Yesterday I talked about the Life Mastery Wheel.
Today I’m going to look at one element of that, Story.
According to Jim Loehr, in his book, “The Power of Story”, a story needs three things to be a good story, purpose, truth and action.
Purpose we know about – though I still think I own you a post on things you can do to help find your purpose – so today we’ll just look truth and action.
Truth
Pretty straight forward concept. Yet how many of us are 100% all-the-time honest with ourselves. Think you are? Here’s the test – does your outer voice match your inner voice. That is to say, is what you say and do a direct reflection of what you were telling yourself on the inside.
Examples:
- Inner Voice: I hate work
- Outer Voice: “Yes, boss, you know I love to be here”
- Inner Voice: Work out now!
- Outer Voice: “It’s cold outside the bed, I’ll sleep a little longer”
You get the picture.
Another test for truth is, is your inner voice really YOUR inner voice? This may sound strange, I know, because after all, if your inner voice was someone else’s wouldn’t that make you just a little “crazy”?
Well actually, sometimes our inner voice is not really true to US. How many of you have ever had that little voice in your head say something like: “You know you can’t do it, so don’t even try”, or “You know you’re not pretty, why would anyone ever want you”.
Let me put this in Caps Lock so it’s clear: THAT VOICE IS NOT YOU!!!!!
Any voice that puts you down, tells you can’t/shouldn’t/aren’t, or otherwise says anything negative about you is not your true inner voice. True voices are always reaffirming and positive.
There is a great book out there called “Taming Your Gremlin” by Rick Carson that goes in depth into all of these voices (or as he calls them: Gremlins) that somehow, in our lives, get stuck in our heads and are there for the sole purpose of sabotaging us. That’s right, you might be sabotaging yourself right now! (and there is a Gremlin who would love you to believe that and have it stop you from doing anything positive) confusing enough for you?
So lets be clear, what does your TRUE inner voice, your TRUE self sound like?
- It will have a Conscience – speaking with integrity, honesty, and character
- It will have Reason and Wisdom – speaking with sanity and inner knowing.
- It will Support and Encourage – not just you, but others also. Ultimately though it knows you must take care of yourself first above all else, otherwise how will you be able to help others.
- It will be Tough – it will stand up for what it believes in (purpose, values) and will not shy away from conflict, when those things are being stomped on.
- It will be a Crap Detector – and tell you when you are telling yourself lies, and help prevent you from “buying into” the indoctrination of others.
- It will Trust – this may seem counter-productive to the Crap Detector, but you can’t distrust eveyone (you’ll know, you’ll have a feeling when things are not right).
- It will have Compassion – speaking with kindness, empathy, and sympathy.
- It will be Sincere – talking from a place of authenticity.
- It will have Intuition – to tell you when standard logic and reason don’t apply and to try something else.
(Thank you Jim Loehr for these identifiers)
Hopefully that helps you identify your inner voice and start to get it straight with your outer voice.
Looks like I ran out of room on this post, so next time more on Action!
Until then, keep laughing and listening to your true inner voice.