I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time. Charles M. Schulz

Last week I got a request to deliver change management program for a leading multinational corporation – in Chinese. My Chinese is good, I can communicate, I can understand but to deliver a program… I haven’t done that in 7 years! With a thought that I have enough time to prepare I accepted the offer as an opportunity to expand my comfort zone and learn. So preparations began. I received pages and pages of material and as I looked at the volume of words I had to learn my heart started to sink. Insecurity kicked in and a voice started to ramble: “You won’t be able to do it! It’s too much! You’ll fail!”

Narrator (or Gremlin) is the official title that circulates amongst coaches for the voice that evokes fear, doubt, worry and anything else that you may regard as negative. Another voice (sometimes called gentle voice within or simply Intuition) is the one that navigates towards joy, peace, love and anything else that we can define as positive. Engaging these two voices in a dialogue is what creates stress as the Narrator starts to fight for control. It provides the whole list of the reasons why you SHOULD listen to it and how awful things would happen if you don’t.

Here are two pieces of advice I got from my teachers:

Narrator is there to encourage you to create a risk assessment of the situation you are in. Once you create the risk assessment send the Narrator to a quiet corner of your mind and let it rest until there is a need for it’s assistance.

Simple formula for success is: for positive outcomes engage positive thoughts and emotions.

Here are strategies I use to deal with the Narrator.

Letting go of the Narrator

Breathe!

Bring yourself back to the present moment and recognize that Narrator engages only when you think of past or future.

If you were standing in the middle of your head as a mini You where would the Narrator’s voice come from? Left? Right? Your back?

Bring it down into shoulder closer to the initial position and let it talk from that shoulder.

Bring it down to the elbow of the same arm. How does it sound when it talks form there?

Bring it to the thumb… let it speak in a Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse voice saying the same things. How about a really seductive voice that begs for attention and obedience.

Shake your hands and your whole body to let go of the negative emotions and energy.

Next steps – risk assessment and positive outlook

What is the worst that may happen?

Breathe!

Write down thoughts that you are worried about and brainstorm 2-3 solutions for each concern.

Think of the time you have solved similar problem successfully. What did you do then?

Consider choices you have.

Visualize desired outcome until you see the projected 3D image, bigger than life, right in front of you. Paint it with bright colors, add a pinch of nice smell and music that makes you dance every time you hear it.

Dance like nobody’s watching.

Start acting with the question in mind: Does what I am doing right now bring me closer to what I want? If yes: what am I doing that energizes me? Keep doing it. If not, stop and start doing something else. Experiment, gather new reference data through new experiences.

Have fun learning.

Every time I learn something new it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Homer Simpson