Is your inner voice bringing you positive or negative perception?
Something I have always struggled with is that annoying voice inside my head. You know the one, telling you you’re not good enough or you are doing everything wrong. The inner voice gives you a false perception of yourself. It also makes you think others view you in a negative light. All this voice tries to do is undercut your plans by putting fear and uncertainty in your mind. Fear leads you to stall your decisions or goals. It becomes a never-ending cycle of inaction. We can stop this cycle only if we choose to recognize it and shut it down. As I think about my internal voice, I struggle to shut it down sometimes and end up trapped in the cycle of inaction.
The past year or so has been difficult. There has been so much uncertainty and making decisions was difficult. We are coming out of turbulent times, so this is the moment we should change our internal dialogue into a more positive message. The first step is to be aware of your internal voice. Is your inner voice providing you with positive messages or negative ones? Are these messages true? We must understand that our real selves are different from the thoughts and inner voices in our heads. If the voices in our heads are of a negative nature it will affects our behaviors. Often, this change manifests into fear of mistakes and failures. Our fear then takes over and we fail to act and make decisions that can benefit our organizations and our people. Change the statements into question of positivity. We all must acknowledge the voices that lead us in the wrong direction and then redirect that mental statement into something better.
If our internal voice is wrong for us, we must develop a new voice and flip the internal message. I have heard the statement; we are what we think of ourselves. This is very true. If we see ourselves as failures or not smart enough, that is what we become. We can ask ourselves questions in a positive way and redirect the negativity. Am I really a failure? We must follow up with a resounding, no! No one is a failure, and we are smarter than we think. We bring value to our organizations and our people every day. Change the statements your internal voice makes. Redirect the negative to a positive view.
The best way for anyone to overcome their negative internal voice is to actively make choices to grow and develop yourself. We can achieve this by finding positive avenues to change the voices in our heads. One such avenue that I have explored and found value in is listening to pod casts with a positive message. A great message can ignite positivity. Another that I have heard of but have not tried myself is recording your wins. We can debrief at the end of each day by recording moments we have exceeded expectations. We might even surprise ourselves at the success we achieved that day. This will allow us to see the positives in our lives and crush the negative thoughts and voices that haunt us. By absorbing positive messages, we break the negative internal voice cycle that perpetuates inaction.
What negative message is replaying in your mind?
How has your internal voice stopped your forward progress?
What questions could you ask yourself that may redirect your inner voice?
What steps can you take today that will make you more mentally positive?
Our internal voices are powerful. Positive thoughts lead to positive outcomes and negative ones stop our progression and improvement. Negative internal thoughts and voices breed fear and inaction. We must control our inner conversations to bring the most value to our world. I hope you have a wonderful week and thanks for checking out this week’s post.
Steven C. Bucks-Leading Conversations
