Voice note Friday?

A wee while earlier in the year, I did a few audio versions of my newsletters. I loved doing them; but the truth is, I am very lazy when it comes to recording audio! 

I am mostly put off by the length; because I want absolutely no editing, and I don’t want to have to re-record if I muck it up.

So this is me experimenting with some shorter ‘voice notes.’ The intention is for them to be the length of a long-ish Instagram post. I will include the written version too.

Now funnily enough… as soon as I started recording, I noticed I wanted to deviate from the script. I wanted it to sound more natural, as if I really was talking to you. I can’t help it! And rather than try fight it, I’m going to leave it as is. As per my previous attempts, the audio doesn’t match the written form of the post — even though they are very similar.

So if you like listening to audio, enjoy!

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And if you like a short-style social media text-post (but maybe find social media a little frazzling?)… enjoy :)

I used to have an extremely critical voice inside my head.

It used to tell me a lot of nasty things.

Mostly it told me I wasn’t good enough. Should try harder. Not good enough. Wasting your potential.

You know, the usual.

Did it keep me motivated?

I don’t know. It definitely made me motivated to not ‘screw up.’

But did it make me try harder? 

The answer is honestly, probably ‘yes.’ I didn’t want to be ‘lacking.’ I didn’t want to make a mistake. I didn’t want to be found out as not good enough.

So I tried hard to make sure I wasn’t any of those things!

Turns out self-criticism is highly motivating in its own way.

It’s also exhausting, and torture.

So how do you stay motivated, if it’s not through self-torture? 

Well, there’s a way you can drop the self-criticism without taking away from the fears — and I do include fears as motivations — and dreams that drive you.

Fears can be very powerful. They can drive you towards enormous things — both good and bad.

But there’s a way to feel fear without turning it inward on yourself. 

There’s a way to feel fear without it meaning you’re a bad person. Or that you’re lacking. Or that you’re not good enough. 

I know it sounds a bit daft when you say it out loud, but that is often what are brains are thinking.

Our brains make our fears our enemies. And then we try hard to control them. 

It’s no wonder we’re exhausted. 

Self-criticism is often about self control. And the funny thing is, is that we don’t often feel in control. 

When we stop making fear our enemy — and something we ‘must’ control — we can begin to relate to our fears, and ourselves, differently. 

We can relinquish control. (Scary as that sounds!) 

And we can still remain motivated. We can still strive, if we want to. 

We can still be, and do, something important. We don’t have to give up ourselves.

I have so much more to say, but I’ll leave it there. If you relate to this or have questions, I would love to know 💛

— Kathryn

📎 kathrynho.com / email / instagram