Cutting the negative self-talk
I messed up. I blew out my audio interface. I wasn’t paying attention, and I blew it. Literally. The sound distortion is so terrible it’s funny. My first thought was to disparage myself. What a stupid mistake!!!
When writing someone an email to explain that the vocal tracks they were expecting would be a few days late, I had to delete the words “stupid mistake” and take quite a bit of time to completely rewrite the email. While editing, I came upon 3 versions of the truth:
I’m a big stupidhead who killed a nice piece of music equipment.
(My old favorite, the blame game): the mob of folks who invaded the White House last Wednesday distracted me! It never would have happened if I hadn’t been completely preoccupied with the state of our democracy!
And finally, a bit more rational: While I knew better and probably could have squeezed some more life out of my DAW, it was also from 2012. It was old. It had a good run. It happened, and now I move on.
Do you ever find yourself berating yourself for seemingly small stuff? Sometimes we don’t even notice we’re doing it.
Here’s a common one I hear in lessons:
“I hate the way I sound. I sound bad.”
A different version of the same situation:
“I have never sung this before and my muscles don’t yet know how to coordinate to make these sounds”
“I didn’t warm up! My voice doesn’t want to make that note yet!”
“I am singing in my chest voice and my head voice wants to come help!”
Every time we bad talk our selves, we’re putting a barrier between what our mind is asking us to do, and how our body responds to that ask. Next time you catch yourself bad talking yourself, question whether there’s another truth you haven’t yet acknowledged. It works! I do it all the time.