What is your voice, really?

­One of the things that you start to think, worry, and dream about of as a blogger (or writer, speaker, singer, artist, etc.) is this concept of your voice.  More specifically, what is my voice?  Before you can undertake that question, however, you must understand what I mean by ‘voice.’

What is your voice?

Your voice is nothing less than the complete embodiment, and the expression of, everything that makes you, ‘you.’  It’s who you are at your core.  Deep, I know.  There are two important pieces here in this definition:  embodiment and expression.  Understanding how these two concepts make up your voice will help you decide on yours.

The embodiment of YOU

When I speak of the embodiment of you, I am speaking of everything that makes up you: your likes, dislikes, passions, wants, desires etc., your knowledge of them, and your comfort of ‘being’ them.

What makes you, you?  Are you a bookwork?  A fitness fanatic?  Do you think of yourself in terms of family, faith, or function?  What is it that you like doing?  Above all, what makes you happy and what do you want to do or give to the world?  What are the skills that you have mastered and how do you spend most of your time?  What do you value?  The answers to these questions make up a large piece of who you are, which means they make up a large piece of what should make up your voice.

I say should, because we don’t always ‘know’ these answers as well as we would like.  We haven’t spent the time required thinking about them and what they mean to us, or what they could mean to the world.  Specifically, we don’t think of:

• Who we are
• Why that is important
• And, how could that affect the world around me

I say affect, but what I really mean is how can the world be changed for the better based on who I am.  There is a really good article that I found here (http://www.accidentalcreative.com/creating/10-questions-that-will-help-you-find-your-voice/) on discovering these things.

In order to change anything, however, you must be comfortable and confident that it is ok to be you.  Because, I have to tell you, it is more than ‘ok’ to be who you are.  If you are not comfortable in your own skin, you can never display your authentic voice.

The expression of YOU

Once you get through ‘who’ you are, you must somehow share it.  How you express, or communicate, your voice is just as important as, if not more important than, what that voice is.  It is paramount to your ability to get your message out and to maintaining your own authenticity.  How you express yourself comes down to your forms of expression, your message, and your story.

I think the obvious aspect of your voice is how you choose to communicate it.  Are you a speaker, a writer, or a singer?  Do you share it only with friends in conversation?  It is important to choose your medium of communication early and often. You need to start communicating your voice immediately and continue to do so until the day you die, ensuring that you are always tweaking your strategy of communication, if not your message.

What is your message?  At the heart of everything that you are, there is a theme.  If you do not have a theme or main message, you will need to create one.  If you have never thought of this message, then I urge you to do so.  What you want to change is often nested within this theme and can be the most important part of expressing your voice.

Your story is the narrative of how you came to develop your theme.  This is the history of your life and where you came from.  These are your happiest, saddest, and most embarrassing moments of your life.  They are the things that lead you to being who you are.

So what?

Why am I talking to you about voice and why do I feel that it is so important?  How does finding your voice affect you and/or the quality of your life?  Find out in my next post entitled, ‘Why you should find your voice.’

Be exceptional,

JIM