The Hardest Voice to Hear Is Often Your Own

This morning, ChatGPT and I were working on my LinkedIn profile.

At one point, it suggested a sentence and confidently explained, "This sounds like Alice."

I laughed.

Because I realized what a fantastical world we now live in.

There’s the real Alice - Hi, that’s me 👋

There’s the version of my voice that’s naturally evolved over years of writing, working with clients, and thinking out loud.

And then there’s "Alice™"—the polished, optimized version that AI had quietly constructed after months of working with me.

None of them are wrong.

But only one of them actually sounded like me.

And in that moment it struck me that AI has become one more voice we now have to discern from our own.

As a psychologist, I spend a lot of time helping people untangle the voices they've internalized over the years.

Their parents, teachers, partners, bosses, favorite authors, celebrities, influencers, therapists, coaches, cultural and religious figures, social media.

And now, AI.

Some of those voices have shaped us in beautiful ways.

Others have simply become so familiar that we stop questioning whether they still fit.

One of the core questions I invite my clients to explore is:

“What invisible rules am I living by that may no longer be serving me?”

I don't ask that question because I think rules are bad.

Many of them protected us.

Many helped us succeed.

Many were exactly what we needed at one point in our lives.

The question is simply whether they're still helping us today.

Maybe somewhere along the way you learned that success always has to come before joy.

Or that saying no makes you selfish.

Or that asking for help means you've failed.

Or that there's one "right" decision and your job is to find it.

The tricky part is that these rules rarely announce themselves as rules.

They just feel like reality or Truth with a capital T.

But instead of asking if they're actually true or even helpful, we spend years trying harder to follow them.

Many people spend the rest of their lives doing just that.

The people I work with aren’t interested in that. 

They're motivated to change, willing to look at things differently, and hopeful about creating a better future for themselves and for others.

That's one of the reasons I love being a psychologist and coach.

Not because I have better answers than anyone else.

But because I spend my days noticing patterns, asking questions, and offering perspectives that people often can't see from inside their own bubble.

Not so that they can think like me.

But so that they can hear themselves more clearly.

Because once people start distinguishing their own voice from everyone else's, something shifts.

Their choices stop feeling like indictments of their character and simply become an expression of who they are today.

They stop seeing everything as good/bad/right/wrong. 

They stop waiting for permission.

They stop trying to optimize every decision.

They stop asking, "What's the right answer?"

And ultimately, they start asking,

"What feels true to me now?"

It’s indisputable that we live in a time with more information and opinions than ever before.

Books, podcasts, courses, coaches, algorithms, AI.

Most of us don't need another voice telling us what to do.

Sometimes we just need someone to help us hear our own.

That's the kind of conversation I love having.

If that’s something you’re interested in, let’s book a free 15-minute consultation to see if individual coaching is a good fit.