When you find your voice and you are emboldened to use it, it can be life changing. From the way you are in relationships to the way you present yourself, how you are in your business and the way you market your business to the world. This is your external voice, but what about the internal voices that exist?
Your internal voices may be strong and encouraging but as human beings we will have the less encouraging sabotaging voices, too. The degree to which they affect us will vary from hour-to-hour, day-to-day, week-to-week. When I speak to my clients it can be somewhat artificial to speak about ignoring or shutting off the sabotaging voices, particularly if they have featured heavily for a client for a prolonged period of time.
I encourage my clients to practice turning the volume down on the sabotaging voices and turning the volume up on the voices that serve to embolden.
Here are some ways you can turn up the volume on the emboldening voices and in turn, turn down the sabotaging ones:
Write things down and use this as evidence. All too often we get caught on the wheel of doing; we keep going, striving for the next thing without actually stopping to acknowledge what we have achieved. Develop a daily practice of writing down what you have accomplished. The challenges you have overcome – no matter how small they may seem. This is your evidence of what you are capable of. So when the loud sabotaging noise threatens to take over you can refer back to this evidence of how resilient and capable you truly are.
Ask for feedback and develop from this. When someone tells you what a great job you’ve done / are doing, don’t just bat it off, accept their feedback with grace listen to their words and remember how it feels.
Remember a time when everything felt as it should be. Take time to remember and reflect on the times when you feel truly fulfilled – even the fleeting moments. How did you feel? Who was there with you? Assign this time or feeling a colour. Bring this colour and the thoughts and feelings associated with it to the forefront of your mind to quieten those sabotaging noises.
Positive affirmations. Print out the quotes that you see that really speak to you, put them where you can see and look at them every day, say them out loud – let them speak to your core, it works.
Trust in your ability to return to be your best self. What do you need, to be in that place where you are your best self? Consciously do whatever it is you need; stop and listen to you.
Tune into your rational mind - it’s there! Even when self doubt is at its peak, somewhere deep down there is that sound that tells you that you CAN do it and everything will be ok, do whatever it takes to tune into that. Take a break, go for a walk, and get some sleep. Stopping whatever is going to tune into your rational mind will have a bigger impact than the time you may feel you are losing by stopping whatever is going on. You will achieve more from this rational perspective.
Use these ways to help you amplify your productive voice and turn down the limiting one. When the noise starts give yourself permission to stop, turn down the ‘racket’ and turn up the more tuneful sounds.