Having high metacognition but failing to act: Anyone else experience this "brain within a brain" phenomenon? ( I am a foreigner; please exc me if I don't express myself very well)
To put it simply, think of those movie tropes where the protagonist is the flawless Top 1 student, favored by the teacher and hyped up by peers. On the flip side, the antagonist is stuck at Top 2, constantly compared, deemed inferior, and harbors deep resentment toward Top 1, trying desperately to defeat them just to get the teacher’s validation. This is how most people normally process things.
But people with high metacognition operate differently. First, they accept the reality: "I am genuinely not as good at this specific thing as Top 1." Then, they realize: "But I’m still pretty damn good for being Top 2, and I could easily be Top 1 in a different field. If anyone deserves my resentment here, it’s that biased teacher."
Yep, that is a textbook example of metacognition. But that’s just the theory.
The real issue is that many people possess this metacognition yet completely fail to act on what they perceive. It’s exactly like knowing how destructive staying up late is for your health, but you still do it anyway. Logic is one thing, but emotions and habits are an entirely different beast.
Can I call my situation a "brain within a brain" phenomenon? I’m not sure how to phrase it correctly, but it goes like this: For normal people, they have thoughts in their head and then they speak them out loud. For me, the thoughts in my head already function as the "spoken dialogue" (they literally talk back and forth to each other), while my actual, deeper thoughts exist on a completely different layer.
I’ve tried thinking my way out of the problem I mentioned above. However, the dialogue on my surface-level brain is always shallow and superficial, almost like fake, dishonest excuses. Meanwhile, that deeper "inner brain" layer sees right through it and clearly perceives that I am just dodging the issue.
I need help naming this exact phenomenon, and I'd love some advice on how to fix the gap between knowing and actually doing.