Drowning out the external chorus

Hey do you know what would be good for you..  I love it when you do that. Oh no, no, no. No boy I raised would do that. If you want to fit in here that’s what you have to do.

Welcome to some of the voices in the external chorus.  There are many more and yours might sound a little different. Different and no less influential.

Have you ever given thought to the singers and their purpose in singing their lines – sharing their ideas and opinions?  I call it killing you with kindness. I like to think they were acting with great intent and a real desire to help you.  Have you also noticed though that people like to avoid their own discomfort? “Oh no, no, no.. no boy I raised would do that.”  Is it possible the chorus might be singing for their own benefit as much as yours?

“Well Mr Klindworth if you were to fall off your chair now you would record a higher score on a Richter scale than you did on this math test..”  I always did better in maths from that day forward.  I am sure my teacher wanted me to do better and I am just as confident having all his kids pass looked better at his annual performance review.

“You can’t wear that suit, you look like a tram conductor.” Remember those?  “If you want to be a part of this team you have to wear a black or navy suit.  Oh and no facial hair.”  You bet that suit was gone even though as a graduate I couldn’t really afford to buy another suit.  Was my boss helping me or more interested in protecting his image?

Parents, teachers, mentors, coaches, religious figures and bosses are all powerful members of the chorus.  Stop for a moment, what can you hear them saying to you now?

During these foundational years of our life we are trying to work out who we are, where we fit in and how to survive.  For most of us that shapes what we know as and refer to as success.  The stakes are high too as we are still totally dependent on others.  To get this wrong, to fail, is to not belong, not be good enough, maybe even not be loveable.  It might even have real ramification on our physical survival.

With stakes so high these external messages are internalized. They become our guiding voice, road map and or play book to be successful.  As a toddler or someone navigating an unsafe neighbourhood survival is a worthy number one priority.  As you read this article I assume you are not a toddler, are you in a safe neighbourhood?  If so does success defined by survival still serve you well?

Do you feel:

Numb, tired, time poor, under pressure, stressed, in pain or hurt more than you would like?

Do you:

Work to live, live for the weekend and annual leave, delay happiness until you achieve the next thing?

If so are you pursuing and achieving success defined by your survival?  If not survival how are you defining the success you are living?

How we define success always serves us well, for a while.  Does yours still serve you?

When a person is ready to take total responsibility for themselves they are ready to define success differently.  They have acquired sufficient ideas, skills, networks and resources to make different choices.  Their dependence on others need be no more than an invitation to create shared experiences and desirable memories.

Ready to take responsibility for themselves.  How do you feel when you read that?  Excited?  Scared? Overwhelmed?

Taking responsibility for your self doesn’t mean you live in a vacuum, have to know everything and have enough money to never have to work another day in your life.  It does introduce a new level of accountability, curiosity and tenacity. Oh and a new definition of success.

You are doing life for you now.  So what do you want?  Who do you want to be? What sort of body do you want to inhabit? Where do you want to live? Who do you want to share your life with?  What impact do you want to have on the world?

That external chorus is going to get really loud about now.  Your friends and family like who you are and what they get from your relationship with them.  That external chorus that you internalized and called success will also be a loud voice in your head.  Our brain doesn’t like change as it introduces lots of unknowns – what do people fear most? The unknown.

Hold your nerve, be brave – courageous even.  Thank the individual members of your chorus and their specific advice and tips.  They served you well in the past.  Give some thought to how they and their advice didn’t work so well for you too.  Both actions will help quieten the noise.  Now is the time to better understand your definition of success.

It doesn’t have to be make my mum happy, do better at maths and wear navy blue suits.  For a while it was find the girl, get married, buy a house, raise a family and save for my retirement.  Now it is be me more often doing what I want to do more often.  Who I want to be is present, patient and curious.  What I want to do is have a positive impact on my health and wellbeing, my son and my business.  Multiple times, every day.

Whatever you want and however you define success doesn’t have to be a lonely path traveled in isolation.  Your ability to define and articulate success will have a profound impact on your ability to live it. Be playful and have some fun as you work out what you really want.  Build tools and networks that value you and what ever way of being or doing that is congruent with how you define success.  These tools and networks will have a powerful impact in both normalizing and living your success.

Finally know how it is to be, how it feels when you are, what you look like when you are successful and leave enough room in your day to check in and enjoy those moments.  When defined by you for you success can be a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Oh and when you do that your external choruses’ best work is in between the words and choruses when they are saying nothing at all.  For they are holding quiet space for you to continue to tune into you and what is most important to you.