Hey #065: What does your inner voice mean when it says "You can't do it?"
The chances are you're missing “the three dots” 👇
It’s an uphill battle to not give in to harsh criticisms by one’s own inner voices.
I recently faced this struggle.
Two weeks back, I finally started working on my idea to simplify emotional intelligence in day-to-day communication. I was in a deep thinking state, day in and day out.
While it seemed that all my time was going in brainstorming and executing on my idea, the truth is, most of my time was going in shushing my inner voices which were criticizing me continuously.
It felt like I was being prosecuted by my own inner voices lol. The voices that are meant to uplift me were drowning me into an endless ocean of self-doubts.
I knew I cannot focus on my idea until I deal with these voices. So I applied the suggestion that I shared in the very first edition of HeyEmotions.
I started jotting down all thoughts and feelings that were being knitted by my inner voices to stop me from working on my idea. I ended up writing 970 words.
In these words, there was a consistent pattern of being told "Ashi, you can’t do it." Most importantly, I noticed the reason due to which I started believing that my inner voices were my enemies.
The reason was the three dots.
I realized that I remained stuck on "Ashi, you can't do it," thinking that this is all my inner voice had to say. But I figured there was more to it.
It was NOT “You can’t do it.”
It was “You can’t do it…”
There wasn’t a period after “You can’t do it” but three dots. What followed three dots was the remaining part of the sentence that I couldn’t see due to the unsettling feeling stirred by the four words, “You,” “Can’t,” “Do” and “It.”
When I noticed the three dots, I started asking questions to my inner voice.
Why do you think I can’t do it?
It didn’t answer right away. But I persisted.
To each “You can’t do it” by my inner voice, came my question “Why do you think I can’t do it?”
Guess what? The inner voice started speaking. I got the full sentences:
You can't do it...because you're not thinking it through and hence feeling like an imposter. You first gotta make yourself remember and believe in all the amazing feedback you've had so far.
You can't do it....until you listen to the thought in your mind that's constantly telling you to first focus on finding the people who'd like to be a part of your idea, instead of directly selling the idea to them.
You can't do it...due to the pressure of success you're putting on yourself. You haven't even begun and you're getting scared of failure.
I was missing every word after the three dots. Because what lied before the three dots was so overwhelming that I couldn't muster up the courage to cut through this overwhelm and ask WHY.
Before noticing the three dots, “You can’t do it” felt like a harsh self-criticism. But after noticing the three dots and hence asking why, it started appearing as the "perceived" self-criticism, that is, it was not truth, but my perception of truth.
The three dots are what I had to remind myself.
When I started seeing the three dots, I found my inner voice's purpose.
It was working in my favor by telling me to:
refer to all real-time feedback I've had so far and build my self trust to manage the feeling of being an imposter
be better prepared by accepting logics along with gut feeling
face my fear of failure in the face of taking actions
Like you, I’m well-versed with the times when it feels absolutely impossible to not give in to the harsh criticisms by our inner voices.
But exactly in those times we’ve to remind ourselves – Did I try to investigate? Did I go beyond the words “You can’t do it?” Did I ask why?
Did I try to find the three dots?
I do this probing via writing. You may like to do this via having a conversation with yourself and recording it on your phone. Or you may like to meditate and write. Or you may like to go on a run while having a conversation with your inner voices.
Different people use different techniques. I’m sure, either you know yours already. Or you’ll get to know it as you begin probing.
You may be wondering:
Probing is the second step. The first step is to deal with the overwhelm stirred by “You can’t do it” so that one can even begin with probing. How to go about this first step?
Well, we feel overwhelmed because we fear the possibility of “us not being able to do it” coming true, especially when we so much want to make ourselves believe that we can do it.
Focus on the word “possibility” in the last sentence. Then think about it – if it’s a possibility that we really can’t do it, there exists another possibility that we really can do it. Isn’t it?
To gather evidence for the possibility in which we absolutely can do it, we investigate.
More often than not, this investigation reveals fascinating insights that shifts the focus from “I can't do it” to “Now that I know these hidden details which I didn’t know before, I might do it.”
This “might” is where the game changes!
Hence training our mind to harness the power of possibilities and mights is the way to deal with the overwhelm stirred by “You can’t do it.”
Remember, fighting our inner voices can only take us so far. Plus, it’s exhausting too.
So why not try the approach of letting the inner voices speak and discover the three dots.
The inner voices speak while we listen. Not because we feel helpless, but because we investigate and gather insights.
Time to put your detective hat on…like Sherlock Holmes.
Happy working in tandem with your inner voices!
🦋
Until next Thursday,
Ashi
(this is me on LinkedIn)
ps: If you're finding it too difficult to manage imposter syndrome, I highly recommend you watch this short video by Steven Bartlett.
pps: This is the idea I was talking about in the beginning of this edition. You’re welcome to join our community, called HeyCommunication 😇