Have you ever had that experience where you’ve got a decision to make, and you know that the rational course of action is X. Doing X would make complete sense. Yet something inside is niggling at you. Telling you to do Y. Against every bit of sound logic and reasoning.
How do you decide what to do for the best, without knowing exactly how it will pan out?
How can you feel sure that you are making the right choice to lead you to where you want to be?
The situation I’ve described above isn’t uncommon by any means. We have become a society that loves logic, reasoning and rational decision making. I’m in that camp too! I love it when things make sense.
However, whilst the theory might be sound, we can never truly know what the future will hold. And as a result it can leave you questioning and second guessing yourself, or feeling uncertain and anxious because things feel out of your control.
We all have this beautiful in-built sense of knowing what is right or wrong for us, readily available at any time.
You might know it as your intuition, gut instinct or inner knowing.
It’s there within you, always giving you signs and signals about the best course of action for you. But it’s so easy for it to get drowned out by all the outside noise. Things like…
- Trying to live up to what you think is expected of you or because it’s the way things are done
- People pleasing or doing things to avoid upsetting the apple cart
- Comparing yourself unfavourably to others and then making decisions based on not feeling good enough.
When you make decisions from this space it will likely lead to overthinking, inner turmoil and feeling disconnected or unhappy, despite, on the face of it, knowing you have an incredibly fortunate life.
So how can you really harness this sense of inner knowing, so you can combine it with the logical and reasoned action, and get the best of both worlds?
I’ve broken this down into 3 areas, all of which I work on with my clients.
When we do all of these 3 things, it enables them to move away from questioning or doubting themselves, and instead gives them:
- Clarity of thought,
- Certainty on what is right for them
- And the confidence to take empowered action to get them there.
1. Quiet the noise so you can hear what your intuition is trying to tell you
You have so much going on that, as you try to juggle all the responsibilities, your mind becomes so busy that you can no longer hear yourself think.
So the noise I talk of here might be coming from all the external demands and pressures on your time.
But equally it could be from your own overthinking mind, always busy with thoughts and planning, and sometimes also getting lost in worries and what if’s. It leaves you unable to fully switch off and relax as it wakes you up with a random thought in the middle of the night.
When it gets so busy that you feel overwhelmed with it all, you start to question yourself more. You become less and less certain and agonise over the simplest decisions rather than feeling confident and decisive.
Quieting this inner and outer noise can come in many different forms.
Taking a mini-break, or going for a long walk. Journaling, meditation or getting a good night’s sleep to name just a few.
The key here is that when you are in this overthinking space, frantically trying to juggle so many responsibilities, it is a sign your stress response has been active for too long. Your stress response enables you to thrive for short periods, but long term activation ultimately leads to fatigue, brain fog and self-doubt amongst many other symptoms.
There are multiple ways you can bring yourself back down out of stress response to allow your body to come back into equilibrium, but what is right for you can vary from one time to another. What I would recommend, is planning this strategically. Using this approach it will prevent you from bouncing between feeling full of energy and drive one day and inevitably becoming exhausted, struggling to think clearly and questioning your decisions a few days later.
If you’re not sure how to go about doing this though, that’s exactly what the Guilt-Free programme is there for. The live workshops that take place twice a month give you a opportunity to take a step back so you can easily course-correct if you feel off track. But it is also designed to help you to formulate your own strategy to prevent these cycles of boom and bust from occurring.
Find out more about the Guilt-Free programme here.
2. Get clear on what’s important to you
It’s really easy to get swept up in thinking you should do things in a certain way because it’s the done thing or it’s what everyone else is doing. Take your business for example. There are many gurus out there telling you the right way to gain more clients, use social media, or grow your business.
But it doesn’t necessarily make it the right way for you. What success looks like for you, in your life, or your business, is unique to you.
And this is where your subconscious values come in.
By this, I don’t mean the characteristics that you think you or your business should portray.
Instead I mean the things that are really important to you. If your life was full of these things, you would feel content and aligned, no matter the outside circumstances.
But it might be that you haven’t yet had the opportunity to bring them into conscious awareness, which makes it tricky to align your behaviour and decisions with them.
I do an exercise with my clients to draw out their subconscious values.
The exercise itself helps to give them so much clarity and insight. But once they have got this clarity, they continue to use them going forward. They often refer back to them when it comes to complex decisions to assess how their values align with the options available to them, so they can feel sure in their decision.
After all, when you’re going to invest a lot of time, energy and potentially money pursuing a course of action, you want to make sure it’s the right one for you, and that you won’t regret it a few months down the line.
3. Remove unhelpful and limiting beliefs and programming
- Not matter how much you do, you still don’t feel like it’s enough.
- You focus way more on everything you haven’t done, rather than everything you’ve achieved.
- No matter how much other people tell you that you are good at what you do, you still don’t feel good enough.
These are all indicators that you are being driven by limiting beliefs about yourself.
When this is the case, the decisions you make and the action you take will be tainted by your need to feel good enough, rather than because it is what is truly the right course of action for you.
If you remove the unhelpful and limiting beliefs, the decisions and actions become much clearer.
You no longer feel the need to prove yourself.
You truly believe in yourself and you feel worthy of having everything you want.
You don’t hold back from taking that next step that allows you to have a successful business and take time out so you can be present with your friends and family, or simply because you want some time for yourself.
You allow yourself to step into the version of you that you’ve pictured.
The one who prioritises your own wellbeing. The one who has fun and isn’t just constantly working. The one who runs a successful business, taking focused and empowered action where it is needed. But who is also relaxed and at ease, free of all the concerns and worries that keep you from switching off.
I use NLP tools and techniques, hypnosis and Timeline Therapy with my clients to help remove and re-wire these old and outdated beliefs and programming. They build up within us over the course of our lives and affect everything we do.
Below are some examples of how it has impacted on my clients day to day lives’ when we have done so:
- Feeling free of the inner turmoil, worries and what if’s
- Taking action they have been procrastinating on for 2 years
- Feeling confident when making a decision that will impact the rest of their career, and continuing to feel happy and at peace with that decision
- Not taking on other people’s emotions or judgments, and so feeling able to have difficult conversations instead of avoiding them
It’s easy to see how these outcomes help them to improve their energy, free up their headspace, and allow them to feel certain they are on the right path, isn’t it?
And when that happens, not only do they get to feel good within themselves and about themselves, but they also use their time and resources much more effectively and efficiently.
If you fancy doing the same, I’m currently offering free 30-minute consultations, so why not take advantage of the offer and book yours today to discover how I can enable you to do the same.
Book your complimentary 30-minute consultation here.
Or if there are no times available that suit you, just drop me a message at jo@wattcoaching.co.uk so we can find a time to suit you.
