Your voice is only as powerful as you allow it to be. You have to look not only at how you sound, but what you do with how you sound, and what you think about that. You have to give some thought to the impact your voice has in the world, in the minds of others, and you have to be able to take responsibility for all of that.
Taking responsibility is something that most people resist. Blame is much more popular than responsibility. We were taught that George Washington told his father, “I cannot tell a lie, father, I chopped down the cherry tree.” (which, it seems is not a true story at all), and then his father said, “George, I am not going to punish you because you told the truth.” Hmmmmm.
We all know that it isn’t easy to say, “I am responsible”, if the thing you are taking responsibility for is a mess. And, carried to its fullest, even if you had nothing deliberately to do with the mess, if you are the head of a group of people that messed up, you are still the one who has to answer for the group’s disaster. The captain is in charge of the ship all the way up to and including going down with it, if necessary. We’ve had some fancy “resignations” in the business world recently, because of this same scenario. The CEO maybe didn’t make the bad transactions but he is supposed to know what’s going on during his command.
If you tell the truth with compassion and speak your mind with clarity, if you listen to others without judging what they are saying, and if you strongly support your own point of view but support others who disagree with you just as strongly, you are empowering your voice in the best possible way. If you are going to apply that to singing, you can think of being the best singer you know how to be, challenging yourself to constantly work on your art, without harming or interfering with anyone else or criticizing anyone who does not work as hard but seems to be more successful than you.
Your voice is strong because you choose it to be. It represents you in the world. Some people may resent you for that, for owning your strength and authority and for standing tall for what is for the greatest good of all concerned, perhaps because their own integrity is less than wonderful and they are jealous.
Keep on keeping on. Do not allow yourself to fall victim to others, to the world, to anything outside yourself. Dwell on your inner resources, your strengths, your capacities to speak and sing forthrightly and with your own truth ringing out energetically. In this way, your generosity of spirit will make it possible for others who need a guiding light to be lead, and it will allow you to know who you are, what your voice is and what it wants to communicate, and it will slowly grow stronger and more powerful because of your intention.