How to Hear Yourself the Way Others Do

There is a strange gap between the person you are inside your head and the person who talks to people. You know your intentions. You know the nuanced thoughts behind your words. Others do not. They only hear what comes out of your mouth.

Most of the time this gap is small. But sometimes it is a canyon. You say something you think is helpful and the other person hears it as criticism. You think you are being direct and they think you are being rude. You cannot understand the disconnect because you are judging yourself on your internal script. They are judging you on your performance.

How do you see the performance? How do you get an objective look at the words and the tone you actually use?

The Internal Filter

When you speak, you are not really listening to yourself. You are thinking about what to say next. You are reading the other person’s reactions. And you are hearing your own voice through the filter of your intentions. You know you mean well, so you assume you sound well.

This internal filter is why self-awareness is so difficult. You cannot easily see the label from inside the jar. You are too close to your own thoughts and habits to notice them. You might have a habit of complaining or turning conversations toward the negative. You might not even realize you do it. To you, you are just stating facts. To others, you are a drain on their energy.

To become aware of these patterns, you need an external tool. You need a mirror.

A Simple Experiment

The most effective mirror for your words is a recording. Not a video. Just your voice. The idea is not to create a performance for an audience. The audience is you. The goal is to capture the unfiltered words you use when you think no one is evaluating you.

Take a few minutes and talk about your day. Talk about a problem you are trying to solve. Or talk about a conversation you had recently. Say what is on your mind without trying to sound smart or polished. Just talk.

Then, wait. Do not listen to it immediately. Give it a day or even a few hours. This creates distance. It helps you listen more as an observer and less as the person who just spoke.

What to Listen For

When you play it back, your first reaction might be to cringe at the sound of your own voice. That is normal. Ignore it. The sound of your voice is not the point. The substance is the point.

Listen for your tone. Do you sound tired? Energetic? Anxious? Confident? Do you sound like someone you would want to talk to?

Listen for your habits. Do you interrupt yourself? Do you use filler words constantly? More importantly, listen for thematic habits. Do you find things to criticize? Do you talk about people in a dismissive way? Do you frame problems as someone else's fault? This is where you will find the gap between your intent and your impact.

You may have told yourself a story that you are a positive person. The recording does not know about your story. It only knows what you said.

The Goal is Not Perfection

This exercise is not about eliminating every flaw to become a perfect public speaker. It is not about judging yourself harshly. It is the opposite. It is about awareness without judgment. It is about observation.

When you notice a pattern, you do not have to fix it immediately. The simple act of noticing is often enough to start a change. Awareness is the necessary first step. If you hear yourself being overly critical in a recording, you are much more likely to catch yourself before you do it in a real conversation.

This process is like a programmer debugging code. You find the line that is causing the error. You do not get angry at the code. You simply see the problem and understand why the program is not working as intended. Your speech patterns are your code. A recording is the debugger.

From Awareness to Action

Over time, this practice of recording and listening builds a new level of self-awareness. You start to hear yourself in real time. The gap between your internal monologue and your external speech begins to shrink.

You start to ask better questions. Instead of wondering why someone reacted strangely, you might already have a good idea. You might recognize that your tone was off, or your words were sharper than you intended.

This is not about changing who you are. It is about becoming more of who you intend to be. It is about making sure the person the world meets is the person you want to be. The first step is simple. You just have to be willing to listen.

Try this for yourself with the prompt below.