Queen
We’re on our second week of Trust Yourself, where you’re going to develop that ability to make decisions based on your intuition, to Trust that you are working towards your Value and Purpose, and to see those red flags for what they are – red flags.
Last week’s blog was dedicated to exploring your gut. Seeing what it has to say, what it wants, whether it’s giving you proper feedback. I had asked you to keep score, so let me know in the comments how your gut did… did you allow it to guide you?
However you scored, I want you to keep going with the exercise this week. As I explained in the blog, your intuition (your gut) needs to be updated constantly, and the only way you’re going to do that is by continuing to vary your experiences, while being mindful of your own values and the feedback that your gut is giving you. Ask yourself questions like:
- Is my gut telling me no because it’s an experience I’m afraid to try, or is it raising a red flag that I need to listen to?
- Which of the options before me would align me closest with my core values?
- Am I holding on to any guilt that is affecting my decision-making process?
- What can I learn from the decision I’ve made?
- Were there any factors that, in hindsight, I had failed to take into account? If so, how important were they to my decision-making process?
All right, with that being said, I want to dive with you into the importance of the Trust that you’re building with yourself, and specifically with your gut. But before I do that, I’m going to give you a little secret. There aren’t any wrong decisions in life. Take a second to scream internally that OF COURSE THERE ARE! JJ lost her mind, that’s it, it’s over, I’m out. Ok, ok, hold up. I’m not saying you won’t make mistakes. I’m not saying that you’ll always find yourself in the best place you could possibly find yourself. But, you can’t make a “wrong” decision.
You won’t know the outcome of a decision until you’ve made it. Let’s say you pick Option 1, you live with Option 1 a bit, and your assessment is “Meh. Not great.” But… you didn’t take Option 2. You can’t really make a call as to whether Option 2 would have resulted in a less “meh” outcome than Option 1. Whatever decision you make, you’ll only ever experience the reality of the decision you made, and never that of the decision that you didn’t make. Does that make sense so far?
Now… how can you be wrong if you only know the outcome of one option, and not the other? Do you have any verifiable, tangible evidence that you’re actually wrong? No, more often than not, any “evidence” that you were “wrong” comes in the form of wishful thinking, that somehow the other option would have resulted in a better outcome for you.
This is where Trusting Yourself comes into play. When you Trust Yourself to make the best decision for you, at that SPECIFIC moment in time, that is in line with YOUR values, and that was taken in order to bring about an outcome that YOU desire, the wishful thinking drops away. You don’t waste your time on wishful, magical thinking. You accept the outcome for what it is, an experience, and move on from there to the next step.
Ok, let’s get concrete about this. Let’s say you’re currently miserable in your job, and your company offered you a promotion. At the same time, you got offered another job at another company. You have four decisions that you can make: Accept the promotion and stay, refuse the promotion but still stay (and I accept you might have reasons to do this too), accept the new job, or resign from your position with no job (again, there are reasons you might want to do this as well).
Let’s say you picked the trickiest of the four options: you walked away from your job, and refused the new job. Now, you’re out of a job, and you have nothing lined up. If you’re sitting there thinking that’s insane, nobody would do that, think again. This example is based off of the story of one of my clients. And, this is based on my own experience as well. I was employed and receiving job offers, but I walked away nevertheless.
Now, a person who doesn’t Trust Themselves will experience the high of walking away, but rapidly the fear and doubt will set in. Oh no. Where is the money going to come from? How will I live? There’ll be a gap on my CV that I can’t explain. What are people going to think? Why did I do that? I would have been happier in the new job, why didn’t I give it a chance? Why didn’t I stick it out at the old place at least? What have I done? They’ll cripple themselves with doubt, fear, and remorse.
A person who DOES have that Trust will take Action. They’ll assess the reasons why they walked out. Obviously there was something incredibly wrong with the job. (For both me and my client, it wasn’t the work per se, it was simply that our line of work didn’t align with our core values, and that conflict would remain even if we went on to different companies.) They’ll Trust that they took their decision in an attempt to better their lives, and confidently accept the incredible reality that they’re in – by walking away from the old, they’ve left a lot of space to create something new. They’ll look for that betterment, whether it’s going back to university to study something else, stepping into another line of work altogether, or even starting their own business. That phase of self-doubt and questioning won’t cripple them. They’ll keep moving. They will feel the fear and do it anyway and because they trust themselves, they know whatever happens next, they’ll handle it.
That’s all fine and well, but my job here today is to get you to Trust Yourself. I’ve given you the task of speaking with your gut, but this week I want you to do a second exercise as well. I want you to write yourself a mantra that will keep your Trust in yourself at the forefront of your mind. Feel free to tailor one that’s specific to you, but to get you started, here’s a simple mantra you can fiddle around with as you wish:
I Trust that I am making the best decisions for myself, on the basis of the information that I have right now. I Trust myself to make decisions that are aligned with my Values, and that serves my Purpose. I know that there are no wrong decisions, only decisions that I make, and that I will continue to learn from my decisions.
Now, you probably guessed it but if you know anything about me Queen, you will know there is one quote that transformed my mindset and really helped me step into my courage when it came to decision-making and self-trust. That quote is by Nelson Mandela and it goes;
“I never lose, I either win, or learn.”
This queen is why there are no wrong decisions. Because when you are prepared to be a lifelong learner, you don’t have losses, you don’t have failures, all you have are learning opportunities which are your stepping stones to success.
All right Queen, go out there, and why not try your hand at some bigger decisions? Keep taking notes and scoring your gut. You’ll want to see how you’re doing this month, and I’ll also want to know if you’re happy to share in the comments!
Fix your crown.
