“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” ~ Steve Jobs

Do you ever feel like you trust your gut almost to a 100%, but your heart and your mind are not on the same page? Sometimes the decisions you would like to make become a dragged out dilemma to the point of debilitation. It is a tough sentiment to get through, believe me. You are not alone. This is a problem that plagues a lot of people from achieving their full potential.

The problems start when we listen too much to outside noises and believing that those voices have a point.

We start to think that we are doing it wrong. The reason for it is due to a basic lack of self-esteem and confidence to say that: NO! YOU are the one that is doing it wrong. On a personal level, this had defined my teens through school and even into my early 20s and I felt I was a prisoner in my own mind only to develop the proper mental frame and mechanism. Ever since the decision to target these mental games, my personal and mental development has been light years of a difference for myself. Self-esteem is at an all time high and I feel more than 150% confident about whom I am as an individual. It is such a powerful feeling.

It really is all mental – the mind is a powerful tool and a powerful weapon. We ultimately have the power to change it. It really is in our hands and a simple honest talk with yourself every day could go a long way.

What is Inner Wisdom/Voice?

It is a tool for quick and ready insight. It is a gut feeling, a 6^th sense, an inner knowing. It is almost instinctual. It is a feeling of that particular situation “feeling right”. It is an unexplainable at times.

Listening to ourselves can get tricky. Often our inner wisdom is a mere whisper. It is a murmur that’s especially hard to hear over your harsh inner critic.

Some of the readers may argue that sometimes that inner voice is one that needs to be tamed and may be that inner voice is even stopping themselves from achieving great things due to fear of failure.

The key? Map it out.

This does not have to be serious. You can play and experiment and pivot to see what messages you get and may be logic could come into play to dictate.

How to Listen to Your Inner Wisdom

Let's look at how to connect to your inner wisdom.

1. Calm down.

When my mind is calm, the connection to my inner wisdom is the strongest.

When my mind is in turmoil, I do not to make any decisions, but to let it subside and to just let it go! I let my mind run wild through many scenarios freely, until the calmness approaches and it does, because the mind is a muscle and that muscle will get tired.

Sometimes and unfortunately, negativity comes into the picture. It is NORMAL to have your ups & downs. Remember you are human. It would be unnatural if it was otherwise.

If I find myself in a negative state, I might go for a run, listen to powerful and inspirational music, immediately read inspirational short-stories, quotes and people or meditate. Personally, I do not try to suppress the negativity but really just take a break and to exhale.

When you take a break, even for a minute or two to blink, gradually your calm will return along with the connection to your wisdom.

2. Stop Forcing It.

I cannot stand it when I hear excuses about why something could not be done and even more so when I fall into that trap. I want to figure it all out. I want to force results, and I want to have achieved my goals last year.

The more you force something the more slowly things happen and sometimes they do not happen at all.

This does not mean to be complacent. Not at all and to never ever further mean that persistence is useless. Persistence is VITAL to achieving your full potential. In everything you do from relationships to your workplace and all aspects of life. Fighting for what you want is the essence to connecting to your inner wisdom and the essence of success in general.

“Stop Forcing it” means being aware of what you could control and what you do not.

And it goes back to calming down. When you are worried about what might go wrong in life and you’re trying to fix an imaginary problem, the connection to your wisdom, mind and heart is detached.

But once you learn to become aware that you do not know where life is going, you can relax and control the decisions that you make on that specific day.

3. Patience.

My inner wisdom shines when I am patient. In the public eye, my patience is well understood. Behind the scenes, however, I have a fire that rages from within. I want to win and want to win now. I am competitive. I hate to lose. Sometimes to the point where I lose sleep over it and other times to the point where I grit my teeth.

When you are in the weeds with something or grinding hard at work, sometimes we fail to see what the bigger picture is about. Understand what your “end goal” is. Again we do not know where life is going. It is scary to grasp. But its also beautiful.

Take a step back and let your mind and heart dictate how you feel about a particular idea or situation. The more distance you give something, your inner wisdom shines. It takes time, but you will definitely know that feeling.

Pitfalls

The biggest pitfall I fall into over and over is stressing about whether or not I am on the right path. This “worry” has plagued me ever since I was 16 years old. I broke myself down to the core, went through a period of self-analysis and self-critique. I was brutal with myself and my own harshest critic throughout the happiest periods of people’s lives (a.k.a college). I felt like I was missing out and what was worse, I was comparing myself to others.

Lessons Learned

I am fortunate to have a very large circle of friends. I am even more fortunate to have a very close inner-circle. That inner-circle was the extreme opposite of myself. They were “free”. They believed that life will work itself out and to take it a day at a time. I have observed their attitudes and trying to adapt it to my own.

IT WAS SUCH A CONCEPT. I had the belief that if you did not stress about whether you are or not on the right path, then you just did not care. It was a false assumption to make. I have come to accept that life will take me where I need to go. I can only do my best with what I have and only so much I could control.

Surround yourself with good people who have your back. Surround yourself with great friends. Most importantly, surround yourself with friends who have differing personalities and outlooks on life than you do. You could learn so much from them.

What You Need to Remember

I mapped out my life (my 20s to age 30) at the age of 16. I had it all laid out – from entering university at age 17 to finishing in 3 years (which I did), to being a multi-millionaire by the age of 25 to having my empire at the age of 30. I LOVED planning it out. It gave me joy. It made me feel like I cared more than anyone else about where I want to go.

It is important to have goals. I always have goals. What people fall into (I, included) is attaching timelines to everything. This caused stress and anxiety if those timelines were not met. Let it go. Goals provide structure and your inner voice provides that map.

Figuring this out at the age of 25 has been liberating. My inner wisdom has shined and now I feel like I could clearly control my destiny with decisions to make, with the awareness that life may throw a wrench into your plans. You must understand how to get up when you get knocked down.