How to Listen to Your Instincts in a World of Advice

As your coach and host, I couldn't wait to share the revelations that hit me while watching a snippet of JLo's heartfelt documentary 'This Is Me Now' with my daughter. It sparked a fierce conversation about self-trust and the power of intuition, leading us into this episode where we explore the tension between following your internal compass and heeding advice from respected voices in your field. It's a dance of wisdom and confidence, especially when your path diverges from the status quo road, and I'm here to tell you why that's not just okay, but essential.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

How would your life and work change if you fully trusted in yourself, in your ideas and in your capabilities? We're going to dig into this in this episode. You're going to want to stick around to the end. Let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:19

You're tuning into the Confident, Connected Leader podcast, your premier destination for breaking through your current professional barriers. Your coach and host, Lisa Jeffs, will help you transcend limitations and achieve new levels of professional success beyond self-doubt, sabotage and burnout. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 0:44

It's International Woman's Day, and this episode was inspired after watching a little bit of JLo's documentary with my daughter, where she talks about getting a lot of feedback from individuals in the industry who told her not to move ahead with her project of. I believe it's called this Is Me. Now, if you're aware of what the project is or not, it's not really the point. The point of this is how do we have the courage to follow our intuition and our path forward, really follow the guidance that's coming from within, when we're getting feedback from others that is completely the opposite or a little bit different than what we are feeling within? What do we do with that? Now, it's easy to, if you're getting advice or getting guidance from someone, let's say, who's not doing what you're doing Maybe they haven't experienced the level of success that you want To really ask yourself is this person's advice even valid? What's it based on? It can be easier to move forward with what your own inner guidance system is telling you. What do we do when we're getting advice or we're getting feedback from people who, let's say, we respect, people who are successful in our industry and people we look up to? What do we do with that when our inner guidance system is calling us forward or we're getting excited about an idea For JLOs, using JLOs project as an example and this was before I even watched this documentary I knew this project that she was doing was something close to her heart. This wasn't a project about making money, and people might argue that it is to promote her new tour. While that may be part of it, this is 1,000% a project from her heart and her having the courage to say yes to that and follow through. In the space that I am in working online as an online coach, there are 10,000, 10 million opinions out there about what you should do, which way to go, how to do this, how to build your business, how to shift your mindset, how to do all these different things.

Speaker 1: 3:55

One of the things I've gained over the years is a trust in my internal guidance system. I have this trust now because there have been many times where I have listened to others who I've respected and who may have had a validity to their opinions, but I've gone against my own guidance system and it's always fallen flat. It's fallen flat and then I've kicked myself to. I was getting the information I needed. Why did I listen to someone else.

Speaker 1: 4:34

The challenging part about this is we don't necessarily want to be in our own echo chamber. It's great to lean on others and get their feedback, and especially if it's someone that we respect, someone who's been doing the thing for a while, maybe even someone that we're paying for guidance and mentorship. It can be challenging following your own internal signals, and it's really about navigating that world, about taking what you can from others but then running it through your system, and this is the key. This is how you truly step into your world as a powerful, empowered woman when you move forward with trust, belief in yourself and continuously betting on yourself, without the need for anyone to agree with the direction that you're going. And this can be challenging and it's often only in hindsight that we can see that. Oh, you know.

Speaker 1: 5:49

And you're going to get the feedback from others that are like oh, you know what you were right, you were smart to follow what you were, what your inner guidance system was telling you to do, even though in paper or in the you know, people are looking at it in a logical stance, have fallen flat or it doesn't make sense. You know again, using JLo's project as an example, a lot of people were telling her that this has never worked right. It hasn't worked for Rihanna, it hasn't worked for Beyonce, it just doesn't work right. People don't want it. Well, she bet on herself. So this is a message on International Woman's Day to bet on yourself to when you have an idea, when you have a vision, when there's something that's calling your heart forward, and everyone else is telling you, either you can't do it, it's not smart, it's not wise, maybe do this, run that information through your system.

Speaker 1: 6:54

So what I mean by that is and the challenging part here is, if you're not connected to your body, then you may be trying to figure this all out in your head. Right, you run ideas through your mind, you make pro and con lists, you get more confused, you get more disconnected, you seek out more validation from others, and it just sends you on this road of being even more disconnected from your internal guidance system. So to do this, you have to be connected to your body. Now, if you feel that, okay, I do live in my head a lot, I'm always thinking, I always feel a little bit distracted, I don't feel fully embodied as a woman, then what you can do is to get into your body and if you are a visual person, this will. But even if you're not, you can just set the intention. But if you're a visual person, you can imagine a ball of light flowing down. You know. Picture the, your mind's eye, which is just behind your eyes. Picture a ball of light just flowing down, down, down through your neck, your throat chakra, into your heart space, right in the middle of your chest, and just put your hand on your heart and breathe deeply a few times until you feel can feel, into your heart space, into your body, and then run your idea.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So when I say run, I mean just bring it into your mind. So you bring your idea into your mind. What does it feel like? Does it feel expansive? Does it feel like you're just going and sitting in a hot tub? You know that expansive feeling when you first get in that hot tub and it just feels your energy expands. Or does it feel contractive? Does it feel tight? Does it feel like when you walk into a room and people were just fighting? They're real tight energy. If it feels expansive, this is a good indication that this is an idea that you can explore. You can move forward on and continue exploring If you run their idea or their feedback through that same system, does it feel contractive?

Speaker 1: 9:30

Does it feel expansive? If it feels contractive, hold back on it. There's something that's not in alignment with what their feedback was Learning to trust that. Your body, when you tune into your body, it's this massive wisdom center. You know, when you tune into your heart space and build a connection with your heart space, you are becoming one with so much power the power of our lineage, the power of now, the power of presence, the power of Mother Earth, the power of cosmic wisdom. You're tapping in. It's important to get out of the head. The head is what can steer us in all these wrong directions.

Speaker 1: 10:23

So, taking into my experiences in the past, I would have an idea or I would have something in mind and I would ask for feedback and I would get feedback and it wouldn't feel right, something would feel off. But I would run it through my mind and my mind would tell me well, this person has. You know they're very successful, they've created all this in the world, they've hit all these milestones and it makes sense. You know their feedback makes sense. It makes sense in your mind. Maybe it's logical, maybe it seems like the linear next step. That's great, but that's gonna steer you in a lot of directions that are not truly in alignment with you. They just simply make sense in your mind and it's a learning process because you'll go down these roads and then you hit these walls and a lot of times it's about backtracking and then finally following your initial intuitive nudge, and then you get to the place that you wanna go.

Speaker 1: 11:39

So, learning to run it through your own system even the most magical guidance, advice, mentorship you know and it can be challenging even in the world of you know, I'm an intuitive, so a lot of the information I get for clients is intuitive. It is psychic information Even. Still, if you are getting this information, run it through your system, sometimes a person is on this earth to learn to build the soul lesson of trusting themselves, of learning to trust themselves and follow their guidance above everything else that's going on around them. You are safe to do that and I would even argue that by trusting and betting on yourself, even when it doesn't go the way you want, it is still going to give you a huge positive payoff. It's not always about getting this huge outcome or this huge result from what you're doing A lot of times.

Speaker 1: 13:02

The benefit is simply building the trust in yourself, knowing that there is no one on pedestals above you. You stand alone. We all stand on a single floor together. We're not meant to do it alone and that's not what I'm trying to say. So I want to be really careful that I'm not saying do it alone, don't ask for others' help, don't invite others into your vision. Not at all.

Speaker 1: 13:37

I think we're in this together as a collective, but what I'm saying is always run it through your system to make sure that you're not giving your power away to someone else's opinion, to someone else's perception, to their view, to their experience, because, again, a lot of times, the path forward to where you want to go, to your vision, it's not going to be linear and it's not going to be the same as what someone else has done, especially not if you're here to innovate, if you're here to create a new pathway, then a big part of the journey is going to be trusting yourself and trusting the guidance that you are getting internally. And if you need help with this, reach out. This is what I do with my private clients. A lot of my private clients are very much in their head and they're very, very smart, very intellectual, very successful. But they can get lost in their head, as can I, as can many driven leaders can get stuck in the head.

Speaker 1: 14:53

And we have to practice getting out of the head, getting out of that linear way of looking at things and really trusting what's coming through, trusting those ideas, trusting the inspiration, trusting the vision it's safe to follow, it's safe to move forward with what's coming through you and know that you can course correct on that path. You don't have to get it right the first time or the second or the third. It can be course corrected. Take the guidance that resonates. If you're uncertain and you get great advice or mentorship and it feels really, really good, follow it.

Speaker 1: 15:37

But if it doesn't feel good and your guidance, it feels expansive, don't second guess yourself and get in your head and tell yourself, oh, this person I should follow it. Trust yourself. So I'm going to wrap it up. This episode is I was really inspired today for International Woman's Day, to give you a little, hopefully inspiring message for whoever is listening. I know there's certain people that are going to listen to this, that have been questioning themselves, and this is going to be the confirmation they need to believe and trust themselves to move forward. So have a wonderful International Woman's Day, if you're listening to it today, or another day, celebrate yourself, celebrate your ideas, celebrate your vision forward, trust yourself and let's stay connected.

Speaker 2: 16:40

Thank you for tuning into the Confident, Connected Leader podcast. Lisa Jeffs is committed to helping you break through barriers and climb to new professional heights. If today's episode inspired you, we'd be honored if you could subscribe, rate and leave a review To stay updated with practical tips and insights, follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. You'll find all relevant links, including those for our complimentary gifts and trainings, in the show notes. Until our next episode, embrace your confidence and stay connected.