Queen
We’re at Week 3 of Trust Yourself, where you’re learning to develop your intuition, your gut, to guide you through those rough and sticky patches.
I had given you homework the first two weeks, which was to test out your gut and really listen to the feedback it’s giving you. I had also asked you to prepare yourself a little mantra to reach out for, to keep you anchored to the idea of Trusting Yourself. Between mindfully using your intuition and your mantra, you have the tools you need to make decisions and learn from them.
I said learn. And I mean that. I had spoken in my previous blog here that in most cases, we can only determine the outcome of the decision that we had made, and not the decision that we haven’t made. Some decisions might feel off once they’ve been made, and others might feel amazing. It’s tempting to construe those decisions that feel “off” as failures. Resist that temptation. Remember, “I never lose, I either win, or learn”.
Trusting Yourself does not mean that you’ll believe that you cannot make any mistakes. That’s simply not realistic. Such a belief leads us to close our eyes to the lessons that we can learn from the past, and deprive us of the opportunity to grow for the future. It can also stop us from taking corrective action as and when we need to.
That being said, part of Trusting Yourself is knowing that you can clean up after yourself if (and when, because mistakes are a dime a dozen) you make a mistake. It’s about knowing that you did, at the point in time that you took whatever decision, make the best of the information that you had, and that you have no guilt or resentment as to the decision being made. Whatever clean up, by all means, get on it! But make sure that the mistake is a learning opportunity, and never an occasion to ruminate on perceived failure.
Now… if you do find yourself ruminating on perceived failures, I want you to do something. Take a step back from the situation, and identify the reason why you are beating yourself up. Put a time limit on the rumination. Literally, take out a stopwatch, and set it to 10 or 20 minutes, and tell yourself that you will only ruminate for that certain amount of time, and that’s it. Once the stopwatch rings, the time for rumination is over, and it’s time for Action.
Within the determined timeframe, assess your thoughts and feelings on what happened. Ask yourself, am I beating myself up because I took a decision that was contrary to what I believed to be the correct course of action? Did I have all the information that I genuinely needed at the time, but failed to regard the whole? Did I walk into the decision-making process fully prepared to have my back whatever the consequences of my decision? Am I holding on to a narrative that is adversely affecting my ability to accept the consequences of my decision?
Once the time is up, prepare yourself an action plan to address the issues you’ve identified in your assessment, so that they do not arise at a later stage.
If you find that you are not relying on your core values to guide you, assess which values you are not aligned with, and the why. If you need to make more emotional time and space for yourself to make proper decisions, then factor that in for next time. Where you are able to, put time between you and the decision, so that you can take it at a time that is most convenient for you. Most important decisions don’t need to be taken immediately – we often forget that. There’s nothing wrong with telling the barista to hold on a few minutes ‘cause I haven’t decided yet. Other people’s groans aren’t your problem. There’s nothing wrong with telling someone that the time frame that they’re putting on an offer doesn’t suit you. If they choose to time-bind their offer, that’s fine, but it doesn’t work for you, and you’re watching out for YOU first and foremost. You can walk away. And it also works the other way too, meaning, you have the ultimate freedom to put a timeframe on your offers and services, set boundaries that suit you and trust yourself enough to walk away if someone doesn’t wish to entertain it, knowing that you and your offers still hold value whether people accept it or not. Then take your value to someone who desires it, with dignity and confidence.
If fear is holding you back from fully Trusting Yourself to make the decisions that serve you or that allow you to treat yourself like you matter, you absolutely must take (or re-take) the Reclaim Your Power course here. Limiting beliefs are a substantial blocker to your ability to tune in to your intuition or to Trust Yourself generally, and you have what you need to address them in that course.
If you didn’t have the information that you needed, but you’re still ruminating, then you’re simply still learning to Trust Yourself. And that’s fine, it’s an ongoing process. Take the time to recognise your efforts to get yourself to a place where you can Trust Yourself, and how far you’ve come to get here! And you don’t know what you don’t know, right? Take comfort in the fact that it happens to everyone – including me – and it’s just a fact of life! And move on to what’s next.
All right, I know by now you’ve got your journaling practice well under way, but if not… what are you waiting for? Get on it! Or, at least make sure you’re documenting in some form or another your journey with your intuition. You won’t know how far you’ve reached until you’re able to look back and see where you started from. Keep tracking how it’s going, and drop me a comment below to let me know you’re getting there… or if you have any issues you’re having trouble working out!
With that being said, you got this. Trust you got this.
Fix your crown.
JJ
