I Took A Pill in Ibiza

Rewrite Your Own Lyrics

Every year, there are a few songs that, for whatever reason, become the ones I play on repeat. In 2015, one of those songs for me was I Took a Pill in Ibiza.

There was something about the rhythm and the drop that I loved and it became a global hit for artist Mike Posner.

What a lot of people may not realize is that after that success, Posner’s life took a significant detour. In the years that followed, Posner experienced new harships that were even heavier than the lyrics of his hit song.

His father passed away. Close friends died unexpectedly. He battled depression. He publicly questioned whether the lifestyle he had been living was actually the one he wanted.

At one point, he stepped away from the traditional music machine and walked across America (over 2,800 miles) in search of clarity. During that walk, he was bitten by a rattlesnake and nearly lost his life. Once he made a full recovery, he continued his quest for self-discovery and climbed Mount Everest.

In interviews, he’s been candid about how the industry version of success no longer fit the life he aspired to create for himself. He has spoken about realizing that chasing approval left him empty and that he wanted to become someone different than the character described in his hit song.

Recently, I saw a clip of him explaining that I Took a Pill in Ibiza no longer aligns with the man he sees himself as today. So he decided to rewrite the lyrics.

In the original, he sang about loneliness, ego, and the hollow aftertaste of fame. In the updated version, the tone is much different. And recently, for the first time, he performed that rewritten version live.

Hearing his story and listening to this new version of his hit song got me thinking. He’s probably not the first artist who’s wanted to go back and change the lyrics of a song after outgrowing it.

But what about the rest of us?

What’s one internal lyric or soundtrack in your head that deserves an edit? What would it look like to rewrite an outdated sentence you’ve been living by?

Because we all have them. We keep playing old tracks in our heads long after they’ve stopped being true. We rehearse outdated labels. We recycle inherited narratives. We repeat sentences about ourselves that were written for a previous chapter in our life.

If we’re not careful, the stories we repeat to ourselves expand beyond describing who we are and actually can start to define who we are. And unless we consciously rewrite them, we will keep living into outdated lyrics long after we’ve outgrown them.

Your Internal Soundtrack

We all have an internal soundtrack. Our internal soundtracks are comprised of beliefs, narratives, and labels we’ve collected over time. Some we created. Some we inherited from a coach, a parent, a teacher, or a single comment we can’t seem to let go of.

Years ago, I worked with a professional baseball player who told me about something a coach said to him in Double-A. The player was exceptionally talented defensively, but he was driving himself mad trying to become a better hitter and more complete player. In an exchange with a well-intentioned coach, the coach said, “Don’t worry so much about your offense. You’ll always be a defensive-first player.”

The player didn’t describe the comment as malicious and acknowledged that it was intended to be reassuring, but he internalized it. For years, that label shaped how he trained and how he evaluated himself.

Despite eventually reaching the big leagues, the player continued to be dissatisfied with his offensive production and wanted to raise his standard. During one of our conversations, he shared this story and added the following, “I wish I wouldn’t have bought into that message for as long as I did...I should have changed my identity as a player sooner.”

His story is an example of how easy it can be to subconsciously create a limited ceiling for yourself. He let someone else’s sentence shape his identity.

The challenge here is it’s incredibly difficult to rise far beyond the story we tell ourselves.

Audit the Lyrics

Take a few minutes this week and identify one internal soundtrack you’ve been playing for too long. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does this story, belief, or label still align with who I am?

2. Does this story, belief, or label align with the person I’m aspiring to become?

If it doesn’t, update it.

You won’t consistently outperform your self-image, but you are responsible for updating and changing it.

Final Thoughts

You may not be a recording artist, but you are the author of your internal soundtrack.

If the version you’re playing no longer fits who you’re becoming, rewrite it.

Hit record again. The next verse is yours.