How often do you say what is on your mind? Albert Einstein once said, “Be a voice, not an echo”. But what does that mean?

Most of us spend all our lives fitting in, trying to say the right things, or trying to say what others want to hear. Whether that is in the workplace or on Instagram, we are constantly trying to please others.

But, what if we stopped chasing other people’s validation, and started embracing ourselves? What if we found our personal voice?

Not only can that help us feel happier and more content – because we are no longer pretending – but it can also help inspire others to be themselves.

How to Find Your Voice

Align With Yourself

The first step to finding your voice is to identify who you are and what your truth is. What do you feel about the world? What cause is important to you? What do you think about the latest trends? What is YOUR opinion?

Only when you identify what you truly think and what your opinions are, can you express them. So take some time with yourself, in quiet reflection. Journaling is a good way to get in touch with your thoughts. You can also go on a quiet walk to spend some time with yourself and reflect on your thoughts.

Find your truth.

Embrace Your Identity

Do you remember trying to “fit in” in school? Maybe you dressed a certain way or listened to a certain kind of music. If you take a closer look, you might even realize how you are trying to fit in with those around you even now, as an adult. We spend a lot of time avoiding rejection and trying to be accepted by our peers, colleagues, and classmates.

In order to find your voice, you have to ditch your fear and embrace yourself. Find your true identity and express it, even if you might be judged. Be YOU, your weird, unique, quirky self. Don’t be afraid of what other people will think. The right people will find you.

Don’t Be Afraid to Speak Up

Do you have a controversial opinion on a world event? Are you passionate about a social cause or an injustice you see in the world?

One of the most rewarding results of finding and speaking your voice is becoming the cause for change. By realigning with who you are, embracing your authentic self, and ditching the fear of judgment, you give yourself the permission to share your truthful opinion about change you want. This is your chance to inspire others and be the change they want to see in the world, too. Don’t wait around for someone else to take action. Be the voice you want to follow.

Stop Following the Crowd

With social media constantly bombarding us with the latest trends, it can be hard to identify what we truly resonate with and what we are just doing because everyone else is. Be mindful about what you say or do and ask yourself if it is truly what aligns with you.

Whether you are posting a reel to showcase your travels, following someone’s morning routine, trying to be “that girl”, or even repeating a popular sentiment about a world crisis, check in with yourself first. Avoid mindlessly repeating what others are doing.

Remember, it is easy to stay in our comfort zones and follow the crowd throughout our lives. However, that keeps us from our truth, which can lead to a dreary, unsatisfying life! So, rather than following the herd, be the initiator. Find your truth and express it. Don’t be an echo, be the voice.

If you grew up listening to Bon Jovi in the 80s, you probably remember one of their best songs from that time, Livin’ on a Prayer. This song went on to become the band’s signature song. It was released in 1986 and this quote is part of the chorus of the song. It’s very catchy and was one of my favorites growing up.

One of the interesting sounds in this song is in the beginning of the song. If you watched the video above, it begins at 0:23. This sound is made with a talkbox. In the song, the guitarist, Richie Sambora has the talkbox attached to his guitar. The guitar sound goes through the talkbox, which has a speaker and amplifier. A tube is attached to the box and the guitar signal runs up it. Richie then puts the tube into his mouth and is able to create the guitar sound we hear by using various shapes of his lips. The sound is then fed through a regular microphone.

Livin’ on a Prayer was written by Desmond Child, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. What I love about it is the idea of being down on your luck and just having each other. It reminds me of my husband and I went we first met. We were both really young, broke and we always joked that we would just live on love because it was all we really had.

Interestingly, this is more of a semi-autobiographical story about Desmond Child than Jon or Richie. Although Jon married his high school sweetheart and has been married to her since 1989 – which is refreshing. More Hollywood marriages fail than last. But about Desmond.

The song tells a tale of a couple named Tommy and Gina who struggle to make ends meet. When Desmond had his first band, Desmond Child & Rouge, he had a girlfriend named Maria. Her coworkers called her Gina because she reminded them of the Italian actress, Gina Lollobrigida. She worked as a waitress at a restaurant named Once Upon a Stove. Desmond was trying to pave his way as a musician and would spend most of his time writing songs and practicing. Originally the song was about Johnny and Gina. But Jon said he couldn’t use the name Johnny, so Desmond switched it to Tommy.

I think many of us can relate to going through financial hardships. And pursuing our passions, even when our financial situations didn’t align with doing so. When you have the right person or people around you, you feel more hopeful that you will be able to make it through it okay. And it’s because they are there with you, fighting the fight.

In the 2009 movie, Law Abiding Citizen, Jamie Foxx plays a prosecutor who tells Gerard Butler’s character that he really played him. Without revealing too much of the plot, Foxx offers Butler a way out. He tells him, “A man I cared about once told me that we can’t retract the decisions that we’ve made, we can only affect the decisions we’re going to make from here.” Foxx is telling Butler that even though he’s done some bad things in the past, he can make better decisions going forward.

Sometimes when we make a series of bad decisions, we lose sight of the fact that we can change directions at any point. Perhaps we stay in a state of regret where we ruminate about the decisions we’ve already made. But as long as you are still here and breathing, you can change your direction at any time. It’s never too late.

Here are some ways you can feel more at peace with decisions you’ve already made:

1. Think about “the sleep test”. An African proverb says that, “A clean conscience makes a soft pillow.” Chances are, if you’ve done something that goes against your personal integrity, you’re going to have a difficult time sleeping at night. But that goes the other way, too. If you can sleep well at night without excessively worrying about what happened, you’ve probably made the right choice. If you find it hard to sleep at night, try to learn as much as you can about what you are really feeling about the decision that you made. Think about ways you might be able to improve the situation. If nothing can be done about the current situation, look at this misstep as an opportunity to learn more about how to handle things going forward.

2. Tune into your intuition. If you close your eyes and focus on your heart, how does it feel? When you think about what happened and how it affects your present reality, do you feel open and expansive, or tight and restricted? If you feel aligned with your decisions and maintain a feeling of ease, then, yes, you made the right decision.

3. Understand that things happen for a reason. If you find yourself regretting a decision you made, try to find the opportunity in it for you to grow. Sometimes things fall apart so better things can fall into place.

4. Focus on the lesson.  A close corollary to the above point is that if that’s how life was supposed to unfold, what did you learn about yourself? About others? Or, life in general? It may be helpful to take out a pen and jot down some of the wisdom gained.

5. Practice self-compassion. Most humans do the best they can with what they have in any given moment. And you, dear reader, are no exception. (Most humans also have a nasty tendency to beat themselves up, wishing they could’ve done better). If this sounds like you, take heart. If a friend made a similar decision (and didn’t feel at peace), what would you say to them? Could you say something similar to yourself? On the bright side, there is a finality about the past that brings relief. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of letting things go. Afterall, every ending has a new beginning. And all we can do is focus on what we have control over and make better decisions going forward.

When you create goals, do you tell others or keep them to yourself?

While many people love sharing their goals with friends and family as soon as they set them, it can sometimes be more beneficial to keep your goals to yourself. Working towards your goals takes motivation. As you build towards your dreams, it’s crucial to keep them safe from the attacks of haters and well-wishers alike.

Here are the top reasons why it is better to build towards your dreams in silence.

Avoid Judgment

When you set a goal and share it, you give others a chance to share their opinions. Sometimes, this can be helpful; they might give you feedback on what you can do to achieve the goal, act as motivators, or encourage you along the way.

However, sometimes our loved ones don’t understand our goals. They might give you a list of reasons why it is a bad idea or how difficult it might be to achieve it. They might tell you that it is too ‘big’ or there is too much competition. They project their own fears, insecurities, and past experiences onto you. Often, this is done to protect you and keep you safe. However, at the end of the day, it is your dream and your lesson to learn.

Negative feedback can demotivate you and discourage you from persisting in your goal, causing you to give up.

Stay Flexible

Another reason to keep your goals to yourself is so that you can stay flexible. A goal rarely remains exactly the same as it was when it was first defined.

For example, you might set a goal to go to the gym every day of the week. However, as the week progresses, you realize it is more beneficial for you to play a sport three times a week and go to the gym only four times.

If you share your goals with others, they may think that you are off-track to achieving your goal. While that may technically be true, you know that this is a more effective way to achieve your ultimate goal – to be physically fit. At this point it is easy to start second-guessing yourself and criticizing your movement away from what you initially said you would do. But is that helpful? Not at all.

Rather than wasting time and energy feeling bad or explaining to others why you are still on track, focus on actually achieving your goal.

You Feel Accomplished

When you set a goal and tell others, you trick your brain into thinking you have already achieved it. The feeling of talking about things you are working on lights up the pleasure center in your brain and gives you a “premature sense of completeness”.

Because you already feel accomplished, you are less likely to put in the work required to achieve your goal.

This is especially true when you receive praise for your goal.

For example, let’s assume you want to start a new business. You take some time to think of a new business idea, and you finally crack it. You tell your friends, and they congratulate you on this new business idea. The act of telling your friends about your amazing new idea, paired with them praising you on setting the goal makes you feel great! However, this makes it less motivating for you to actually get to work on the business, because you have already received dopamine, the ‘pleasure’ hormone.

Save Energy

Telling other people about your goals can take a lot of time and energy. You might have to explain why you’re setting this goal, how you’re going to doing it, and why it’s a good idea. If someone doesn’t agree with your goal, you then have to spend energy re-motivating yourself!

Rather than spending so much time and energy on explanations, what if you spent this time and energy on actually working towards your goal?

As exciting as it might be to share what your latest goal that you are working towards is, sometimes it can be much more beneficial to stay quiet until you build it up. Whether it is haters who don’t want to see you succeed or are jealous of you, or maybe even loved ones who just want to keep you safe, it is important to protect yourself and your dreams from any sort of attacks.

So, if you have a dream, start working towards it silently, and become your own biggest cheerleader. You can always bring others up to speed once you get to a certain point in the process.

It’s easy to sit back and wait for something to happen to you or for you. But what it does is it takes all responsibility off you to create the life you say you want. It makes you dependent on others or situations for you to take action.

The truth is our time here is limited. We have no idea how many trips around the sun we have. And life is happening now. We cannot afford to live in potential for the rest of our lives. Or until we have X amount of money in the bank. Or lose 20 pounds. 

A friend of mine who was content on just staying home one night, decided he would go meet a friend for a drink. He really didn’t want to go, as he is a major introvert and prefers just staying in most nights practicing playing his guitar. But it was his friend’s last night in town, so he decided it would be a good opportunity to connect because they hadn’t seen each other in a while. By forcing himself out of his comfort zone and meeting his friend, not only did he enjoy a great conversation with him, but they ended up forming a band together. They have become quite successful. He actually credits this one meeting that created the opportunity for him to make a living being a musician.

The funny thing about opportunity is that when you choose to create opportunity for yourself, the universe responds to the energy you are putting out in kind. If you believe that the world is conspiring in your favor, then miracles and opportunity will show up in your life.

Remember, you don’t have to wait for opportunity to come to you. You can create it for yourself. 

Have you ever found yourself in a situation that seems too difficult, or maybe even impossible to overcome? Maybe you had to balance raising a child while working. Or maybe you wanted to build a business from scratch or try to lose 50 pounds.

Whatever the ‘mountain’ you are facing, remember, there is always a way. You just need to trust in yourself and have confidence.

Now I know, you might read that and roll your eyes.

“Have confidence? How!?”

I know, it’s much easier said than done! But here are some ways you can build confidence when facing your mountain.

5 Ways to Build Confidence in Challenging Situations

Consider Your Past Achievements

How often do you take note of what you have already accomplished? Whenever we face a new challenge in life that seems too difficult, we often forget that we have faced and overcome hard things before.

So, take some time to take stock of previous difficulties you have overcome. Take credit for your achievements, whether it’s making a list for yourself or sharing them with your loved ones. Remind yourself of all the things you have done!

As you do this, you will relive those moments of success and your mind will begin to think more positively, leaving you much more confident than before.

Change Your Physiology

The way you sit or stand is more important than you think! Whenever you think about your goal, take careful note of the way you hold your body.

Sit up straight and stand tall. When you walk, walk with confidence. Breathe deeply. Roll back your shoulders and open up your chest.

These simple changes will radically change the way you feel, almost ‘tricking’ your brain into feeling more confident to move your mountain.

Stay Positive

Are you focusing on all the ways something could go wrong? Instead, try focusing on all that can go right. Remember, your focus determines your reality. So, change your focus.

Think about conquering your mountain. How is it going to feel? What are you going to do? What will it look like? Think about the conversations you will have and the people congratulating you.

When you focus on the positive, you’ll be able to change your internal state which will help you take the right action to move your mountain.

Call Out Your Fears

When we feel fear, we often run away from it. Rather than helping ease our anxiety, our brains exaggerate the worst-case scenarios, making us feel even worse.

However, when we face our fears, it is a lot easier to combat them. More often than not, the situation is not as bad or as scary as we assumed. So, take some time to face your fears. Identify what you are scared of, what the worst-case situation is, and how likely it actually is likely to occur.

If in fact it COULD be likely (which is hardly the case), come up with a plan on what you could do to make the situation easier for yourself.

Remember: You Have All You Need

This is the most important. Remind yourself that you are capable, strong, and smart. Difficulties can be scary, but you are only given what you can handle. Have faith in yourself, and when you do so, you will be able to move mountains.

Doing something new or challenging can feel paralyzing and extremely scary. You might even feel like it is impossible and give up. But remember, focus on the positives, and remind yourself of your power. Build your confidence, and you can move mountains. And when you do, you’ll be surprised at how many people are watching and feel inspired to move their mountains, too!

You were created to do great things. Sometimes, it may be obvious what that is; other times, not so much. Often, it is through the ups and downs in our lives that we discover what our purpose is, or what our strengths and weaknesses are. And we can use that as a launching pad.

Greatness happens not by getting to our destination, but by our trials and tribulations along our journey. We become great because we struggled and overcame our challenges. It is our growth that we have along the way, that only blossoms from our setbacks and obstacles.

Sometimes along the way, you will encounter people who aren’t happy about your growth and achievements. It reminds them of their lack of growth or willingness to go out there and live their dreams. And it can be incredibly painful when the people who feel this way about you, are the ones closest to you.

While your first thought might be to question your growth and the dreams you have, know that whatever they are feeling about what you are doing is completely on them. And it is really about how they feel about themselves than anything you are doing. Getting out of your comfort zone is scary. And people tend to shy away from it. And when they see someone else out there growing and doing the things, they wish they could (and they can) do, they want to hold you back because it makes them feel more comfortable because then they won’t feel alone in their stagnation. They may resort to putting you down and criticizing your efforts in an attempt to derail your progress.

Case in point: When I changed my diet to become healthier, I was super motivated and excited to start the process. Someone very close to me, decided that I shouldn’t “deprive myself” of candy around Easter time, so they sent me this massive basket filled with candy. True story. And it went right into the trash because I was off sugar. I was actually pretty pissed. Not because I felt tempted, because I didn’t at all. I was upset because this is a person who I had hoped with support me through the process and not feel so threatened that they had to try to sabotage me.

But here’s the thing to remember – you don’t have to shrink yourself to fit into places you’ve outgrown, just to make someone else feel comfortable. That isn’t your job. Your job is to evolve into the best version of yourself and do what you have been called to do. And the right people around you, will support your growth and be excited for you. So appreciate them for being the sweet souls that they are and be compassionate to those close to you who are struggling with your growth.

What exactly does that mean?

Know your audience. While you shouldn’t need to lessen yourself or downplay your accomplishments or achievements, know that not everyone is going to have the same drive and determination that you have. And that is completely okay. While you may want your friends and family who feel threatened by your growth to be happy for you, understand that what you seek may not materialize. Meet them where they are and remind yourself that the lack of excitement or validation from them doesn’t diminish your growth and accomplishments. Make sure you balance things by spending time with people who support your growth and cheer you on, too.

We all have habits we aren’t proud of and know aren’t necessarily very good for us. But there are a few habits that are even worse than we may realize. These “normal” daily habits can be sneaky as they subtly take a toll on our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing.

Curious to know if you have any of these unhealthy habits? Keep reading!

Unhealthy Habits that Cost More Than You Realize

Thinking About Past Stressful Events

How much time do you spend thinking about past stressful events? Maybe that one time you bombed your presentation or a time you embarrassed yourself.

Whatever the event, and however long back, rethinking about a past stressful event can lead to depressive symptoms, and even depression. So rather than rehashing the things that went wrong in your life, shift your focus to how you can grow and improve in the present and the future. Enjoy the moment and live your now to the fullest!

Venting About Problems

When you have a bad day, do you tend to call up your friends and vent about it?

Sharing our struggles, frustrations, and challenges with loved ones is a very common coping method to feel better. However, studies show that it can actually have the opposite effect if done in excess. Spending a majority of your time talking about your problems with other people makes you relive the struggle repeatedly. This increases stress levels and keeps you in a bad mood, rather than reducing stress.

Mindlessly Scrolling Through Social Media

Do you find yourself picking up your phone and scrolling through social media without even realizing it? We are so used to keeping ourselves busy that it feels normal to be on our phones all the time, whether it’s while we wait in line at the grocery store, eating lunch, or even while we are out with friends.

However, social media can be detrimental to your mental health, and is linked to increased rates of anxiety and depression, in addition to loneliness and low self-worth. Constantly being bombarded by people’s best selfies, edited pictures, fancy vacations, and happiest moments can lead to incessant comparison and feelings of unworthiness. I say this all the time: what is reflected on social media is someone’s curated content and highlight reel. I think we tend to lose sight of that when we spend too much time looking at it.

Staying Up Late

With our busy schedules, our sleep is often the first thing that is sacrificed to make more time for tackling our to-do list or relaxing. We think we can catch up on our sleep the next morning, or if nothing else, on the weekend.

However, sacrificing your sleep can take a serious toll on your physical and mental health. In addition, it also affects your cognitive abilities.

Studies also show that when you sleep is as important as how much you sleep. So if you think you will be fine as long as you get your 8 hours of sleep, even if it means sleeping till the afternoon, you’re more likely to make poor health choices the next day.

Watching Too Much TV

We all know watching TV isn’t the healthiest habit, and definitely not good for your waistline, but is it really that unhealthy?

It might surprise you to know that watching TV can have an effect on your brain health. Studies have found that people who watched more TV on a daily basis performed worse on cognitive tests as compared to people who watched less TV.

So rather than watching TV after a long day to relax, sprinkle in going for a walk, meeting up with friends, or doing something creative!

Eating When You’re Not Hungry

No matter how healthy we are, we’re all guilty of indulging in a few treats occasionally. However, emotional eating, nighttime eating, or just snacking when you aren’t hungry can cause you to become overweight, leading to many health issues such as:

• High blood pressure
• Heart disease and strokes
• Sleep apnea
• Certain types of cancers
• Type 2 diabetes
• Osteoarthritis
• Kidney disease

Try to think of food as fuel for your body and eat only when you are hungry.

Remember, humans are creatures of habit, and we all have habits we follow on a daily basis. While some habits are healthier than others, there are many daily habits that we have that subtly take a toll on our wellbeing, costing a lot more than we realize.

Do you recognize any habits in this list? Make note of them and start to swap them out for healthier habits!