Someone asked me the other day what my best advice would be for anyone starting their own business. After ‘persevere your ass off’ came ‘learn to trust yourself’. And actually, this is the most important thing you can learn to do. You do have to persevere to get anywhere…but this is a lot easier and more effective the more you trust yourself. This is true of life and all Big Dreams, not just business.
When you start out on any new adventure, there is so much that you don’t know that it is easy to give your power away to the ‘hexperts’ – all those magnificent people who know way more than you do…but if they are not perfectly aligned with your heart, your journey will be more difficult than it needs to be. Plus it probably won’t work the way it’s supposed to.
When I first started out in business 1000 years ago (or so it feels), there were all these people telling me what I had to do to have a great business. Trouble was, a lot of it applied to: big business, established business, businesses with budgets for PR and marketing beyond my wildest daydreams, extrovert business, in fact most of the advice that I recall wasn’t really relevant to me and my business!
But I didn’t know that. I also didn’t trust myself. So those first few years were dark years of trying to do what I was supposed to do even though my very being was screaming ‘NO’…I just thought it was because I was a newb. Sigh. It was only when someone pointed out (in about year 3) that I could build my business ‘my’ way that I realized it wasn’t me that was the problem, it was the advice I was trying to follow.
*facepalm*
That’s not to say it was all bad advice. It just wasn’t advice that would work for me. It’s like saying to someone who hates running that they have to run to get fit. They won’t, because they don’t want to…or they will, and they’ll hate every last damn moment of it. Why do that to yourself? Dance, cycle, trampoline, do yoga, play rugby…there’s 1000 ways to get fit without running! When you trust yourself, you can test the advice against your inner knowing and know if it’s a good fit or a waste of time for you.
Trusting yourself helps you to find the right people to learn from. It helps you separate the snazzy marketing from the deep soul connection. It helps you know when to invest and when to walk away. It helps you get confident in yourself, even in the face of someone who ‘knows better’. It gives you a clear path to follow and helps you avoid the people and programs whose advice makes you feel bad about yourself.
Of course, trusting ourselves is not something we learn in school – in fact we’re generally taught to trust everyone else, so the idea of trusting yourself might be foreign to you. Here are 6 tips to help you trust in you:
1. Learn to hear your inner wisdom
If you cannot hear your inner wisdom, you cannot follow it. Do the work you need to do to be able to hear your inner wisdom clearly.
2. Remember the ‘hexperts’ are people too
They’re just like you. They learned. They failed. They are fallible. And if their advice isn’t feeling right to you, maybe they’re not the expert you need.
3. Know the difference between an inner no and a fear
Inner no’s need to be listened to. Fears need to be ignored! Change can be difficult and scary – that’s not an inner sign to not make the change. An inner no is more of a ‘I’d rather poke my eyeballs with a stick’ feeling than an ‘oh my, what am I doing?!’ feeling.
4. The expert on your life, health, business, dreams is always YOU
No one will ever know your body, your business, your strengths, your heart the way you do when you are fully self-confident and empowered (not when you’re disconnected and think you suck!) Get to know yourself and your dreams intimately, so that your awareness is stronger than an outsider’s opinion. You are the one living in your body, hearing your dreams, knowing your characteristics. Use that knowledge.
5. Practice trusting in you
We’re all born with intuitive knowledge and a strong sense of self-awareness. But most of us lose it as we grow up – through having it over-ridden 1000 times, through ignoring it, through not having role models around us honouring their inner wisdom over ‘accepted wisdom’. It’s like a muscle that is under-used and flabby! Strengthen it. Practice trusting in you whenever you can. Listen to your intuiton. Develop a good relationship with your inner wisdom.
6. There is never only ‘one way’ to do anything
If someone tells you there is only one way to do something, they’re talking out of their arse. There are as many ways to do things as people – we’re all different. Just read 3 different biographies of successful people – you’ll see that they all did it differently! If their way resonates, go for it, if it doesn’t, either change it so it works for you or ignore it and find another way.
You won’t always know every answer. You will sometimes be unable to move forward alone, but when you give your inner wisdom the opportunity to be heard, you will have a clear sense of what’s right and what’s wrong for you. And this will save you so much time and heartache from trying to do things that just aren’t right for you. You got your dreams and desires for a reason – trust that you also have the wisdom to make them come to pass.
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