I tried different methods but it didn’t work. I put so much effort into this, listening to the experts’ advice, following step by step guide, practising 15 hours per day still no hope.
Now I got your attention, If you thought I’m talking about weight loss then you are not the only one:)
I almost can hear you saying, enough Helia, what the heck are you talking about?!
Well, It’s embarrassing and I don’t know how to say it.
I’m talking about my accent!
If you read my bio, you will know that I’ve learned to speak English at the age of twenty-five and by then the mother tongue accent has been engraved and was hard to change it or lose it. (Not everyone is good at imitating other accents!)
Especially once you live in Australia, which is a very multicultural country and there are people from everywhere in the world, it’s not easy to listen to hundreds of different accents in a day and try to learn and absorb an accent!
I always wanted to have a British accent, like in Pride & Prejudice. I could listen to the conversation between Mr Darcey and Elizbeth all day…but alas it’s a bit late for me.
Only those have migrated or come from a non-English background could totally get me.
People have been referring to my accent politely but for me, and for many people, it has affected my confidence and self-esteem, and personally, it’s been one of my biggest blocks to delayed success.
The ironic part was that I wanted to become a public speaker but I was afraid and had to hold back.
I didn’t know how to fix this internal dialogue which was not supporting my success plan.
All I knew was that I couldn’t give up and I haven’t got this far to quit so I kept going to speaking networks/meetups/conference (I’m a bit of seminar junkie) and one day I got the courage to talk about my fears of putting myself out and embarrassment about my accent.
In my surprise, a very highly respected member of that group said to me, ” Please don’t lose your accent. There are too many of us out there but there are not that many people like you to inspire others.”
He also added that my accent is intriguing and creates an interest for the listener to pay attention, the light bulb moment happened and he ended up helping me to see my perceived problem through empowerment.
Let me paint the pics of what happened internally. Before this light bulb moment, I always used to seek validation from others when it came to my accent, even when many people were assuring me that it’s fine, my brain was telling me that they are just being kind and polite, I couldn’t believe it as I did not believe in myself. After that session something happened inside me that If I try to articulate it into a system or method, it would be like this:
1- Acknowledge the main problem, not the symptoms (in my case lack of confidence and self-esteem was the problem & the accent was just a symptom).
2- Accept the situation as it is, no need to change it. Don’t fight it, own it (give it enough time and effort first, know when it’s time to look at it in a different angle, this is not quitting!)
3- Appreciate the lesson and wisdom from the situation (if something doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger, how you could use the problem in your favour)
4- The ‘AHA’ moments are the times to celebrate (make a big deal as it is part of your hero journey).
5- Aspiration to inspiration (leverage your experience to reflect and use it to move forward, your yearning for success can also inspire others).
As a result, I defeated my fears and started recording my online course, started my youtube channel and now I even use the same steps to help me with weight loss too and so far it’s working!
I will share that story in near future articles:)
Have you ever tried to fix something desperately? Let’s try my method and remember that you need to find what works for you so feel free to make the changes until it clicks for you.
#YOUDOYOU
If you have a method that worked for you please share it in the comment section to help others.
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