VOICING MYSELF

The objective of this exercise is to explore some of the levers that affect my Voice. My use of a capital ‘V’ is intentional – to signify the Voice here refers to my voice in both the literal and figurative sense i.e. the quality of my voice when I speak, as well as my outlook and opinion.

One of the primary levers which affect my voice is the state of my body (health, injury, habits). When I feel healthy, am not suffering from injuries, and am generally rested, I feel confident – a confidence which manifests itself in my Voice. On the other hand, when I feel unhealthy, am injured, fatigued, haven’t slept enough or am hung over, I tend to want to keep quiet and minimise my interaction with others.

My environment also tends to play a major role in determining my Voice. In a formal setup, I tend to be reserved, while I am fairly outgoing in an informal setup. At work, I tend to maintain some distance with my colleagues, barring the odd colleague with whom I feel especially comfortable. Amongst friends as well, I do maintain some distance, though less so than with colleagues at work. Amongst family members, for the most part I tend to voice my opinion frequently, actively and with little hesitation. It appears, therefore, that like most others, my inclination to Voice myself is a function of (directly proportional to) my level of comfort within a group. While I have used colleagues, friends and family as the environment defining parameters here, the parameter set could just as easily have been something else – outlook and perspective, cultural background, religious background, education level, social class and so on – the list is technically endless. The underlying determinant is comfort level – if I am relatively comfortable in my environment, I’ll be able to Voice myself effectively; if I am like a fish out of water in my environment at any given point in time, I will not feel comfortable Voicing myself. I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual, though I would peg my IQ at a somewhat higher level than my EQ. Most things academic come fairly easily to me – I may have to work harder at certain subjects than others, but I’ve rarely encountered situations where I’ve worked and not performed well. My EQ is another matter – I think I was born with fairly ordinary EQ levels, and with effort, over time, I’ve been able to improve to above average. I’m nowhere close to where I’d like to be though, which means I’ll have to work a lot harder. I believe that my ability to tailor my Voice appropriately to fit situations well depends on my EQ, and since my EQ levels warrant improvement, this is an area I have traditionally struggled with, and still do.

I am also not the most confident individual in the world. In fact, I would assess my confidence levels to be a lot lower than where I objectively think they should be given my strengths and weaknesses. I tend to be terrified of making presentations or addressing large gatherings. I attribute this primarily to a couple of factors – lack of clarity of thought (an uber-logical friend of mine once commented that there is a lot of “low-level white noise” in my head), and my nervous temperament (I tend to fidget a lot, shake my legs and so on). I would dearly like to change this – so that I can be more confident and successful in the professional realm, as well as in my personal life.

While I haven’t really addressed some of the deeper psychological linkages between my thinking, behaviour and voice in this brief exploratory paper, if I’m able to maintain my health, feel comfortable across varied environments, improve my overall EQ levels, develop greater clarity of thought and reduce my anxiety levels, I do believe I will tremendously improve my ability to Voice myself.
I realise what I’ve listed out above is a tall order; realisation is half the battle won, however, and a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Moreover, I get the feeling all of the above is linked in some shape or form, and that I might learn a thing or two about tackling my issues holistically in this class. I look forward to this process of self-development!