows and can improve his practice by learning to practice more effectively what he will be asked to demonstrate.
Don’t ignore the voices in your head: cultivate them to make you better at what you are trying to do.