The Working Mums Podcast

Ep #59 - Beyond the Voice in Your Head: Choosing Who You Really Are

• Nicky Bevan

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Have you ever considered how powerful the words "I am" can be? Those two simple words, followed by whatever descriptor you've chosen, literally create the blueprint for your personality and behavior.

Most of us walk around with limiting "I am" statements like "I'm an overthinker" or "I'm always hotheaded," never questioning whether these are actually true or merely stories we've accepted. The fascinating revelation is that while we can't control the initial thoughts our conditioned brain produces, we absolutely can decide which thoughts to embrace and which to replace.

This episode explores the psychology behind our self-talk and reveals how your "I am" statements function as self-fulfilling prophecies. When you believe you're "always hotheaded," you'll approach situations from a fiery place, react with heat, and then point to that behavior as evidence that confirms your belief. It's a powerful cycle that keeps you stuck in patterns that may not serve you.

The good news? You can break this cycle through awareness and deliberate choice. I share practical exercises to help you distinguish between facts and your brain's interpretations, including a powerful daily journaling practice. By highlighting only the factual information in your thoughts (which is surprisingly little!), you create space to deliberately choose who you want to be.

Consider creating intentional core values as your new "I am" statements – words that light you up and represent the person you aspire to be. As I often tell my clients, "You make up your bed, and then you make up your mind." Your identity is a choice, not a fixed trait.

Ready to rewrite your story? Listen now, and discover how to transform limiting beliefs into empowering truths that align with your highest vision of yourself. Your thoughts create your reality – make sure they're creating the one you actually want.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingMumsLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Speaker 1:

Welcome, welcome to this week's podcast and I would like to talk to you about your I am statements. Now, I have addressed this on the podcast before, but I want to do an episode specifically about your I am statements, because this is what I coach people on the most. People come to me and they will say, yeah, but Nikki, the thing is, I am always hotheaded, or I am an overthinker, or I'm just really anxious, or I can't switch off off and it's fascinating. So whatever you put after your I am is what you will create as your personality. Your thoughts about you create your personal reality. Now, if your thoughts about yourself are creating the version that you want to be brilliant, keep it, own them, say them to yourself all the time.

Speaker 1:

But if your I am statements aren't serving you and they're not helping you to be who you want to be, you actually get to change them. I'm going to say that again you actually get to change your I am statements. You get to change your personality. What we can't change is your brain's initial reaction. So those initial thoughts that pop straight into your head. They have been conditioned by your experiences, by your communities, by your culture, by your caregivers, through your childhood until this point in your life, so that we can't actually stop the initial thought popping into your head. Which is why coaching and learning how to manage your mind is so incredibly valuable, because our first step is awareness, and once you become aware of those initial sentences, that's when you get to have a pause, take a breath and change them. So the awareness is our first step, and I'll give you some ways to. I'll give you a tip on how to do that at the end of this call.

Speaker 1:

But it's really starting with absolute fascination. This is not another reason to beat yourself up, but with absolute fascination, starting to listen to that voice in your head. Listen to that voice in your head. How do you currently describe yourself? And I was actually coaching someone this morning on this and she came on and she was just like the thing is Nikki, I'm always hotheaded, so she manages a team of people. She doesn't really like managing people. I'm always hotheaded. I'm always hotheaded, as if that was the fact. I'm like okay, so how do you feel when you think I'm always hotheaded and she's like well, I just feel fiery. So then what happens is whatever she says to her member of staff. However, she responds to that situation from Fiery is always going to have her all day long continuing to be hot-headed, because Fiery had her blurting out what she was thinking in her head and those words are done from a Fiery intention, so that's never going to land well or have a positive influence on you or the people that you're dealing with.

Speaker 1:

Fiery then had her creating anxiety because she then thinking, oh, my God, I shouldn't have responded that way and one of her values was honesty. Honesty is one of my values as well. So there's a fine balance here around being honest with someone versus just blurting out the truth and you could say exactly the same words, but from you could be honest and say exactly the same words with someone for someone, but being on it, being calm about it, is going to be very different to being fiery about it, and so when she was feeling fiery, she would say those words, but it wouldn't ever land great. When she was feeling fiery, she would, in her head, be really judging people and then beating herself up for judging people really judging people and then beating herself up for judging people. When she was feeling fiery because she was thinking I'm always hot-headed she would pipe up in the situation, but obviously fiery is piping up from a fiery underlying fire. Fiery had her not thinking before she spoke. Fiery then had her being harsh on herself and really clinging to her bad points and hanging on to negative words that people had told her. So I am always hot-headed made her feel fiery, which continued her being hot-headed because look at what she's doing, either internally in her head or externally. So once you're aware of that, then we get to do something about it.

Speaker 1:

So another one that I hear a lot is I'm an overthinker. Oh yeah, but Nikki, the problem is I'm an overthinker. People come to me all the time as if that were the fact. That's the problem, that they're an overthinker. Our brain is designed to process, it's not designed to store. So overthinking is what our brain does and if left unmanaged, we'll absolutely go to the worst case scenario in the negative, because that part of your brain is trying to keep you safe. So if you're dealing with a member of staff or another human being unmanaged, that brain is going. Part of your brain is going to think that this scenario is a threat to your life. Of course it's going to go to drama and negative. But when we just have a lot of compassion and just with comfort, say to that part of our mind this is not life-threatening, this is actually a life-enhancing moment, not only for me, but for who I'm about to deal with.

Speaker 1:

Then we get to say probably exactly the same words, but from calm or from absolute fascination and curiosity Because I'm an overthinker. Has you overthinking? I'm shy. Has you continuing to be shy? I'm too much. Has you creating too much bullshit in your brain?

Speaker 1:

So your I am statements and this is manifestation and a lot of people dismiss the power of manifestation. But manifestation at its simplest form is your thoughts becoming your reality. So you are manifesting every single moment of every single day. Only you're currently doing it in a way that doesn't serve you, or you're creating a version of you that you don't actually want to be. And at a point when you can't change the circumstance or the facts, you can always change your thoughts about them. Now you're in control, now you're powerful. So you might want to consider very deliberately what your I am statements are going to be.

Speaker 1:

And I call these your core values, who you want to be at your heart center, and for me they are. I am loving Above everything. I am loving. I am loving. I am honest. So if I'm going into a situation and I don't think they're ready to hear the truth, I won't say anything. I would rather say nothing than lie. And I realized really recently I've changed it my third value recently to I'm bold, I'm courageous I realized that it lights me up to think about myself as being bold and courageous. Bold seems to just sit really well with me.

Speaker 1:

But so you need to find those words on how to create that. Oh, I've got myself kind of feeling inside and I'm going to guess it's probably. I've got myself kind of feeling inside and I'm going to guess it's probably not. I'm always hot-headed, I'm an overthinker, I'm shy, I am high maintenance. None of those are true. None of your core values are true. How would you prove that I'm loving? Not everyone in the world would agree with that. So we're making it up anyway. You just get to make up the version of you that you want to be. And so when we explored this for my client, when she was willing to consider that I am always hotheaded maybe isn't true then the pressure of managing people actually eased off a little bit, because she's like well, actually I could just take a pause, take a breath, decide who I want to be and, from there, manage my staff. So your I am statements, I think, are the key to creating who you want to be, but it starts off with acknowledging.

Speaker 1:

So when I started learning how to manage my mind, right back so five and a half years ago, every day I would sit down and I would write down everything that I heard in my head. I would just get everything out onto a piece of paper and this was a daily practice and to begin with, I've got to tell you it was weird, it was uncomfortable. My brain suddenly went blank and I can remember very clearly it was at a time when we were renovating our house and our dining table camping temporary dining table was sat next to our double bed in our bedroom. And I can remember getting up and it was cold and it was dark and I had this tiny little light on and this was the only place that I could sit and write, because the rest of the house was in a building site. My husband was still asleep in bed and I can remember going to write, my brain just going completely blank and literally I just started off with it's cold, I'm cold, and when you start to get fascinated about what's in your head.

Speaker 1:

Your head will open up to you. But you imagine if you're sat with a friend and you go to your friend, just tell me everything, like what's on your mind. I want to hear everything from a place of absolute, unconditional love. They're more likely to open up to you. But if you're telling your brain or your friend just like what are you thinking about now? Like what are you saying? What's going on, that judgment, they're not going to open up to you. And your brain is exactly the same. We want to start learning to trust that we're not going to beat ourselves up for what we learn.

Speaker 1:

So get a pen and paper, start to write down everything in your head without censorship, without judgment, with just pure fascination, and then you can look at it objectively. You'll be like, oh well, it makes sense why I'm feeling anxious, or it makes sense why I'm so exhausted. Look at everything that I'm telling myself. And then the next part of this, which I think is really powerful, is get a highlighter pen and highlight the facts of what you've just written down. Now, a fact is not a descriptive word. So a fact is I am, is I am, you are, you are here. I am an overthinker, I have got lots to do. I there are this. There are that.

Speaker 1:

Whatever is coming out of your head, most of it is just your brain's bullshit. With fascination I mean that from absolute amusement. Isn't it funny what your brain is coming up with? That isn't even true. You could choose to be amused by what your brain is telling you and with that awareness exercise you then start to. The more that you practice that awareness, the more that in the moment you're going to start to recognize what you're hearing in your head. And so for my client this morning it was like well, actually I just get to decide is that my primal brain or is that actually me? So my primal brain is called Sue. So I'm like is that Sue kicking off, or is that Nikki? Is that how Nikki wants to respond? Now you're powerful.

Speaker 1:

Now you're starting to take a pause and learn who you want to be and how you want to show up. And it's a skill that you get to practice, and the awareness piece is first. So get a piece of paper, get a pen, write out everything in your head, highlight the facts, and they'll be very, very little. And then you get to decide what am I going to deliberately think today? Who do I want to be today?

Speaker 1:

So I heard someone say the other day I think it was my coach, jamie had heard it from someone else, I can't remember who it was you make up your bed and then you make up your mind. So, just like you'll have a process in the morning, like you always brush your teeth, you clean your teeth I'm going to clean my mind Like I want fresh teeth, I want a fresh mind. Who do you want to be? That's what you get to choose, and everything that you've heard up until this point in your life wasn't true. If it's helping, you keep it. If it doesn't help you, you get to change it.

Speaker 1:

And if you really struggle, that's where a life coach comes. In my style of life coaching anyway, people come to me, they talk through things and out of their mouth comes things they weren't even aware of. That is the power of coaching. That is the power of learning how to manage your mind and manage your emotions, so that you then get to choose who you want to be. So if that's something that you're really curious about exploring, head on over to my website, nickibevancom, go to the Frequently Asked Questions page, faqs, and there's a whole heap of information there around what it's like to work with me. Have the most amazing week and I'll speak to you again soon. Love you lots, bye.