I love advice. I love giving it. I love getting it. I love following encouraging Instagram accounts such as WE THE URBAN to encourage myself with words of wisdom as I go through my day. I love listening to podcasts with the hopes of hearing whatever words of wisdom I’m waiting for at that time in my life. I love bringing my problems to my friends, sisters and mom to get their insight and opinions. As much as I try to make sense of all the advice I receive and do what’s best for me in response to that, I’ve realized that there’s never one right answer to anything. There is no archetype for guaranteed success. What’s more, I’ve come to realize that the best advice that I can receive for my specific situation comes from within, from myself. When you decide to bet on yourself and follow your gut feelings, you of course run the risk of failure. But, at the same time, you boost your self-confidence in trusting in your own ability to solve problems.
It’s been a common theme in my life over the past year to sit on decisions with the hopes of determining the best path in life with minimal consequences. I usually can’t determine this for myself in an instant. When I begin to weigh my options, I gravitate toward the opinions of others. At this point, I’ve come to realize that I have a choice to make every time I make a decision, big or small. The first choice is to draw ideas from those around me, to get everybody else to do the thinking for me, which contributes to my over-analysis. This is my go-to strategy. It seems logical; the more opinions you can get on something, the more sure you can be it will work out. However, no matter what the situation, we usually have an idea of which decision we want to make, and asking other people’s opinions takes a toll on our self-confidence. When we ask for everybody’s input, we doubt that we hold the tools ourselves to solve our problems alone. Further, in hearing everybody else’s opinion, it’s easy to lose track of our true interests. It’s true that we don’t always know what’s best for us, but I’ve come to learn that self-fulfillment comes from listening to yourself and your own interests first.
Of course, it’s not easy to pare back all the voices in your head and around you to determine how to act on what you want. Sometimes, taking a chance on yourself means following your gut instinct and skipping over not just opinions, but your own overthinking. Recently, I had to make a personal decision and I gave myself several days to weigh the options and think about what I wanted. Over that time, whenever I found myself thinking about it, I wrote down my thoughts in a note on my phone. I consulted my friends. I listened to podcasts. I drew inspiration from quotes on my Instagram feed. After spending hours over the course of several days trying to figure out the perfect answer or solution, I realized that sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is save yourself the thinking time and, to be cheesy, follow your heart. Follow your gut instinct. It’s there for a reason.
At the end of the day, getting a lot of opinions can be helpful, but hearing so many voices can distract you from what you truly want. Sometimes less is more. There is power in trusting your gut. You know your own circumstances better than anybody else, and likewise, you have the most honest opinion of yourself and what’s best for you. Learning to speak for yourself takes time, as it’s a trial-and-error process, but will ultimately boost your self-confidence and save you the hassle of second-guessing and overthinking.