128. Tone of Voice
You know that voice you have inside your head?
The one that criticizes you, second guesses you, insists you’re always doing it wrong?
What kind of tone does it use when it makes its allegations?
I’m guessing it’s not a very nice one.
It’s probably snide, snippy, and more than a little rude.
You probably flinch when you hear it speak up.
One of the fastest ways to shift that mean inner voice is actually to shift the tone it uses.
That’s right. Even more than changing what the voice is saying, simply repeating what the voice said in a kinder, more curious tone of voice can radically change how you feel and what you do with the voice’s input.
I first learned this trick in therapy, approximately one million years ago, and it works as well now as it did then.
It’s a simple but powerful approach.
And it allows you to engage that critical inner voice rather than simply get shut down by it.
Tune in this week to learn how to do it and how mastering this simple technique will enable you to turn critical feedback into constructive and helpful information.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
The power of your internal tone of voice.
Why judgment keeps you doing all the shit you want to stop doing.
What happens when you shift your internal tone of voice to curiosity.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about the power of tone of voice.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey, y’all. Happy Wednesday. How are you? I’m doing pretty well. I took a beautiful long walk around my neighborhood today. And it was rainy, but pretty temperate out and I really enjoyed it, even though it was raining. And things are starting to bloom, springtime is coming, and I’m pretty excited for it. And I hope you had a lovely day as well.
This week we’re talking about a tool that I actually learned approximately 1 million years ago, back when I was in therapy with one of my very first therapists, Cristien Storm, who practices in Seattle, or at least did way back in the day when I went to therapy with her.
So I went to therapy with Cristien for several years and learned all kinds of stuff. And she was wonderful, but one of the things that’s really stuck with me is basically a teaching about how to notice your internal tone of voice, and how shifting your internal tone of voice can be really powerful.
So, as an example, I think one of the thought patterns that I was working on back then with her would be like why did I do that? I would do something and then my brain would be like, “Why did you do that” in this really kind of aggressive, rude, judgmental tone of voice. And something she would say was basically just like, what if you just change the tone that you’re asking?
And so to put it in sort of more of the terms we usually use in the coaching space, it’s like shifting from judgment to curiosity. But the question can actually stay the same, right? So, “Why did you do that?” can become “why did you do that?” Or even like, “Hmm, why did you do that?” Or, “Tell me more about that.”
And I just really love this approach and it really helped me with a lot of stuff. And really, it helped me shift from judgment into curious compassion. But it also helped me kind of notice the tone of voice. And it’s even something you can use with other people, where when you’re talking to them you can also notice the tone of voice that would be sort of like your default, and then ask yourself, is that the tone of voice I would like to use? Why or why not?
So this is a pretty simple tool but I think it’s so powerful and will be really impactful for you in how you talk to yourself, and in how you get information from yourself. Because one thing I want you to notice is with a thought pattern of like, “Why did I do that?” When we ask it in a judgmental tone of voice, we are not actually asking for a real answer to the question. And the implied answer is always an insult to ourselves.
So when we say it in the judgmental tone of voice like, why would I do that? Sort of like it implies a certain kind of answer, like I shouldn’t do that. There’s something wrong with me if I do that. Doing that is bad, or unappealing, or something I should know better than, blah, blah, blah. And what happens is that it makes us feel shitty.
And what happens when we feel shitty is we tend to want to numb or avoid. We don’t approach what we’re doing with curiosity. We assume something’s wrong with the situation. We assume something’s wrong with us. And we also often get stuck in that same pattern, right? An example that I use all the time is like if we drink too much and we wake up and we have a hangover and feel kind of shitty, we’ll go like, “Why did I drink that much? I’m never drinking again.”
And then all day long if we’re judging ourselves for having drank, we’re like, “Oh, what’s wrong with me? I drank so much.” It’s like we’re spending the whole day with this person who’s kind of bullying us. And then by the time it’s 5pm, we’re like, “Oh, I want to drink again,” because we want to get away from that voice in our head that’s being judgmental, right?
So in that way, judgment will actually keep us in the loop and the pattern of doing the very thing we judged ourselves for. Whereas when you change the tone of voice, you go from like, “Why did I do that?” To like, “Why? Why? Why? Why did I do that?” You tap into curiosity and then you can actually wonder.
And then you can actually think through like, maybe there’s a reason I did that. If there were a reason I did that, what might the reason be? And then you can explore and what’s going to happen there is you’re probably going to find out why you did the thing because you’re truly asking why versus using the question why as a stick to beat yourself with.
So one of the things I teach my client is the idea that we do things for good reasons. Even things that don’t make sense. Even things that take us further away from our goals. Even things that fuck our lives up. Even things that disrupt our success or sabotage us. If we’re doing those things I like to believe that there’s a part of us that’s trying to help us and it’s just confused about how to do that, right?
And when you ask yourself in a truly curious tone of voice, “Why did I do that? What caused that? How did this come to happen? Why did I think that was a good idea? Or if I didn’t think that was a good idea, why did I do it anyway?” Right? So if we come in with this assumption that we’re sane and that the things we’re doing make some kind of sense and we get really curious, and we use a softer, comforting, kinder tone of voice, then we can begin to unpack that.
We can begin to discover like, oh, I didn’t call that job back because I was afraid maybe I couldn’t actually do the job. And I didn’t want to be embarrassed later, so instead of taking the job and having the risk of being embarrassed later, I just didn’t call them back.
And so then instead of being like, “Why didn’t I do that? Why did I do that? Why didn’t I call them back?” We can be like, oh, it makes perfect sense why I didn’t call them back. But maybe that’s not what I want to do again in the future. And so part of me was really scared and so I’m maybe going to need some comfort or some care to feel safe enough to call them back.
Here’s what’s really interesting about this, only one of these approaches is solution focused. The interesting thing is so many people think that being mean to themselves is effective. But being mean to yourself is not solution focused. Being mean to yourself is punishment focused. Why did I do that? What’s wrong with me? I’ll never get better. I’ll never learn. And then fill in the blank with any insult you tell yourself. Like what a dumbass or like blah, blah, blah, right?
Versus why did I do that? There’s probably a reason I did that. And even if it’s not what I want to do, again, if I can come to understand why I actually did that, then maybe I could do it differently next time. That’s solution focused, it’s understanding focus, versus the other one is just focused on punishment, just focused on making you feel bad. And it’s not going to help you do differently, right?
Here’s another example. So that’s with the question, “Why did I do that?” Another example is the work I’m doing is not good enough, right? Let’s say I’m working on a project and I have the thought, “This is not good enough.” Right, cringe. Or I can have a thought like, “Huh, this isn’t good enough.”
Do you see how the tone of voice makes those really different? One is like this isn’t good enough, which means I’m not good enough. And it should be good already. And something’s wrong and it’s not good enough. And I’m bad. And it’s bad. We’re all bad. I may as well give up, put the project away, get a glass of wine and go sit on the couch and binge a bunch of Netflix, right?
Whereas the second one in the different tone of voice is like, oh, this isn’t good enough. But in that tone, there’s not a problem there. It’s just like noticing. It’s just like this is some neutral information. It’s like this isn’t good enough, but like maybe I could make it good enough. And what would make it good enough? And why isn’t it working, right?
And that’s another good example, like, “Why isn’t it working?” Which is like I feel frustrated, it should be working, I’m upset. Versus like, “Why isn’t it working?” It’s curious, maybe it could be working, but it’s not right now. And that’s okay, but maybe we could figure out why it is if we were able to bring the right mindset and the right energy and the right attention to it.
So I think that you’ll find that this can be effective for all kinds of things. So I want you to pay attention, not just to what you say to yourself inside the head, like what the actual words are, what the language choices you make are, but what’s the tone of voice? And if you had to describe that tone of voice, how would you describe it? Is it mean? Is it judgmental? Is there someone in your life that it reminds you of? Or are you the rare among us? Is your internal voice kind? Is it curious? Is it compassionate?
And probably some of the time it’s some of each. But for a lot of people, for me before coaching and even sometimes still, and for a lot of my clients, a lot of our internal voices are judgmental. It’s criticizing, it’s shaming, it’s about keeping us in line. And what I’m inviting you into is an internal tone of voice that’s about connection. It’s about curiosity. It’s about compassion. And again, it’s solution focused versus punishment focused.
It’s solution focused versus problem focused. It’s open. It’s seeking. It’s like looking for what could be versus deciding what already is and crossing its arms. That’s kind of how I feel about the judgy tone of voice, it’s got its arms crossed and it’s like, why bother?
Even why bother, right? If we change the tone of voice in that, why bother? Well, I’m going to bother because I’d like to develop this skill. Or I’m going to bother because this really matters to me. Or I’m going to bother because I want to build a business and even if I do this wrong 15 times or 15,000 times, it’s worth it to me, that’s why I’m going to bother.
I think you’ll be amazed if all you do is change the tone of voice that you use to talk to yourself. I think that will shake so much loose for you in shifting from a mindset that feels like shit and isn’t helping to shifting into a mindset that feels yummy and is helping you create a satisfying as fuck, delicious, yummy life and career.
And listen, I realize that changing your internal voice can be a hard thing to do, changing the tone and changing the language. And you don’t have to do that alone. I am here to do that work with you, that’s the exact kind of work I do with my clients. I do it with my clients one on one, I do it with my clients in group.
And you can slide on over to my website, korilinn.com and sign up for a consult call. And we can talk about what that could look like for you and what could change in your life when you do change your tone of voice internally in this way. And we can talk about whether you’d be a good fit for SAF, my small group program, or for one-on-one coaching, because we’re going to learn to do that skill in both.
Oh, and here’s the other thing, bonus teaching, changing your tone of voice isn’t just powerful for yourself, it’s also powerful for others. A lot of us talk to others more kindly than we talk to ourselves. But what I’ve also found is that the people we live with, like our significant others, and sometimes our children, sometimes our parents or siblings, sometimes we use a more similar tone of voice when we talk to them as what we use when we talk to ourselves.
It’s like the closer into our circle they are, the more the way we talk to them overlaps with the way we talk to ourselves. Like in my life I’ve seen this, that the people I’m always the hardest on are always my significant others, right? So when you think about having connected relationships with others, looking at your tone of voice there can also be really interesting.
Something that could be a fight with your significant other could actually turn into a really beautiful and connection building conversation if you can just switch your tone of voice from like, “Why did you do that” to like, “Hey, help me understand why you did that. What’s going on?” Or like, “Why bother” to like, “Hey, I’m struggling with this and I want to understand why would I bother to do this? Or why are we bothering to do this in our relationship? Let’s talk about it.”
It’s a really, really simple tool. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but you can do it and I can help you do it. And it’s going to change all kinds of stuff and really delight you. So give it a try and then come over to Instagram and let me know how it’s going.
All right, I’ll talk to you later. Bye. Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey, y’all. Happy Wednesday. How are you? I’m doing pretty well. I took a beautiful long walk around my neighborhood today. And it was rainy, but pretty temperate out and I really enjoyed it, even though it was raining. And things are starting to bloom, springtime is coming, and I’m pretty excited for it. And I hope you had a lovely day as well.
This week we’re talking about a tool that I actually learned approximately 1 million years ago, back when I was in therapy with one of my very first therapists, Cristien Storm, who practices in Seattle, or at least did way back in the day when I went to therapy with her.
So I went to therapy with Cristien for several years and learned all kinds of stuff. And she was wonderful, but one of the things that’s really stuck with me is basically a teaching about how to notice your internal tone of voice, and how shifting your internal tone of voice can be really powerful.
So, as an example, I think one of the thought patterns that I was working on back then with her would be like why did I do that? I would do something and then my brain would be like, “Why did you do that” in this really kind of aggressive, rude, judgmental tone of voice. And something she would say was basically just like, what if you just change the tone that you’re asking?
And so to put it in sort of more of the terms we usually use in the coaching space, it’s like shifting from judgment to curiosity. But the question can actually stay the same, right? So, “Why did you do that?” can become “why did you do that?” Or even like, “Hmm, why did you do that?” Or, “Tell me more about that.”
And I just really love this approach and it really helped me with a lot of stuff. And really, it helped me shift from judgment into curious compassion. But it also helped me kind of notice the tone of voice. And it’s even something you can use with other people, where when you’re talking to them you can also notice the tone of voice that would be sort of like your default, and then ask yourself, is that the tone of voice I would like to use? Why or why not?
So this is a pretty simple tool but I think it’s so powerful and will be really impactful for you in how you talk to yourself, and in how you get information from yourself. Because one thing I want you to notice is with a thought pattern of like, “Why did I do that?” When we ask it in a judgmental tone of voice, we are not actually asking for a real answer to the question. And the implied answer is always an insult to ourselves.
So when we say it in the judgmental tone of voice like, why would I do that? Sort of like it implies a certain kind of answer, like I shouldn’t do that. There’s something wrong with me if I do that. Doing that is bad, or unappealing, or something I should know better than, blah, blah, blah. And what happens is that it makes us feel shitty.
And what happens when we feel shitty is we tend to want to numb or avoid. We don’t approach what we’re doing with curiosity. We assume something’s wrong with the situation. We assume something’s wrong with us. And we also often get stuck in that same pattern, right? An example that I use all the time is like if we drink too much and we wake up and we have a hangover and feel kind of shitty, we’ll go like, “Why did I drink that much? I’m never drinking again.”
And then all day long if we’re judging ourselves for having drank, we’re like, “Oh, what’s wrong with me? I drank so much.” It’s like we’re spending the whole day with this person who’s kind of bullying us. And then by the time it’s 5pm, we’re like, “Oh, I want to drink again,” because we want to get away from that voice in our head that’s being judgmental, right?
So in that way, judgment will actually keep us in the loop and the pattern of doing the very thing we judged ourselves for. Whereas when you change the tone of voice, you go from like, “Why did I do that?” To like, “Why? Why? Why? Why did I do that?” You tap into curiosity and then you can actually wonder.
And then you can actually think through like, maybe there’s a reason I did that. If there were a reason I did that, what might the reason be? And then you can explore and what’s going to happen there is you’re probably going to find out why you did the thing because you’re truly asking why versus using the question why as a stick to beat yourself with.
So one of the things I teach my client is the idea that we do things for good reasons. Even things that don’t make sense. Even things that take us further away from our goals. Even things that fuck our lives up. Even things that disrupt our success or sabotage us. If we’re doing those things I like to believe that there’s a part of us that’s trying to help us and it’s just confused about how to do that, right?
And when you ask yourself in a truly curious tone of voice, “Why did I do that? What caused that? How did this come to happen? Why did I think that was a good idea? Or if I didn’t think that was a good idea, why did I do it anyway?” Right? So if we come in with this assumption that we’re sane and that the things we’re doing make some kind of sense and we get really curious, and we use a softer, comforting, kinder tone of voice, then we can begin to unpack that.
We can begin to discover like, oh, I didn’t call that job back because I was afraid maybe I couldn’t actually do the job. And I didn’t want to be embarrassed later, so instead of taking the job and having the risk of being embarrassed later, I just didn’t call them back.
And so then instead of being like, “Why didn’t I do that? Why did I do that? Why didn’t I call them back?” We can be like, oh, it makes perfect sense why I didn’t call them back. But maybe that’s not what I want to do again in the future. And so part of me was really scared and so I’m maybe going to need some comfort or some care to feel safe enough to call them back.
Here’s what’s really interesting about this, only one of these approaches is solution focused. The interesting thing is so many people think that being mean to themselves is effective. But being mean to yourself is not solution focused. Being mean to yourself is punishment focused. Why did I do that? What’s wrong with me? I’ll never get better. I’ll never learn. And then fill in the blank with any insult you tell yourself. Like what a dumbass or like blah, blah, blah, right?
Versus why did I do that? There’s probably a reason I did that. And even if it’s not what I want to do, again, if I can come to understand why I actually did that, then maybe I could do it differently next time. That’s solution focused, it’s understanding focus, versus the other one is just focused on punishment, just focused on making you feel bad. And it’s not going to help you do differently, right?
Here’s another example. So that’s with the question, “Why did I do that?” Another example is the work I’m doing is not good enough, right? Let’s say I’m working on a project and I have the thought, “This is not good enough.” Right, cringe. Or I can have a thought like, “Huh, this isn’t good enough.”
Do you see how the tone of voice makes those really different? One is like this isn’t good enough, which means I’m not good enough. And it should be good already. And something’s wrong and it’s not good enough. And I’m bad. And it’s bad. We’re all bad. I may as well give up, put the project away, get a glass of wine and go sit on the couch and binge a bunch of Netflix, right?
Whereas the second one in the different tone of voice is like, oh, this isn’t good enough. But in that tone, there’s not a problem there. It’s just like noticing. It’s just like this is some neutral information. It’s like this isn’t good enough, but like maybe I could make it good enough. And what would make it good enough? And why isn’t it working, right?
And that’s another good example, like, “Why isn’t it working?” Which is like I feel frustrated, it should be working, I’m upset. Versus like, “Why isn’t it working?” It’s curious, maybe it could be working, but it’s not right now. And that’s okay, but maybe we could figure out why it is if we were able to bring the right mindset and the right energy and the right attention to it.
So I think that you’ll find that this can be effective for all kinds of things. So I want you to pay attention, not just to what you say to yourself inside the head, like what the actual words are, what the language choices you make are, but what’s the tone of voice? And if you had to describe that tone of voice, how would you describe it? Is it mean? Is it judgmental? Is there someone in your life that it reminds you of? Or are you the rare among us? Is your internal voice kind? Is it curious? Is it compassionate?
And probably some of the time it’s some of each. But for a lot of people, for me before coaching and even sometimes still, and for a lot of my clients, a lot of our internal voices are judgmental. It’s criticizing, it’s shaming, it’s about keeping us in line. And what I’m inviting you into is an internal tone of voice that’s about connection. It’s about curiosity. It’s about compassion. And again, it’s solution focused versus punishment focused.
It’s solution focused versus problem focused. It’s open. It’s seeking. It’s like looking for what could be versus deciding what already is and crossing its arms. That’s kind of how I feel about the judgy tone of voice, it’s got its arms crossed and it’s like, why bother?
Even why bother, right? If we change the tone of voice in that, why bother? Well, I’m going to bother because I’d like to develop this skill. Or I’m going to bother because this really matters to me. Or I’m going to bother because I want to build a business and even if I do this wrong 15 times or 15,000 times, it’s worth it to me, that’s why I’m going to bother.
I think you’ll be amazed if all you do is change the tone of voice that you use to talk to yourself. I think that will shake so much loose for you in shifting from a mindset that feels like shit and isn’t helping to shifting into a mindset that feels yummy and is helping you create a satisfying as fuck, delicious, yummy life and career.
And listen, I realize that changing your internal voice can be a hard thing to do, changing the tone and changing the language. And you don’t have to do that alone. I am here to do that work with you, that’s the exact kind of work I do with my clients. I do it with my clients one on one, I do it with my clients in group.
And you can slide on over to my website, korilinn.com and sign up for a consult call. And we can talk about what that could look like for you and what could change in your life when you do change your tone of voice internally in this way. And we can talk about whether you’d be a good fit for SAF, my small group program, or for one-on-one coaching, because we’re going to learn to do that skill in both.
Oh, and here’s the other thing, bonus teaching, changing your tone of voice isn’t just powerful for yourself, it’s also powerful for others. A lot of us talk to others more kindly than we talk to ourselves. But what I’ve also found is that the people we live with, like our significant others, and sometimes our children, sometimes our parents or siblings, sometimes we use a more similar tone of voice when we talk to them as what we use when we talk to ourselves.
It’s like the closer into our circle they are, the more the way we talk to them overlaps with the way we talk to ourselves. Like in my life I’ve seen this, that the people I’m always the hardest on are always my significant others, right? So when you think about having connected relationships with others, looking at your tone of voice there can also be really interesting.
Something that could be a fight with your significant other could actually turn into a really beautiful and connection building conversation if you can just switch your tone of voice from like, “Why did you do that” to like, “Hey, help me understand why you did that. What’s going on?” Or like, “Why bother” to like, “Hey, I’m struggling with this and I want to understand why would I bother to do this? Or why are we bothering to do this in our relationship? Let’s talk about it.”
It’s a really, really simple tool. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but you can do it and I can help you do it. And it’s going to change all kinds of stuff and really delight you. So give it a try and then come over to Instagram and let me know how it’s going.
All right, I’ll talk to you later. Bye. Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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