One of the best ways to work on your life is to improve your inner dialogue: the conversation you have with yourself every day while making decisions, interacting with others, getting stuck in traffic, brushing your teeth. These tens of thousands of daily thoughts — whether you like or not — shape the quality, direction, and depth of your life.
The better your inner dialogue, the clearer you’ll see tricky situations. The more present you’ll be in any given moment. The more focused you’ll be on the most important things in life. The better decisions you’ll make.
I’ve learned — mostly the hard way and in retrospect — that many of my decisions have been hijacked or negatively skewed by the noise of too many voices all screaming at me in the moment. If I’m not intentional about taming these voices — and also hand-picking / promoting the voices I want — it can just be a mob in there. The shocking truth is that YOU CAN CHOOSE your inner dialogue.
One helpful mental image for this is a board room. 12 stately chairs around a big mahogany table. In those twelve chairs are the different voices in your heart / mind / soul that speak to you all throughout the day and during every decision you make.
Who are the people sitting around your table?
Let me tell you about mine.
Just to the right of me, I have 4 people who make up my inner critic committee. I call them my four horsemen. In some board meetings, when I’m trying to make big decisions, they start banging on the table and scream: “you’re not good enough! you don’t belong here! you’re useless!” You can imagine how hard decision-making can be when these four try to hijack my meetings.
Anxious Tony sits there near the end of the table, asking “what if [] happens? what if [] goes wrong? what if [] doesn’t come through?” Sometimes my horsemen then team up with Anxious Tony to derail the meeting.
Analytical Tony — he’s got some good spreadsheets. Pros and cons analyses. He runs the numbers. Analytical Tony is helpful when he’s teamed up with Strategic Tony. But Analytical Tony can also be co-opted by Anxious Tony.
Strategic Tony is pretty smart. He’s good at stepping back, seeing the big picture, seeing past this particular moment, keeping the main thing the main thing, and identifying trends. He’s thinking about what Future Tony (Tony 20 years from now) knows to be important.
Generous Tony is here, too. He, Grateful Tony, and Happy Tony all seem to come into the meeting together, and usually (but not always), they vote as a block. They remind us frequently — being alive today is an undeserved blessing and a gift. Be thankful for the good times, it’s all grace. And embrace the hard times; it’s designed to make us better people and closer to God.
Grounded Tony has been louder recently. He reminds all of us that our identity isn’t based on what we do in life. Or how much we achieve. Or how much we make. Or what other people think. Or where we’ve come from. Those are important and good things, but not even close to fundamental or core.
Also at the table, oddly, is Little Tony, who’s only 4. Little Tony is normally pretty happy just playing with his toy cars. But sometimes we get into things where he gets scared. Or he feels alone and he’ll start crying. Sometimes the Four Horseman see that He’s scared and try to “help” him by shaming him into action or telling him to shut up and to hide in the corner. But these days, Grounded Tony knows to pull him aside — even to stop the meeting — and tend to what he needs.
Other voices are of the people I respect and admire. Some living. Some dead. Some I know personally. Some I’ve only read about but inspire me. These are the people who’ve influenced me and I’ve sought their counsel. Sometimes it’s a composite “Mentor/Friend” who sits at the table and speaks wisdom in my inner board room. Sometimes, it’s actually a mentor or trusted friend I have breakfast with — I call on them when the board room gets confusing.
I also have a chair dedicated to my God — my creator, after all, He knows me better than I know myself. He knows how life works because He invented it. The ultimate mentor. He often sits silently. Patiently. Sometimes I have the foresight to actually ask him, ‘what do you think?’ Sometimes, I even have the courage to elevate Him to where He belongs: Chairman. Oh man, when He gets on, He is so good, and surprisingly unconventional. He’ll help me make decisions that I don’t “get” until years… decades later. He’s the best chairman, and yet I still love to push him aside and sit in His seat. lol.
A few thoughts on how my board has changed over the years:
The best move I’ve made is to be open to God’s mentoring and guidance. God now takes the time in between big meetings to meet up with all the Tonys around the table. Just the other day, I saw Him belly-laughing with analytical Tony as they were walking back into the room. Analytical Tony told me God likes his nerdy jokes.
Over the last 10 years, I’ve tried to fire the four horsemen. They only distract and derail and take me to my worst. They have not gone quickly. I’ve had to call security. If I’m honest, they haven’t left the room, but I’ve managed to push their chairs into the corner of the room. There they are, whispering, scheming. Once in a while, they break back into the main circle, but I’ve learned how to turn the volume down on them. I can see them trying to weasel back into my life. I have a restraining order out on the “you’re not good enough” horsemen; man, is he pesky! He thinks that just because he was chairman for all those years, that means he gets to stay emeritus. Nope, he’s fired.
We’ve found that anxious Tony is actually helpful, as long as he’s not chairing the meeting. We now give him a few minutes to share his perspective because we’ve learned that he has great insights that need to be addressed. We can’t ignore them. Anxious Tony is also being mentored by God, and he may be ready to upgrade his title to Careful Tony. He’s come to realize that he doesn’t have to be anxious to be effective. We can plan for the worst without being anxious about it.
Physical Tony is there, too. He’s always been there, I just didn’t think much of him until recently. He’s the DJ and the board room facility manager. If he’s been eating well, sleeping well, spending authentic time with others, laughing a lot, and exercising hard, he’ll have the room set up with a good vibe. If not, the room is dirty, smelly, and cluttered, and the music is too loud for us to hear each other. After a lot of decades of being ignored, Physical Tony is now respected by all the other Tonys.
I had a big Ah-ha! moment this year: my board is actually now pretty solid. I like the people around the table. It has taken decades to get to this board composition. But solid board members don’t automatically stick around — you’ve got to nurture and mentor them, letting them speak freely.
I seem to make the best decisions when it’s not just one or two voices dominating. Now, it’s actually good to hear from almost everyone.
The most important thing is this: YOU CAN CHOOSE who sits on your board and how often they’re allowed to speak. You can choose who to listen to and who to chair the meeting. Choose well — again and again, over time — and you will drastically upgrade the quality of your life. As you upgrade your board, you’ll begin to experience:
- Less chatter/noise distracting and annoying you when you make big decisions.
- Less energy wasted on trying to hold back destructive, unhelpful, and circular voices.
- Fewer mornings waking up in the shame-cycle after the four horsemen hijacked your meeting, kidnapped you, and dumped you in the sewer.
- More constructive, truthful, wise, and loving voices that can end a pointless 5-hour board meeting with one minute of insightful observation.
- More confidence in your decisions as you know you’ve heard from your best voices.
- More of you showing up for the people you love. And more of you present for the present.
- More of you attuned to what God is doing in your life.
Now it’s your turn. Imagine your best self 5 years from now — and imagine what kind of board you’d need to get there. The next time you face a big decision, take time to reflect.
Want to dig deeper and reflect on your inner dialogue? Click on this reflection worksheet or download it below. Take 20-30 minutes by yourself (or I’ve even done this with my family).
Reflection questions
- What are the different voices that are vying for your attention. Name each one and their favorite lines.
- Which voices are dominating the conversation?
- Which voices are too quiet and actually deserve more of your attention?
- Which voice is chairing the meeting?
- What are your four horsemen — the ones who try to derail / distract / shame you? How has their presence on this board impacted your life?
- Which seat, if any, is God sitting in? James 1:5 gives us a beautiful promise: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
- If you could design your ideal board, which 3 people would you invite to take the most prominent seats around the table?
