Your New Best Friend :) Using your Voice App can Change your Life (Part 1)

Have you ever talked to yourself?

I mean, we all have personal conversations with our own thoughts in our head, right,  but I mean out loud. 

It might sound weird, but when you chat with yourself out loud, with purpose, AND you record yourself on a voice app, it can be life changing.

It has been for me.

So many aspects of my personal and professional life have improved since I discovered the voice app on my phone. If you’ve not yet made this volcanic discovery, hang on to your latte, hat or whatever you’ve got nearby… 

…I’m about to rock your world by sharing two major shifts in my life that came from using my voice app, in addition to revealing some awesome life hacks you can use with your voice.

In today’s post, I’ll focus on the first significant way my life has changed since I started recording myself on my voice app. Part 2 of this post will look at journaling, plus 6 other ways.

Using your Voice App as your Personal Coach

Your voice app is like your personal coach, who you can access anytime. Recording a message for myself has helped me with many aha moments, including the one that led me to make the decision to leave a stressful, demanding job as a teacher, so I could focus on my health and work on my dream to be an author and online entrepreneur.

There are so many facets to your voice app being your personal coach, and I want to share them all.

Soul Reminders

If you have goals that are important to you, or if you have values and beliefs that are at the core of who you are, but your daily actions aren’t moving you in the right direction, then you’re like me.

Most of us need a little help keeping our deep desires front and center. We’re super motivated, determined and excited when we set a goal or make a decision, but then over time, the hoopla dies down a bit, and sometimes a lot.

Most of us can benefit from some assistance, support or accountability in following through and with consistency.

To remind your soul about what’s really important to you and why you’re working at making changes or attempting to do something, you can record a message for yourself on your voice app, and then listen to it whenever you want that reminder.

Here’s an example of how I use my voice app to remind my soul about the person I want to become (I use “you”, “I/me” or even “we/our” in my messages to myself, interchangeably).

The first part of the example is a transcript, verbatim, of the audio file below (I added in paragraphs to the transcript for easier reading). You’ll notice that in writing, the transcript doesn’t flow well, but when you listen to the audio, you can hear how the recording can be a help to me in reminding me of my goal.

Example Transcript

“Hello you. This is a reminder that you want to be healthy. You don’t want the cancer to come back, and you want to be healthy and strong as you move into older age. You don’t want people having to look after you; you don’t want to be dependent on other people. You really want to enjoy health. Optimal Health. And in order to do that, you’re making some changes in your life. You’re trying to change some habits. You’re trying to get better sleep, you’re drinking less alcohol, and you’re choosing healthier foods more often. That’s great! 

You don’t have to be perfect, but this is just a reminder to you as to why you’re doing it… and to think about …at those times when you are tired, and you just want to pick up crap for dinner or you’re just too lazy to make healthy food, just trying to remind yourself why you want to eat the healthy food. You want to feel good, and when we’re living in the present it’s easy to forget about that future. It’s easy to forget about the impact of what you eat on your body tomorrow and down the road. We know, so many people in society are just eatin’ all the food and drinkin’ all the drinks, and they’re getting fat and they’re getting unhealthy, and they’re all a lot of people are on medications, and they don’t see that until years and decades later. 

Now, since you’re in your mid fifties you’re already getting really aware of problems with your health because of your cancer diagnosis in 2020. So think about that when you’re choosing food, and if you do give in, and if you do decide to have food that’s unhealthy, don’t have tons of it. Don’t overeat it. Remember… remember what you want. Remember the goal is just to be healthy, to feel good in your body as you get older. Give yourself that gift.“

Example Audio

Writing out my thoughts also works, but sometimes, the tone, energy and emotion that come through in a recording can be more powerful. Even though it’s your own voice you’re listening to, it feels more personal, which gives the message more impact.

If you’ve never used your voice app as your personal coach, give it a try. Don’t worry about how your voice sounds or what you say. Who cares? The message is just for you!

Hit record, and just wing it. Let your ideas flow and speak as naturally as possible. Alternatively, you can write out what you want to say first.

I’ve done both, but I find that the recordings where I wing it feel more authentic. You can also record as many times as you need to until you get your message the way you want. 

Experiment and see what works for you. After you’ve recorded your message, it’s there for when you need it (more on this at the end of the post).

Guided Meditation/Pep Talk

This type of audio recording is part reminder and part guided meditation or pep talk.

Below is an example of a message someone might listen to after leaving work at the end of the day. This message is for someone who often carries the negative emotions of the work day with them and wants to destress before driving home.

Listening to this message could help someone destress, wind down and relax before arriving home to their family. Doing some deep breathing while listening would also help someone avoid carrying any negative emotions home (especially if they listened at the end of every work day).

Here’s the transcript of the message; the audio recording is below it.

“Aah…. It’s the end of the day. Awesome!

Before we get started, take some time to vent…right now. Whoever you’re ticked off at, angry with, frustrated with, whether it’s a machine, a colleague, a boss, a project, whatever’s going on… just take 10 seconds right now. If you need longer, press pause; if you don’t need longer, just take that time right now. Do it! Windows are up. Get it out of your system. 

[Note…there is a pause here (about 8 seconds, to allow for venting).]

All right… good, good. Okay, now sit comfortably in your driver seat. And just take a couple of deep breaths. We’re not going to meditate here; your eyes are obviously going to be open. We’re not going to be drowsy. This is just going to be some quick breathing. Here we go.

In… and out… Good, let’s do a couple more of those. Try to go in for 3 and out for 3. Here we go. In… and out… Nice. One more time. Really breathe that air deep into your lungs. Here we go. (Breathing in….and out….) Excellent.

Okay. Now, you’re on your way home or you’re maybe on your way somewhere else, but you left your workplace. You’re no longer there. Now we’re shifting our mind from our busy workday to our me time. It might just be me time; it might be me time with family coming up. Whatever it is, you’re involved. It’s still me time. 

So let’s continue to take some nice slow deep breaths as we’re listening, and think about your goal, which is to arrive home, whether you stop and do errands or not, but you want to arrive home feeling relaxed, warm, and loving towards your family. You don’t want to be snapping at the kids or your partner. You don’t want to be slamming doors; you want to feel calm in your body and your mind, so that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re just calmly reminding ourselves about what’s important to us. 

It doesn’t matter what happened 5, 10 minutes ago or 3 hours ago; what matters is now. Don’t let any negative energy from your day stay in your body. All of your cells feel that. You want your body to feel calm, so if you still don’t feel calm, take a few more deep breaths. It’s difficult to not feel calm after you’ve taken deep breaths.

Continue to breathe…that’s it. You’re heading home; you’re not dealing with work, and you’re going to have a wonderful evening. And even if you have something on your plate tonight that you don’t want to really do, that’s okay. Life is filled with those kinds of things, responsibilities and commitments. That’s okay. That’s part of life. We can choose how we’re going to respond to things. We can choose how we’re going to think about things that are in our future. 

So continue to take some deep breaths as you drive home. When you’re ready to just listen to some music you can do that to help you relax. You could play some energetic music to kind of pump you up and energize you if that’s what you need to.

So, a couple more deep breaths, and then we’ll wrap it up. Here we go. (Breathing in….and out….) One more really deep one. (Breathing in….and out….) Awesome. Have a wonderful evening.”

Note: there is an 8 second pause (0:30-0:38) in the audio to allow for a few seconds of venting.

There are all kinds of meditations or pep talks you could record for yourself. I’ve done a morning meditation as a start to my day. I’ve also recorded sleep meditations to start me off to sleep.

You can create a visualization meditation, where you visualize out loud, what your life would look like if you became the person you know you are truly meant to be. You can record your affirmations and repeat them in a recording. 

The possibilities are as endless as your imagination.

Why I love my Voice Memo App

• It’s fast, easy and convenient. 
• I can record while I’m driving or doing something with my hands, like when I do household tasks or go for a walk.
• I can babble out my ideas without having to worry about spelling etc.
• I can listen to any message any time I choose.
  • on the way to work
  • on the way home from work
  • in bed before you get up or right before you go to sleep
  • when you go on a walk
  • just chilling with headphones anywhere

Any Downsides to using a Voice App?

You do need privacy or quiet if you’re recording a personal message or one where you want a quiet background.

Privacy is generally not an issue when listening to a message if you have earbuds. It’s harder for some of us to find privacy, but you’ll find it if you look: in the bathroom, in your car, while on a walk, etc.

Don’t like the sound of your voice?

You’ve got to start loving yourself. I’d encourage you to accept who you are and where you’re at (I know we can’t feel that way all the time, but we can love our voice no matter how it sounds–it’s a part of us).

Get over criticizing your voice, your hair, your skin, your body, your features, etc. Stop it! Start loving the shit out of yourself.

Before I leave you today and tell you what’s coming up in Part 2 of this post, let me show you what my voice app looks like, and a few tips about using it.

After you record a message, the app will automatically give it a title, like New Recording 5, etc. If you set your location on your app, the title will usually pick the name of a nearby street. You can click on the title and change it to what you want.

Each recording shows the date you recorded the message. If it is the same day, it shows the time you recorded it. You also will see the length of the recording.

You can click on the three dots for any recording and edit it (I haven’t gotten into that yet), share it, save it to a file, or use other the options provided.

There are many different voice apps out there, but I’ve used only the Voice Memos on my iphone. It works beautifully for me. You’ll have to explore your options if you’re an android user.

I hope you can envision the potential of using a voice app to help you achieve your goals and to provide you with on-demand support on your journey to living a life true to you.

In Part 2, I’ll talk about my second big life-shift that came from using my voice app. I’ll also share some other helpful ideas for how to use your voice app.

Live your true life,