Your Inner Monologue Needs a Better Publicist

I make a living helping people figure out what to say.

How to explain their business. Tell their story. Get someone to care before they close the tab.

Meanwhile, the voice inside my own head occasionally sounds like a disgruntled Yelp reviewer.

Too busy. Behind again. Should’ve figured this out already.

One star. Parking was difficult.

It’s an interesting professional blind spot: spending all day choosing words carefully for other people, then letting whatever nonsense shows up narrate your own life.

That narrator could use an editor.

Start with “have to.”

I have to pick up the kids. I have to coach soccer. I have to get on another client call.

Say it enough, and a pretty good life starts sounding like community service.

I get to pick up my daughters. I get to be on the field with them. I get to earn a living doing something I’ve spent more than 20 years learning how to do.

The calendar hasn’t changed. My description of it has.

School pickup still involves traffic. Someone may still announce an urgent need for a snack while holding a snack. But from my daughters’ side, Dad is coming to get them.

I want to remember that part, too.

There are ordinary pieces of my life that an earlier version of me would have been thrilled to know were coming. “Get to” helps me notice when one of them is right in front of me.

Some obligations are simply hard. You don’t need to give a flat tire a gratitude journal.

But before I label everything a burden, it’s worth checking what I’m actually carrying.

Give “yet” a seat at the table.

“I’m bad at this” sounds like the investigation is complete.

“I’m not good at this yet” leaves room for another attempt.

Three letters. Surprisingly useful staff addition.

I’ve worked in communications for more than two decades, and I still encounter things I don’t know how to do. New tools. Unfamiliar industries. A website setting apparently designed to test whether I deserve a website.

“I don’t understand this” can turn into an excuse to close the laptop.

“I don’t understand this yet” gives me a reason to ask a question, find an example, or try again tomorrow.

Of course, adding “yet” doesn’t do the work for you. You still have to practice. Get feedback. Endure the deeply inconvenient experience of being a beginner.

But it gives the work somewhere to go.

That’s useful whether you’re learning new software, building a business, or standing on a soccer field trying to explain positioning to children who have spotted a dog.

Be careful what you turn into an identity.

Miss a deadline, and suddenly it’s “I’m terrible at managing my time.”

Feel awkward at an event, and it becomes “I’m bad with people.”

That’s a lot of authority to give one Tuesday.

In PR, I’d never advise a client to define their entire company by its worst afternoon. Somehow, we do this to ourselves before lunch.

Try describing what actually happened.

“I took on too much this week.”

“I walked into that conversation unprepared.”

“I haven’t found a system that works for me yet.”

Now there’s something you can address. “I’m a disaster” mostly just sits there wearing your clothes.

Give yourself instructions you can use.

“Get your life together” is a terrible assignment.

Where does that go on the calendar? Between the dentist and renewing the car registration?

A specific next step helps.

Send the email you’ve been avoiding. Put the phone down during dinner. Walk around the block. Apologize without attaching a closing argument.

Small enough to do. Clear enough to know when you’ve done it.

You can build momentum from that. Much harder to build momentum from standing in the kitchen mentally reviewing every decision since 2008.

Try being someone you’d willingly work with.

I don’t need my inner voice to become a motivational speaker. Nobody needs a keynote every time they unload the dishwasher.

I’d settle for a decent colleague.

Someone who notices what happened, keeps it in proportion, and helps figure out the next move. Someone who remembers that a full calendar can contain things I care about. Someone who leaves room for me to learn.

We put enormous thought into the words we send out into the world.

The ones we keep repeating to ourselves deserve a little attention, too.

Mine are getting a communications review.

The Yelp guy has been relieved of his duties.