As strong women who desire to grow because of a high drive for success, a will to succeed, and yes, even a fear of failure. The problem arises when we also have the desire to please those around us. The need to achieve, combined with a pleasing personality, could make us sensitive to the waves of a storm that beat against us as if we were a boat in the ocean. Without a navigation device, the waves battering a ship could have the ability to take us wildly off course, mainly because we have a “pleaser” type of personality.
A Desire to Succeed + Please Others + Not Fail = Warning Sign
Our firm desire to please and succeed could lead us to pursue our goals without considering the warning signs of danger. Additionally, a fear of failure could cause us to cut off our creativity in solving problems.
Your First Tool
There is a way to stay true to ourselves with a navigation device that helps us stay true to who we are and where we are going. That device is to create a compelling vision of where it is that we want to grow.
As explained in my book “UnCeiling Your Career,” a compelling vision shares that the vision should be audacious enough to make your palms sweat. It should also include the type of emotions you would like to embody as you are on your journey. These feelings could include purposeful, pleasure, satisfaction, joy, flow, opportunity, giving, supporting, calm, objective, collaboration, caring, and cooperation.
Your Second Tool
Additionally, realize that you have a wise voice inside you. Recognizing your wise voice and listening to it as you are buffeted by the storm is essential. The intelligent agent inside you will help you make small daily changes. The small needful change in direction causes us to end up in a far better place than we would without the regular necessary course adjustments.
How do you know you are accessing and sensing your inner voice of wisdom? So many thoughts hit us in a day; the inspirational voice can get lost.
Get to Know Your Intuitive Voice
My husband and I grocery shop together, and when we do so, we typically divide and concur. Our grocery list is generated ahead of time, so it’s off to the store we go to. My husband usually pushes the cart, dividing the list and having it. I carry as much as possible, find him, and then dump the items in the cart to get more.
Separating is really critical on days that the grocery store is busy. We find we can navigate the store faster using this method, which helps us keep spending strictly on the items we need. Our shopping is completed quickly, and then we are on to the rest of our day.
On one occasion, when the store was bustling, we separated while shopping as usual. The item I was looking for was, what I thought, only one aisle away, and while I was in the aisle, my husband called out, in a soft voice, Natalie, could you also get this one other item? “No problem, got it,” I answered.
I didn’t realize that when I separated from my husband, he immediately moved 4 aisles away. When he called out, I thought he was still in the aisle next to me. I found him 4 isles away from where he called out, asking me to pick up the other item. I was shocked, “You yelled for me across the whole store with all these people here?” He replied, “No, I used the same voice volume as I am now!” I asked, “Did you hear my reply?” He did.
We were both amazed. How can we hear one another from so far away and with so many other people, music overhead, and voices around us using a conversational voice?
It was because we knew each other’s voices so well that we could pick each other out in a crowd.
Tools to Hearing Your Intuition
The best way to distinguish the “still, small wise voice” is to get clear on your vision through journaling and then experiment with hearing our wise voice. Keep tabs on your gut. When you get a sense of the messages, either act or not act on the message you receive. Note the outcome. Over time, the wise voice will become stronger and stronger as you learn to listen to it.
Each of us has a “still small wise voice” that delivers words of wisdom and navigates guidance daily. Knowing your vision, then using the wise voice, keeps you on the course, causing you to end up in a far better place than you would be without the regular necessary course adjustments.
Want to learn more? Grab your “UnCeiling Your Career – At Any Age” book at any location you like to buy books.
