My confession today is that I struggled for a long time to find ‘my voice’. This is a biggie for me. After all, it’s what I help other people do on a daily basis.
The real challenge started about a year ago, when I decided to take my business in a different direction. I wanted to offer myself more freely, create more of a conversation with people.
So I started writing. In notebooks, on scraps of paper, in never-to-be-published blog posts. I wrote a lot.
And I got stuck, a lot.
My problem wasn’t lack of ideas. It was that I had too many voices. I had my tough love voice, my compassionate-kind voice, my raunchy-bad-jokes voice, and my rose-colored-lenses voice.
Everyday seemed to serve up another side of me. I would write something one day and I’d think ‘This is gold, Jerry!’ Then I would wake up the next day, look at what I’d written and promply throw it away.
The truth is, none of it was trash. It was simply a response to my life at that moment.
But at the time, I didn’t see it that way. Instead, I lived in a vicious cycle that never actually resulted in any kind of conversation with anyone.
Then, one day, it finally occurred to me: It doesn’t matter.
So what if some days I feel like being serious and other days I feel like being goofy. We are all dynamic beings, responding to life as it’s happens, one day at a time.
I had been holding on to this belief that before I could start ANY conversation with my audience, I needed to find my one true voice. I was so caught up in this limiting belief, that I strangled all my voices.
So I decided to give myself a break.
I realized that my audience isn’t just an inert blob. It’s a group of people. People just like me. Dynamic, intelligent, feeling, thinking people who appreciate that I’m a thinking, feeling person too… and who are wise enough to know that every living, breathing person has many voices – and that’s ok.
In fact, it’s wonderful.
It makes life interesting. And if we’re lucky, it might make us laugh, or cry, or feel something we’ve never felt before.
So I write this post in gratitude to the people who take a few minutes of their day to read the things I write, and who are accepting of my ‘voice’ today… and my voice tomorrow, and the next day.
What matters is getting the conversation started. So, if you’re also struggling with finding your ‘one true voice’, give yourself a break today and just get it out. We want to hear it – we need to hear it. Because no one can say it the way you do. And who knows, you might just help someone solve a problem, or change someone’s mind about something.
What you have to say matters. And sure, how you say it matters too. But there are lots of different ways to say things, and if you’re true to yourself when saying it – no matter which voice you choose – you’re also being true to your audience.
As long as it’s real, it’s right.