…ever have a tune come into your head and you don’t know where it came from?
It wasn’t on the radio.
It wasn’t a soundtrack on a TV ad.
But for whatever reason, you become a human karaoke machine of a long lost memory.
For me, that one was Milli Vanilli.
Remember them?
Haven’t heard them. Haven’t thought of them. Wasn’t even a big fan.
And yet, their song came back to me as fresh as the day I heard it.
And that’s like a lot of things that go on between our ears.
There’s a comment from a teacher.
A remark from a bully.
Or that stupid moment when you put a football through the Church’s stain glass window.
Listen to it, and it’ll tell you all the reasons why you can’t write, how you’re a huge Dumbo, and why it’s not going to work.
Most people listen to those things as if they’re the word of God, or etched into some stone tablet.
They ain’t.
They’re a memory just like Milli Vanilli.
And if you give them the chance, they’ll shut you down faster than you know it.
But there is a way around that.
It’s talking to yourself. And being your own cheerleader.
It’s telling yourself that, yes you’ll probably suck, but you can’t get any worse than you are right now.
It’s telling yourself that a book written badly is a lot better than one that’s never been written.
It’s telling yourself, that talent is a myth. And that the majority of people who are great at something put
in the hours when no one was paying them any attention.
It’s telling yourself that even a step a day, in the direction of your goal, bring it’s a little closer to you.
Listening to that voice will make you start. Make you try. And make you do things you didn’t think you could do.
Unfortunately, too many listen to the other stuff playing on a loop in their head.
Maybe you’re doing this right now.
If you are, I’m here to tell you that it’s time to start talking to yourself, than listening to yourself.
One’s going to get you ahead.
The other, it’s going to keep you right where you are.
https://writecome.com/new-home-page/
Barry J McDonald.
PS – It’s up to you who you listen to.
