On any given day, the voice in my head tells me:
“You got this.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“You have to do this today.”
“Just do it tomorrow.”
“You deserve to be here.”
“You’ll get found out soon.”
“Keep up the momentum.”
“You deserve a rest.”
“You worked your arse off.”
“You’re not doing enough.”
“I get it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“This isn’t so bad.”
“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened in the history of man-kind.”
“You really should write that proposal.”
“You really need to check Instagram.”
“I think I’ll get the salad.”
“Go on, order the burger.”
“You’re actually not that tall, no-one even cares.”
“You’re a freak and everyone is staring.”
Sound familiar? Well, except for that last one.
One voice is productive and the other is not. One voice is yours and the other is not.
Because it turns out that second voice, the one fuelled by fear, procrastination and doubt, is universal. Steven Pressfield wrote an entire book about it.
He calls the voice The Resistance.
It’s the voice that lives in the space between the person you are today, and the person you seek to be tomorrow.
It’s insidious. It’s distracting. It’s dangerous.
But most of all it’s:
“…always lying and always full of shit.”
Steven Pressfield
What to do with all of this? Well, here’s one takeaway I’ve been noodling on of late:
Don’t believe everything you think.
- Actual footage of me noodling.