The quote that has accompanied me this week comes from Bettina von Armin: „Find yourself, be true to yourself, learn to understand yourself, follow your inner voice, only then can you reach the highest.“
This is certainly the path that makes us happy and content. But in all the everyday life we face, the inner voice is very quiet and often barely perceptible, if at all. At times when the hustle and bustle around us is quieter, such as after work or at the weekend, we would have time to listen to our inner voice, become aware of our values and reflect on the day or the week. But instead we distract ourselves with films, news, parties, etc. We allow ourselves to be drawn into the external and stay less in touch with our inner voice. We put off change and reassure ourselves that we can’t change it anyway. Unfortunately, this excuse is too common and too easy, so we like to use it again and again. But each of us can change more than we realise. After all, we should all have free will and use it accordingly to our values and culture in an acceptable.
One exercise is to realise what we can or cannot change. I think the following exercise based on an exercise by Kéré Sylvia Wellensiekand Kirsten Schwarz might be supportive to be more clear about your own influence in the world:
Create a 3-column table. Please change the column headings into: „changeable“ (column 2) and „unchangeable“ (column 3). The rows are labelled with „professional“ (row 2) and „private“ (row 3). Write down the topics that come to mind for each field. Concentrate on the areas that can be changed, and then think about small steps you can take to actually bring about these changes. Then check the unchangeable areas to see whether they are really outside your sphere of influence. If you are able to change parts of it, split the topic into smaller chunks. And think about the changeable pieces. Start with the first steps and plan accordingly with a time limit to reach the set aims.
Perhaps this little exercise on the subject of resilience will help you to reflect and give your inner voice more strength and volume.
