In living your dream, have you ever been in that place where you had to make an important decision, yet couldn’t decide which way to go? Have you ever been in that place where the decision is so vital you are afraid to make a bad one? At this point, we begin to solicit counsel from our support group and professional colleagues, and sometimes they give us counsel and we follow through and everything works well.
What happens when you ask for counsel and you are given, and something inside of you is unsettled? I am talking about the peace factor; you feel like, ‘okay I shouldn’t even try this’ because you are not at peace.
Recently I had important decision to make concerning my business, so, I sat down and I thought it through. I did everything that I normally would do in making an important decision, but my gut kept telling me to go a particular direction, however, I didn’t want to fail. So, I started to speak to experts. I remember a particular professional gave me the scientific steps to go in making this decision, and while they made sense, and other people probably have used them and they worked, I sensed within me that it wasn’t the way to go. I spoke to my support group and a few of them had tips for me. But at every turn, I realized that I didn’t feel comfortable enough to implement any of the tips that I was given. I was stuck.
For over two weeks, I was on the fringes if you like; I was undecided and time was running out on me fast. All this while though, there was a solution deep in my gut that I felt I should have implemented, but somehow I didn’t follow through. Eventually when I realized that I kept this decision on the shelf for too long because I kept looking for the perfect solution, I stopped myself and asked a very vital question, and the question was “Who could know this business more than me?”
The answer was “No one”, because somehow I founded this business from the ground up. The second question that I asked myself was “Who will be more vested in the success of this business than me?” The answer was the same – No one else but me. So if I am the one who knows the business the most and the one more vested than anybody else, how come I cannot trust my gut feeling? As I focused on this train of thought, I had to ask myself another question “Why didn’t I want to go with my gut this time?” And the answer I came up with shocked even me. I realized that I didn’t want to go with my gut feeling because I didn’t want to take responsibility for whatever might go wrong, should my gut feeling fail.
Have you ever been there? I mean, you know this is the way to go, it defies logic, but your instinct says go? I believe that we have instincts because they are useful, our instincts can help us scale major challenges, and they are reliable if we will trust them. So as I struggled whether or not to go with my instinct I had to give myself the lecture, and essentially what I did was remind of myself how I had used my instincts in the past and succeeded. Eventually I followed my gut and so far, everything is going on well and my biggest or deepest prayer is that nothing goes wrong.
As a Leaderpreneur, you are the life and the soul of your business. Even when yes, we are working on the business and we are not working in the business, even when we are doing everything we can to grow the business, ultimately vital and important decision making will not go away. We face them on a daily basis, and it is our responsibility to step up and deal with them.
Like I found out, I didn’t want to take responsibility; I wanted to be able to pass the buck should something go wrong and say “Oh, this particular consultant asked me to go this way, this person advised me to go that way.” But the question is when push comes to shove, “Who is responsible really?” What I found out was that I WAS RESPONSIBLE.
I know gut feelings cannot be explained by art or science, and this can be worrisome. But if you have succeeded overtime in listening to your gut.., I mean it was your gut that made you start this business in the first place. It was what you felt inside of you that made you stand up and say “okay, I will go this way.” Then why can’t you trust your instinct one more time?
Now, please understand me, I’m not saying that you cannot seek counsel, I’m not saying that having a support group is bad, I have a solid one. What I’m saying is when you seek counsel and you talk to your support group, and you don’t find enough conviction to go with what they tell you, please go with your gut feeling.
Remember that no one can make the right decision for you and no one can be more vested in your dream than you and since that’s the case, then no one should be more responsible than you. Now have I ever made decisions that failed, of course I have. But what is it that I can take away from them, it is the fact that maybe that’s not the way to go, or maybe the process I adopted was wrong.
Next time you need to make a decision, remember that your dream is an extension of you, and because your dream is an extension of you, your gut feeling is probably right.
Till next week remember that in the end, you are the one responsible. You will make it NeverTheLess, after all, it’s your life and it’s your dream.
Here is to your success!
Bidemi