Ignore Your Unsupportive Inner Voice

Do you sometimes feel your thoughts are your worst enemy?

If so, it’s critical to learn to ignore your inner voice that makes decisions counter to your long-term best interest.

Your inner voice makes you say “no” when “yes” would be in your long-term best interest. Like when you:

• don’t volunteer to take on that gnarly project that would show off your talents.
• turn down the invitation to make a high-stakes speech.
• don’t stand up to a bully.

Or the inner voice could shout “yes” when saying “no” would prevent you from:

• eating another bowl of ice cream
• hopping in the car to do an errand 2 blocks away
• accepting new job responsibilities that you don’t really want.

Our minds created that inner voice to protect us. It thinks it is doing us a favor by keeping us out of situations that are uncomfortable, or where we can fail.

Instead, it keeps us stuck. We listen and think, “I could fail/get hurt/be uncomfortable, so I should listen and act accordingly.”

When you hear that unsupportive inner voice, pause and ask, “Is this voice urging me to do something in my long-term best interest, or not?” If not, learn to ignore it. But first you have to be conscious of it.