If you’ve ever fully lost your voice or perhaps had a cold that has severely restricted your vocal use, you’ll know just how frustrating it is to function in your everyday life when you can’t make a sound. We use our voices to communicate with each other, to laugh, cry, sing and even scream. There isn’t really much you do in your daily life that doesn’t involve the use of your voice in some way shape or form. And all of this comes from a tiny organ about the size of a stamp.
I have been accused in the past of being paranoid about keeping my distance from people with obviously contagious ailments that could affect my voice. It’s true – I even carry a spare face mask in the “emergency kit” in my bag. But this is perfectly understandable because as a presenter, facilitator, coach and singer etc., my voice is one of my main tools of the trade and a key asset. (I also carry a spare green tea teabag, multi-coloured pen, nail clippers and band-aid in case you were wondering!)
Now whilst World Voice Day is focussed on raising our awareness to the importance of having a physically healthy voice, it did also make me think about our metaphoric voice - in other words, our purpose, our mission, our destiny, our calling, our genius, our life’s work or our legacy. These are all embraced in something I have described recently as our Soul Goals.
We all have an audience - whether this is a small audience such as your family or your company, a bigger audience such as your community or your country, or an enormous audience such as the world. What determines your audience will be your Soul Goals.
Your Soul Goals are unlikely to be money or possessions. They may be things you want to do. Almost certainly they will incorporate the person you want to be. One thing is for sure though, you will be called to them – by your Heart, your Soul, your Spirit Guides, your Higher Self, your God, the Universe…
If you listen you will hear. The problem is most of us don’t listen - or we haven’t been taught how! Or can we even hear it anyway?
Your Soul’s voice starts off quite subtle with whispers and suggestions, but if you ignore it the voice has to get louder and louder. And if you ignore it altogether it may end up hitting you over the head with a piece of metaphoric 4 x 2 plank. These are the things you end up calling your biggest “life lessons”.
Often you will hear the message from your Soul but then override it with what you think you “should” do. These thoughts are generally based on someone else’s values which you have adopted for some reason or another. It might even have it’s origins in the subconscious parental programming you received when you were an infant.
Or perhaps you have allowed your Ego’s voice to be louder than your Soul’s voice? This is so easy to do in a scientific world where the power of your mind or intellect is more important than the messages from our feelings or intuition. Thankfully this is changing!
Let me give you a couple of concrete examples of this. Your Soul doesn’t wants to stop hanging out with the friend you’ve known for twenty years, but your Ego says that you just have to – and you end up resenting the person and the time. Or your intuition tells you not to do business with a certain person but your mind justifies why you should – and it turns out badly.
I have found that the secret lies in being authentic and truthful to yourself. It lies in uncovering what is the true spirit of your work. So how do you do this? The answer to that is too long for this short blog, but you could start by looking at the following questions:
What makes you come alive and reminds you of who you are?
What do you love to talk about, learn about, and/or teach others about?
What makes you feel great about yourself?
What are you doing when your heart sings?
What topic would your TED talk be on?
As JV Crum said:
“By paying attention to what is in your heart – the authentic ways you want to help others, then expressing these in your business purpose – you will not only make a powerful difference, you will create your highest profits.”