- Image via Wikipedia
My voice is a put down artist.
I’ve got a little voice in my head that keeps score. Mostly it tells me about every target I have missed; every task that I haven’t completed. I think that we all have that voice but I suspect that some people have either gagged it or turned down the volume. Mine is a put-down artist reminding me that I weight too much; haven’t managed to grow my income or my blog readers and am generally inadequate. It stays current on my failings and makes sure that I know the score. That is good information. I need to have a realistic understanding about my status because nothing can be worse than believing you are in better shape than you are – or is it? What if it is really worse to think that you are in worse shape. Because that little voice has a bias. It undervalues your accomplishments or worse, ignores them altogether.
How can you challenge that little voice?
It is easy to emphasize the negatives and hard to notice what you are doing right or even that you are making progress on your goals when your only source of information is that little voice in your head. You need different feedback. But how do you do that? I think there are three ways: Measure your progress objectively, get independent feedback, form an alliance. Each of these provides you a check against the bias of the little voice. Each of them requires you to commit to your goals and take some action. Each of them gives you ammunition to challenge the little voice and find out just where you are with your goals. And each of them is difficult to do because they might just confirm that the little voice is right and you really are a big loser.
It is a challenge I face every day. Have I got the guts to confront that little voice by getting an outside opinion? Am I willing to risk proving that it is right by measuring my progress? Can I risk the damage to my ego by taking on a partner in my quest? Or will I continue to hesitate and doubt my progress or worse give up?
My little voice has a glass jaw
My little voice seems powerful and all knowing when it stands unchallenged but it has a glass jaw. When I find the courage to challenge it’s authority, it falls and takes the count. I have learned over time that it is always wrong, sometimes more and sometimes less but still wrong and undervaluing my abilities and accomplishments. Even so, it is hard for me each time. I think about challenging it. I never seem to learn,
What about your little voice?
Do you challenge your little voice. Or have you gagged it? How do deal with your little voice?
One way or the other, I have to decide. When I can’t make up my mind, I flip a coin.
Steve Skinner’s last Blog Post ..A Time For Reflection
Steve,
I think that any decision is better than being stuck. Do you tend to believe the worst or the best option or do you just go with the coin?
If given full consideration, I’ll usually choose the best option.
Steve Skinner’s last Blog Post ..A Time For Reflection
What I meant to say is do you take the one that sees you as better or worse?
I tend to be a positive person so I would choose the option that appeared to be for the better.
Steve Skinner’s last Blog Post ..A Time For Reflection
I’d be wary of these voices. When I was fighting crime, all my schizophrenic clients were hearing voices (auditory hallucinations in the trade)and going ape-shit in the process. Unless it’s the Devil tellin’ ya all this stuff, you are probably OK, and your life just fine.
But more seriously, their is a voice out there reminding us of our inadequacies on a daily basis: the Media. And the Media has it down pat. Better than any ex-wife, the Media has a way of pointing out your failings, while offering the solution for just three easy payments of $19.99.
Ralph…I suffer from the same stuff you do, my buddies too. So it ain’t just me, and it ain’t just you. It goes with the territory.
Hansi,
That is a brilliant observation. That little voice isn’t really mine and I can disown it. I like that a lot.
Now a question for you. When you stop fighting crime what happens? Do you then embrace it? encourage it? Go with the flow? If, like me, you have never fought crime, am I an enabler. This is too deep for me.
Ralph@retirement lifestyle’s last Blog Post ..Outrageous Retirement Lifestyle- Is it too late
More application of AA. Ralph, remember that AA sayin’ I told you about regarding worrying about what others think of you? The one that went, “It’s none of my business what you think of me,”?
Apply it as though that littl voice were a real person standing next to you.
I just get up each morning and do the best I can with what I have to work with. If I do that its all that can be asked of me…by others or by my little voice.
Bob.
I think we all get addicted. It may not be alcohol but it can be very damaging and yet we are oblivious. Learning that you are an addict is maybe one of life’s most important lessons.
I think Bob nailed it. Gotta love them AA sayings, witty and right-on. Re: fighting crime, or anything. I think you kinda embrace it but more so acknowledge that these feelings, doubts or whatever are there. See their transitory/impermanent nature, realize those thoughts are not You, but only thoughts, and move on. Aversion to anything causes just as much suffering as does graving.
Hansi,
Bob nails everything. Have you checked out his posts on building the yurt? Bob is the hammer to which everything looks like a nail.
Hansi, I HATE the AA sayings. Trouble is, thy are true and it would do me great harm to ignore them.
Why do I hate ’em? Because I’m an alcoholic, which means I’m a control freak who knows everything and HATES being told what to do, and those damn sayings tell me what to do.
Ah well…as long as I keep listening to them…much as I hate to…I can put that next drink off for one more day.
Ralph, have you noticed that the date/time stamp for comments is a different style than for your replies?