I've been having some conversations lately regarding following your intuition and it's connection with a job, career, life, and business. I spent almost 13 years in a corporate environment that taught me to second guess my "gut feeling". I left feeling like I didn't have the skills or knowledge to get another job or unsure about what other job I would be qualified for. I started my own business and spent the last year repairing my confidence and increasing my trust in my intuition. I have since talked with many other women who have been saying similar things about where they are in their career. In the U.S. we seem to be obsessed with predictability and proving our case for a new project or new change we want to implement. We have become so obsessed with planning and assessing risks that I ask, "When are we actually doing it and taking risks?" I feel the most alive when I am taking a risk and trusting myself to navigate through that process.
I'm not sure how I learned that skill or where I get my confidence to make decisions. The decisions themselves aren't always correct or right, but it's the way that I process and recover that have become and continue to become the strength of my confidence. Again, it's not that I'm getting it right. It's that I am striving for it and living through it that brings excitement, fear, and ultimately, I hope, happiness.
I heard JayZ say, "No one learns from success, but everyone learns from failure." Well, if we are all about predicting, then where is there time to fail and try again in that process?
