Do you ever experience negative self-talk and wonder, who are these voices in your head?
During my 20 plus years of speaking and coaching, I’m often asked if we talk to ourselves. You might be reading this and think, I don’t know…do I?
The answer is obvious, of course, you do!
The real question becomes, what are you saying to yourself and whose voice is it really? Is it possible that many of the voices that have influence over your happiness and overall success are not even from your core expression of self?
When I first started my journey of personal growth and development two-plus decades ago, I had no idea what an amazing journey it would become. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying it has all been perfect, it’s had a lot of ups and downs.
While it has been valuable, it’s not what most people would describe as amazing. It’s been a roller coaster in every sense. The journey has been humbling, painful, revealing, and impactful. But I know that I am a very different person than the guy who started this journey all that time ago.
One of the first lessons I had during experiential learning was to see that I was more of a collection of other people’s viewpoints and perceptions than aligned in myself. Yes, you aren’t always what you think you are. Oftentimes, you are a set of made-up beliefs that were formed by others at a very young age. And it’s easy to live out of those beliefs your entire life.
For me, I had shaped my insecurities and my worth around the values of others and who I assessed myself to be based on their values, not mine. You might realize that you’re in a similar situation.
If so, I invite you to ask yourself, who was it that said you are not good enough, not smart enough, not talented or not allowed to determine success on your terms?
Has it been the voices of old perceptions or events? Or, is it something that you decided about yourself that does not serve your true dreams that you keep saying to yourself?
The journey to finding your voice is to begin to find it through your own internal thought processes about yourself, other people and the world. If you have always heard it this way, you will always become the sum total of all your thoughts.
Now imagine what it would be like to start to really look at your thoughts and perceptions that drive your emotional responses which causes your behaviors. How different would your life be if you change those negative thoughts into positive ones?
You are and always have been the most influential person in your life. It is well worth exploring the truth about how large or small you have been playing in your life.
Start by looking at the voices that control our limits. They always have been self-imposed but you can also change the story.
Are you ready to finally decide what is actually true about yourself?
