Consider the source, was something I grew up hearing. I can’t exactly remember the context now, but those words came barreling back to me recently when I was teaching a class for the University of Florida’s workforce development. I had 45 women in a class on assertiveness, and what surprised me the most was the talent, depth, education and experience these amazing women had and still, they talked about their overwhelming doubts and fears regarding their own abilities to succeed.
Early in the program we did an exercise on what they were told growing up, about being a “good girl.” The responses were amazing. Women, as girls, were told to speak when spoken to, not to interrupt, to defer to the man in the room, to be quiet unless spoken to, that pretty is as pretty does, and a lot more. And these archaic pieces of advice they’d gotten when they were young were still lingering in their subconscious, willing to jump in and sabotage their success and confidence at any opportunity.
When I was a teenager my dad, who woke up at 4:00 every morning, would pound on my door on Saturday mornings if I slept past eight, and remind me I needed to get up before the day was over. Somehow, even though it’s been many years, I still have trouble sleeping past eight, his voice is still in my head urging me to get out of bed.
If you’re stumbling over a behavioral change you’d like to make, or a challenge with how you think about a particular issue, ask yourself if someone else’s voice is trying to take up space in your head, and if so gently kick them all out. Your voice is powerful enough, and should be the only one telling you how to think and what to do.
