What are you doing with your voice?

I use my voice more and more these days. It’s part of getting my message out. What are you doing with your voice? Some people are comfortable speaking up to share their ideas, emotions, and preferences. Other people find it difficult to share more than facts and data. What you do with your voice could give you some clues about some of your subconscious beliefs.

 

Is it safe to be heard?

For some people, their home environment did not encourage being heard. Maybe it wasn’t safe physically to do so. When a child lives in an environment that feels scary, they usually become very good at being silent and invisible.

 

For many other people, there may have been just one painful experience that created the belief that it wasn’t worth the risk to speak up. In my book Your4Truths: How Beliefs Impact Your Life I share a story about a woman who had one vivid childhood experience where she was called on in class to answer a question and didn’t give the right answer. The consequences impacted her ability to speak up for many years after that – until she changed the belief that it was safe to speak out.

 

Do you deserve to be heard?

For other people, it’s not based on fear – it’s more a matter of feeling like what you have to say is not impactful. This could be because you don’t feel like you are as important as other people, or because you think your perspectives wouldn’t be valuable to others, or because you are unwilling to share how you feel because it might reveal too much about yourself.

 

What are the consequences?

There are all sorts of beliefs that can contribute to making it difficult to use your voice. Most people don’t try to analyze why – they just accept that this is the way they are. But if you are one of these reluctant speakers, have you thought about the consequences? What is the worst that could happen if you started to speak up? Is that something you could live with?

What do you lose by not using your voice? Sometimes, the worst doesn’t seem so bad when you really think about it – especially when you think about the cost of not being heard.

 

What can you do about it?

Imagine what it would feel like to actually be heard. Picture yourself confidently sharing that thought and seeing a positive reaction to it. Can you imagine how empowering that would be? What if you actually told someone where you’d like to eat or what you’d like to do instead of saying “I don’t care – you pick”?

 

I believe that people deserve to be heard. We all have valuable thoughts. We have emotions that need to be shared with the right people. We deserve to have our preferences taken into account when a plan will impact us. Why is this so hard for some people?

 

If any of this resonates with you, go to my Resources page and download material to learn more about how your beliefs may be impacting your life. It may help you find a different way to use your voice.