We all have a voice inside our head that chatters to us constantly about the day-to-day situations we find ourselves in. It’s one of the three primary ways that we interpret external data by constructing conversations internally with ourselves.
Although we all have a voice (or quite often several different ones) we have our own particular versions some of which can be more helpful than others.
Does your voice support and encourage you when things aren’t going quite as planned or does it become aggressive, whiny, rude, pessimistic and thinks nothing of tearing a strip off you?
Is it often far more hostile and abusive to you than you ever would be to other people, even people you don’t actually like?
I once heard this voice likened to that of a bad tempered, miserable, old duck! Yes that’s what I said, a duck. Close your eyes and you can hear the voice in your head now quacking away at you.
The Duck
You may not have noticed it’s duck-like aquatic qualities before, but now you can. Do you know why you can? It’s because inside your own head you can hear whatever you want to hear. You can of course hear your own voice in whatever tonality that you care for. Or if you’d prefer you could be advising yourself in the dulcet tones of Jimmy Stewart or James Earl Jones or even Oprah Winfrey. The options are as limitless as your own imagination.
I regularly have clients tell me there isn’t any voice inside their head. I usually respond with “So you’re dead then?” The fact is we’ve had years to perfect our quacking and it happens so quickly and so unconsciously that many people have stopped noticing it.
We mess up at something and the voice is sat there in the background ready to chime in “Quack, you are a failure, you never do anything right, you are an embarrassment” Even when something goes well it can still undermine with “Quack, you just got lucky, wait until they find out you’re an imposter”
It’s so insidious and so good at its job that its barely noticeable but the over all negative effect on your emotional wellbeing can be enormous. It has a drip-drip effect that serves over the course of time to make you believe that what it’s saying is true, which in turn makes it so.
So it starts to set your own reality for you. Yes! That’s what I said; a duck sets your reality for you. How scary is that?
Stop the Quacking
Maybe it’s about time to shut the duck up, or at least make him or her a little bit more friendly and supportive. You do need a voice inside your head, so let’s pick one that you like. You can drop the duck or whatever you have now and choose a voice that makes you feel good or maybe even brilliant!
You still want to be able to hear the message, so don’t make it so chilled and laid back that you never take any notice of it. You can even choose 2, 3 or as many voices as you want for different occasions. Your voice should always support you, always be helpful, never aggressive and it never puts you down.
Wouldn’t that be great, a voice that treats you with the respect that you deserve, the kind of respect that you like to offer to other people? If you perfect this, and it does need a bit of practice to start to become more aware of your thoughts, then I guarantee you will feel a great deal better about yourself.
Not only that, but you’ll start to realize you’re in control of what goes on inside your head and nobody else. How brilliant is that?
This article was written by Professional Life Coach Tim Brownson. Tim is owner of A Daring Adventure and if you’re so inclined you can read more of his ramblings at ‘The Discomfort Zone’. This post is taken from Tim’s book ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions – There Are No Stupid Questions’. Tim has agreed to make available 5 free copies to the first people that leave a comment on the topic. If you are in the US or Canada he’ll even mail you the hardback version if you prefer that to the E-book.
I agree with the post. But changing a duck that has had so many years to grow big and strong can be difficult for many people though.
Interesting. I usually call these inner voices my “ghosts” talking, as they are usually echoes of things I’ve been told while growing up.
I’ve never thought about the duck until recently. The ducks in my wife’s family are a lot less positive than the ducks in my family. It makes for interesting discussions about whose ducks are more realistic.
That’s a really cute play on words. Looking forward to reading more from Tim.
Great topic! There are some fantastic exercises in Burn’s “Feeling Good” that teach one to first challenge the voice and then to reflect on the accuracy of what it’s saying. In most cases the voice has no merit and exists only to create anxiety and fear.
I love how say that it can be more hostile to you than you would ever be towards people you don’t like. When I first became aware of it I thought I had lost my mind!
I work on shutting the duck up by proving the duck wrong. The duck is there, but overall I love the voices I hear in my head.
Thanks for the feedback everybody. I promised the first 5 people to comment I’d give a copy of my book to them. So if Patrick, Jessica, Petel, Welmoed and Brian want to e-mail me at tim at adaringadventure .com I’ll be happy to oblige.
If you are in USA or Canada let me know if you’d rather have hardback or e-book and a mailing address of it’s the former. If you outside North America it’ll have to be the e-book.
This was one of my favourite chapters from Tim’s book — I loved the image of the “duck” and it helped me to laugh at that silly negative voice in my head.
If you weren’t one of the lucky winners, I do highly recommend Tim’s Don’t Ask Stupid Questions, it’s an excellent, wide-ranging and rather endearingly quirky book. I’ve read it cover-to-cover several times, and plan to go through and do some serious journalling on the questions posed at the end of each chapter.
Ali
i often hear voices in my head, but it’s rarely a negative duck quacking. maybe i’m just an optimistic person and i tend to turn negative thoughts/ramblings into empowering challenges.
does anyone else share this experience?
vanae
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” – Buddha
@ Vanae – Good for you! In my experience people that don’t have the duck or any other variation on it, don’t quite understand why others do. That is a great situation to be in and pat yourself on the back and realize you are probably in the minority as a positive thinker.
hi
thought this post was really helpful.
i’m young, confiedent and a generally happy positive thinker, however over the last year i have had a few challenges and have started becoming depressed and lost all of my above traits… i’m here to find out how to change this!!
i live in the uk at the moment and have searched for this book on amazon.co.uk but no luck, but any chance is there a possibility that i can obtain/purchase an e book as i am going on holiday and would reallly like to read this in a time of relaxation.
also any other useful advise would be greatly appriciated
Thank you
Hi, I love my duck now.
Thanks
I find it useful to remind the duck that my girlfriend is French and very much into traditional French cooking and therefore the duck would do well to keep quite.
The quacking duck inside my head is not very pleased with this post. It warns me that Tim Brownson is not to be trifled with. It is not happy that it is now being told to keep quiet. Then, the clucking hen inside me decides to speak up. It reassures me that Tim is actually pretty harmless and is merely giving friendly advice!
Great article. When you start trying to reason and argue with the duck others might look at you strange.