Dealing with your Inner Observer

I have a voice in my head.

Don’t worry. I’m sane. I took a FaceBook quiz that told me so. The voice in my head is me. It isn’t the logical part of me although it sometimes pretends to be. It is more of the observer of me. It looks at what I’m doing, or what I want to do, and it judges it. The voice is both a positive and a negative thing. It is a troublemaker, but deep down it wants what is right for me, even when it is wrong about what that is.

For example, when I was working for my last employer, the voice told me I didn’t want to be there. It insisted in fact. Every day, it told me that I was wasting my time, spinning my wheels, slowly dying in a fate I did not choose. Clearly this voice is overly dramatic, but it had a point. There were things I liked about my job, but it wasn’t really what I wanted to do.

Nonetheless, I resisted the voice. In fact, in my final months at that job, I made my strongest possible effort to make things work out. I replaced my polo shirts with button ups and a tie — even a suit jacket. This may not mean much in some places, but in the 110 degree summers of Arizona, it means a lot. I decorated my cubicle with motivational posters. I pushed myself to be more organized and more on task. I tried not to say anything negative, even in the face of major cutbacks at work. I monitored my “Rightsteps” and made sure I was exceeding every goal my boss had set for me.

It didn’t matter. I was fired anyway.

The voice in my head was relieved, but now it had a whole new set of things to obsess over. It second-guessed every move I made after I got fired. No matter what I was doing, it told me I was doing it wrong or that I should be doing something else. My inner voice had a vision of who I should be. It was a wonderful vision of me, totally independent, writing what I wanted and making a great living at it without any real struggles. It was a vision a great life, and it was keeping me from being happy.

Eventually, I had to deal with that voice. I had to listen to what it wanted and acknowledge that I wasn’t moving toward what my true hopes and dreams were. On the flip side, I had to make that inner critic understand that it was getting in my way as much as it was helping me find my way. You can’t be critical of everything, or else you won’t accomplish everything.

Finding a balance was no easy task. For me it was all about lists. I made lists of what I wanted and what I needed. I wrote down all of the things that I wanted to accomplish and all of the things that were holding me back. I made choices about the things I wanted, realizing that some of my dreams would have to be set aside for another time. Eventually, I came up with a plan that I can work with, but one I will keep track of. My inner voice is still there, but it has stopped shouting about my wrong choices for now. I know that if I get too far off track though, it will get louder again.