Living with our inner voice

The interview was for the IT department of a posh 5-star hotel. The 22 year old woman sat nervously nibbling at her nails. She was new to town and felt completely out of her depth in these posh surroundings. She was simply dressed and was sure that the others were sniggering at how she was dressed. As time progressed, she became a mass of nerves and that is when she was called in for the interview. Did she get the job? No! Her nervousness shone through her answers and the interviewers felt that she was not the right choice - she would not fit their company culture.

That 22 year old was me and that experience has remained with me all these years. Where did I go wrong? Firstly, I gave my inner voice a free rein to keep talking down to me. That affected my state of mind and made me nervous. From that nervousness, came my attitude - an attitude of failure and this in turn affected my behaviours. All my behaviours said to the interviewers, "I am not the right person for this job". Did I have the skills? Yes! Was I competent to do this job? Most definitely yes. What let me down? My self belief that I was not good enough because I was not dressed to the hilt.

All of us possess this inner voice. It is this tiny voice inside us that gets louder when we are in an uncomfortable situation. "People must think I am completely stupid for doing this...", "If I say this, I'll look like a fool...", "Oh my God! I am wearing this particular outfit. I am never going to get noticed". All of these are examples of inner voice speak. What is this inner voice? It is nothing but our ego. Our ego which demands a constant pat on the back from ourself and from other people. 

The bad news is that this inner voice is an integral part of us. The good news is that it is like a radio station - we can tune it to any station we wish to. We can programme it. 

Facts about the inner voice:

1. Our inner voice stems from two things - a fear and a deeply rooted belief. 

2. The inner voice is irrational and is not rooted in logic. It is an emotional response to a situation that we are not comfortable with. The important thing to do is to recognise this fact and work around it.

Steps in controlling our inner voice:

1. Take 5 deep breaths, focusing on the process of inhaling and exhaling. While an emotional reaction is instantaneous, the logical brain takes less than 10 seconds to kick in. Taking 5 deep breaths serves the dual purpose of giving the brain time to kick in and putting aside negative emotions and allowing for some positive energy to flow in. 

2. Ask yourself what specifically it is about the situation that is making you uncomfortable. Which belief / fear is it tapping into? 

3. Ask yourself what purpose is this fear / belief serving you. This might sound funny but fear actually has a purpose in our lives. It drives a basic survival instinct. The emotions of anger and fear, while perceived largely as negative emotions actually drive our fight / flight instinct. So if something is causing you fear, it is probably something that you want to fly away from. Identifying that "something" is a good first step in tackling it. 

4. Once you have identified how this fear / belief is serving you, identify how else you can derive the same benefits. 

5. When you realise that there are other ways of getting the same benefits, you will find yourself automatically getting into a different state of mind.

When I applied this 5 step process to my above experience, this is what I realised: I had a belief that my competence depended on my dressing. I believed that people would assess me based on how I looked rather than on what I knew and was capable of doing. This belief was being driven by the fear of failure. Panic set in the moment my inner voice told me that my dressing was not chic and that people would not consider me competent because of what I wore. That meant I would fail in my quest to get this job. Fear of failure!

So what benefit was I getting out of this fear? The fear of failure drove me towards learning more, towards knowing more. Due to this fear I was constantly engaged in self improvement and that moment was my "AH-HA" moment. I now knew how else I could still keep getting the same benefits without the added baggage of being afraid.

The fear of failure still exists in me - but of course. What I have managed to do successfully is to dumb down that inner voice, which once in a while still talks to me when I look in the mirror. My belief about competence and dressing going hand in hand is now replaced by a new belief: "If I fail to plan, I plan to fail". So I plan meticulously and I do everything that I can in order not to fail.

Life is one giant learning curve and there is loads one can learn just by living. Thank you all for allowing me to share bits and pieces of my learning curve with you all. I hope it is of some use. I'd also appreciate a sharing from my readers - that would enable my learning as well. I would also appreciate your feedback on anything -the content, the writing style, the language... there is no criticism, only feedback.