Whenever it comes to living a life of contentment, your inner voice can be your biggest ally or your harshest critic, either pushing you forward to find what makes you content, or holding you back and preventing you from truly being happy. For either of these outcomes, too much of an untamed internal voice can be dangerous, so learning how to tame that inner voice is often very helpful in your journey towards contentment.
Your inner voice might seem impossible to tame, because it never seems to shut up. Every time you try to strive for something it is their speaking, telling you that you can’t do it or that you need to focus on something easier, something you actually can do. If you are seeking to change your mindset from one of scarcity to one of abundance, then you can definitely expect your inner voice to snap at you.
So, how do you tame your inner voice and ensure that it works with you and not against you? There are a few steps you can take, and while they might seem like they take a lot of time and effort, you might find that it is all worth it once your inner voice starts telling you what you want to hear.
Step 1: Focus On What The Inner Voice Is Telling You
For a couple of days, write down everything your inner voice is telling you, because in order to change it to something productive you need to first see what your inner voice is already telling you. Write down the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you can even separate it by topic. What does your inner voice tell you about happiness? Money? Contentment? Success?
Are they words and phrases of encouragement that focus on how you can have more of those things in your life? Are they words of doubt and lack that are making you too afraid to chase those goals? Are they words that are actively putting you down, words that say you can never achieve what you desire?
There’s a study that says 90% of what we do has already been programmed for us by the subconscious mind, which is the part of the mind we don’t control and where the inner voice lives. 90% of what we do each day is fueled by the inner voice, and once you get the inner voice’s playbook in front of you, you can focus on countering each phrase.
Step 2: Counter Each Negative Phrase With Something Positive
It might seem a bit shocking to see all the negative phrases that your inner voice has been telling you for who knows how long, and it’s had quite a while to be shaped by the environment you are in and your own thoughts. The hold it has on you and the freedom you’ve given it will take a while to cramp down upon, but it can be done.
First, you need to focus on the negative phrases. For example, let’s take a common one that everyone seems to have when it comes to heading towards contentment: “You don’t deserve to be happy.” Contentment can equal happiness, or at the very least it can end the struggle that is blocking your happiness, so your mind will want to keep you from that at all costs.
A great phrase to tell yourself in order to counter that is “I deserve happiness, and I am happy right now.” Then pick out something in your life or your situation to be happy about. It doesn’t matter how silly or small, you just need to pick something. It could be that the sky is blue, that you heard your favorite song on the radio, or that you are going to eat your favorite meal for dinner tonight.
It just needs to be something that will make you smile, and once that is done, you can go about your day. Every time the thought of you not deserving happiness comes up, replace the negative thought with that positive phrase and the action that causes you to feel happiness. It might take a couple of days to kick in and replace the negative thought pattern, but eventually you will find yourself not thinking that negative thought anymore.
Then you can move onto the next issue your inner voice has, turning it into an ally rather than something that will constantly tear you down. This does ask for a lot of repetition and diligence on your end, but the rewards will be well worth it.
Having An Out Of Control Positive Inner Voice
Having an inner voice that is too positive can be a problem too, from a certain point of view. For high achievers or people who want to get things done, their inner voice can tell them to overcome challenges, climb over the next hill, and seek out the next big adventure. This isn’t a bad thing at all, but it can become a problem whenever you find yourself seeking the next big adventure right on the heels of the previous one.
Satisfaction is “the fulfillment of one's wishes, expectations, or needs, or the pleasure derived from this.” While you might be fulfilling your wishes and needs whenever you achieve your goals, you also need to take in the pleasure of all that you have accomplished. While you don’t want to rest on your laurels too long, you also don’t want to ignore them entirely. If you’ve completed a goal, then recognize and accept that goal. Feel good that you completed something so amazing, and then move onto the next one.
Tame your positive inner voice by taking a few mental steps back from the future and instead focusing on the present moment. Be present in your victory, enjoy the sweetness of it and the satisfaction of a job well done, and then focus on getting back out onto the grind and getting your next goal completed.