Finding your voice and taking up space

And a penny for your thoughts…

Image credit: Sarah Wood Photography

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had some version of the thought, “I don’t belong here” at some point in their lives.

A new school, first day at a new job, a gym class, a friendship group you’ve grown apart from. There are infinite examples… speaking at conferences and networking events are popular choices for some of my clients!

“I don’t belong here” has etched its way into my mind more than a few times recently. It’s three months today since I started writing here, and it has been significantly harder than I imagined.

I’ve never had a problem writing. I can write to a brief, usually quickly and reasonably well. I can produce a media release, speech for someone else, internal memo or article with no fuss – check the brief, research, write, proof and check tone, off we go.

But writing for myself, in my own voice, with no external brief, very little feedback and no imperative force behind me has been a very strange experience after 20+ years of doing it for other people and companies. In their voice, following their brief, their feedback and their deadlines.

It has been an interesting exercise in self-awareness. I’m loving writing, but I’m also wondering when ‘my’ voice will reappear effortlessly!

How do I navigate the maze?

The internet (I know using this term in this way makes me sound ancient – I mean the collective social media, websites, online resources etc.) provides a waterfall of motivational words and other content-related advice, mostly without substance, if you let it in.

“You deserve a seat at the table”, “Make your voice heard”, “Post every day to master the algorithm”.

It's a lot!

I know words are powerful, and the conversation we have with ourselves is a strong determinant of our sense of success or purpose. But words are cheap without direction and action.

Navigating the messy thoughts of: “What am I doing here? Who am I serving? And where the hell has my own voice gone?” has seen a lot of long walks, 3am “great-idea” wake-ups, and the occasional instinct to run and hide.

Unsurprisingly, returning to the vision I had for this platform has delivered clarity and renewed spark.

I’m here on Substack to help more people level-up their communication skills.

I love teaching people 1:1 or in group workshops, but I’m conscious that not everyone has the professional development budget (or access to a business one) to invest in training. And communication is the critical work and life skill that we’re rarely taught.

The No. 1 action that’s helping me for now

While I’m a long way from overcoming the lingering discomfort around taking up space and finding my voice, I know that doing more writing and getting more feedback is the foundation.

Many psychologists espouse the virtues of writing, usually through some type of journalling. I’m learning why! If you’d like to try it but aren’t sure where to start, the amazing

Kate Harvey

from

Letters From Therapy

has some good journaling prompts on some of her posts.

So, I’m writing more. Much of it is sitting in drafts, much of it is not about communication. I’m also writing a journal-type collection of letters for my daughters – entries are more occasional than regular, but each time words hit the page I’m finding a little more flow.

Your feedback is valuable to me through this process, as is your readership. Which leads me to the key purpose of this post…

What do you want to see more of? And what’s to come…

It feels like the right time to check in with you about what sort of content you find most helpful. If you could take one minute to submit your responses to the questions below, I would be super grateful and promise to integrate your input into the material I produce.

If you’re new here (welcome!), here’s an example of the ‘quick tips’ type of post that I reference below versus this example of a longer post.

I don’t want to create a newsletter for the sake of it, I want to produce value – and your opinion is central to that. To avoid links to external sites and to encourage as many people as possible to respond, I’ve kept the questions in Substack’s question poll format which is a little limited - please excuse the clunkiness!

Also, I’ll be starting workshops in June. I plan to run something monthly until December as long as people are interested – a mini masterclass, a deep dive on a specific topic, an ask me anything session or an expert interview.

Now, to the questions… there’s five of them, you can answer one, some, all or none. I’m grateful for any input you’d like to share.

Thank you! And thank you for your support during the setup of this newsletter. I’m keen to tweak it for ongoing improvement and look forward to this next phase. You might continue to see some changes to the look, format, timing etc. over the next few months.

I would love to hear any additional content ideas in the comments section. What’s the one thing you’d love a post or masterclass discussion on?

Thank you for being here,

Larissa