Make yourself at home in your voice

Before my Instagram account went from ‘personal’ to ‘pro’, my bio said ‘Loves cheese, cats and coffee.’ Then I added ‘vegan’ before cheese, because I’d given up dairy. Then I deleted ‘cheese, cats and coffee’ entirely, switched to pro, and replaced all three with ‘author and coach’. 

Then, as I got to feel more at home on Instagram, I noticed all three coming back.

Looking through my feed, they’d all crept back in somewhere, coming up as relevant parts of the story the pictures were telling about who I was and what I did. Not in my bio anymore, but every week or so at least one (probably all) was showing up in the visuals of my life and work.

It wasn’t conscious, but it was over and over again: what I’d taken out was still right there: a mug beside a notebook on a cafe table where I had a writing date with myself before seeing a coaching client; a vegan cheese purchase I was particularly excited about (excited is no exaggeration: being able to eat food I thought I’d had to leave behind is VERY exciting to me!); a cat I’d met on a local walk that led to a thought about what I’ve learnt about authentic confidence and connection. 

Yes, it’s because writing, authentic choices, confidence and connection are what my coaching is about. But also yes, it’s really because I just plain love cheese, cats and coffee. And that’s when I was able to see that maybe being a professional wasn’t about hiding who I was, but expanding on the ‘why’ beneath the ‘what’.

It’s your voice – in life, work and art

A lot of people who’ve come to me for coaching in writing, speaking, social media presence over the years arrive having worried themselves into corners, believing it would be all about putting on a mask and being someone we’re not, or someone a faceless audience expects us to be.

That others out there are ‘pretending to be perfect’, or that we ‘have to be perfect’ in order to show up. And if we’re thinking that about life online, there’s a good chance it’s because of thought habits currently in charge offline too.

If the first session (and, in a way, every session) is about one thing, it’s about this:

Perfect was never on the menu.

Allowing ourselves to show up in our online and offline lives, one authentic step at a time, is the joy I was discovering through my own evolving Instagram presence, but looking back, it’s also what I discovered in the jobs I applied for and the relationships I formed over the years.

In my least happy moments, I made myself even less happy through chasing who and what I thought I ‘should’ be. In my happier ones, my focus increased on the people and things I got true enjoyment and fulfilment out of being part of. That focus is what true confidence feels like. And it’s possible to feel like that when you show up everywhere you choose to.

The reason these things (creative writing, social media presence, job interviews, you name it) get easier is when we speak from a place of authenticity then ‘performance’ means what it means when you perform a role as a friend, parent, spouse or anything else – not pretending but enacting a truth from within. Showing up authentically.

Being yourself – but more so

If you enjoy expressing yourself in another area of your life – clothes, interior decor, anything at all – you probably already know exactly what it is to feel more comfortable and engaged when self-expression is going on than when it isn’t.

When clients come to clarify the voice they want to unlock, it’s sometimes for their fiction and non-fiction, their public speaking or their interview (interviewer or interviewee) technique. But whether it’s for life, work or art, on camera or interpersonal, the work we do together is based on who they truly are and how truly at home they want to be in what they do, say, write and live.

When we don’t yet feel at home in our self-expression, it’s hard to imagine feeling different is possible. Which can mean we focus on others’ expectations – or, let’s be honest, our own picture of those expectations! – and create our own monsters, our own reasons to stay quiet, or stay stuck. But it is possible to take one authentic step today, and another tomorrow.

And it’s not only possible – it’s wonderful.