From the moment she walked in, she had an energy about her that reassured me that it was worth the effort to brave the cold, fog and distance for that Saturday morning.

Meet Shelmina Babai Abji, a very accomplished global leader, former VP at IBM, thought leader, philanthropist and author, raised and educated in a very humble environment who had not forgotten her roots through all her achievements over the years. She had all the right qualities in the right quantity to be a good leader.

She spoke about voices inside my head and I felt a connection right there. The Voices In My Head for the guilt of leaving my child, the voice of fear for failure, the voice of doubt for taking the right decision, the voice of insecurity that always wondered if I were giving my marriage my all, the voice of judgment wondering what others were thinking of me – they all existed in MY head. I have for all of my life listened and given these different voices in my head a greater voice than my own. What they made me do was to put everyone before myself, dominate and plan my life; making me sacrifice more than my share. This made me get into a space of self pity and darkness from time to time. Shelmina so effortlessly spoke about how to tame these Voices In My Head as they were all MY voices – created by me. Having a clear goal, long term and short term, is what is the first step to taming these voices as that is what is needed to have a vision of where I want to see myself. With determination to reach my goal, I will be able to tell those voices in head that I am not going to let them take over but justify to them that my current action will help me reach my goal! The goals don’t have to be fixed or set in stone as they are MY goals, they can easily be changed owing to some hurdles along the way. The definition of success also changes for all of us along our journey hence our goals will keep changing.

I finally figured out after the talk with Shelmina that the voices in my head were MINE. I was being too hard on myself and the control of the volume of these voices was in my hands. To be a better me, so that I’m able to play all roles in my life better, I have to learn to listen to them a little less! The shift from I cannot do to I can will be the biggest shift and that will make all the difference and achieve my goal being a more happier and content ME!