I have several mentors who I look to for guidance and advice on how to live my best life and be my best self. I love these people dearly and I trust their opinions (because they actually have results that I want).
But this year, I’ve had to stop following most of them.
One mentor in particular especially. Not because she isn’t totally freaking amazing–she is.
I had to stop following her (and all the others) because I was starting to hear her voice in my head too much. I was starting to judge myself based on what I thought she’d say about what I was doing or not doing. Her priorities in life and business were starting to encroach on mine.
I was starting to live and create her life instead of my own.
I think we do that a lot with mentors and people we admire. We think they have it all figured out and so we should follow them or do whatever they do or whatever they tell us we should do.
The problem is, no matter how badass these mentors and coaches are, they’re still not YOU. And they never will be.
So they can give you advice and tell you how you should be living your life or what you should be focused on every day in your business, but even if all that advice and guidance is sound, it’s still not always going to be right for you.
Only YOU know what’s best for you.
That’s what I’ve started to realize this year, as I’ve removed the mentors and people I admire from my social feeds and email inbox.
I’m not gonna lie–these people definitely trigger me sometimes (in a good way). I can admit that.
But the bigger reason I had to take a step back from following mentors and being coached by other people is because I was starting to lose myself in them. I was starting to judge myself and compare myself way too much. I was constantly feeling like I was falling short.
And that ain’t healthy.
Before you freak out, I’m not knocking mentors or coaches. I am one myself. And I think the work I do and others do is really important.
But I also think it’s important for us to know ourselves and know what’s best for us, regardless of what a mentor or coach or someone we admire says should be.
That is the toughest part because it requires you to trust yourself. Like, massively trust yourself.
To trust yourself MORE than you trust the advice, guidance and opinions of your mentors, coaches and/or people who you admire. And that’s not easy to do.
Self-trust isn’t something we’re taught. Really, we’re taught the opposite.
We’re taught to seek out other people’s opinions or guidance. We’re taught to follow those who have what we want. We’re taught to do things the way other people are doing them.
And this programming from the outside world is causing you to lose faith in yourself and in what you know.
But the truth is, you actually can trust yourself.
You know way more than you think you do and way more than you give yourself credit for. All of the answers you need for everything are already inside you.
You must tap into your inner knowing and then learn to trust that more than you trust the voices and opinions and guidance on the outside. No matter how good it might be.
I’m not saying mentors or coaches are giving you bad advice–not at all (well, maybe some of them are, but most aren’t). I’m sure all the advice you’ve gotten is sound and if you followed it, you probably would get the results that you want.
But I just want you to be aware that the more you follow other people and the more you do what they tell you to do, the further you get from trusting yourself.
You don’t need a mentor or a coach to tell you what to do or how to do it. You already know this stuff. You’re just not listening to yourself.
You’re just not trusting yourself.
Yesterday I was supposed to spend time writing a freelance article that I’m working on. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel like it.
And then one of my mentors’ voices popped in my head, telling me that I needed to suck it up and do the work anyhow; telling me that how I feel doesn’t really matter, it’s all about whether or not I want the result, etc.
Normally I would listen to her voice and do it anyhow, but this time I decided to ignore it. I decided to stop thinking that her way of hustling and doing business was right for me.
I decided to think for myself and trust myself.
So I didn’t do the freelance article. I did what I wanted to do instead (which, sadly, was clean out and organize the fridge and pantry at my boyfriend’s house–I’m a nerd like that, ha!).
And I ended up receiving an unexpected payment while I was doing what I wanted to do. Basically, I got paid to have fun nerding out and organizing the fridge and pantry.
Weird, right?
Yet somehow in our desire to succeed and achieve our goals and dreams, we forget how things really work.
We buy into other people’s beliefs of what you should be doing every day or how you should be spending your time. We convince ourselves that if we just follow the step-by-step plan our mentors laid out for us we’ll become successful and then be able to do whatever we want.
We falsely believe that happiness and getting to spend our time doing whatever we want will come after we create the success and receive the money.
But the real truth is, it’s being happy and doing whatever you want that actually brings the success and the money because feeling good is the point and the path.
Which means if I had listened to my mentor’s voice in my head and forced myself to write the freelance article anyhow, not only wouldn’t I have received that unexpected payment, but I wouldn’t have felt very good either. And that won’t align me with the results I want anyhow.
The path to everything you desire is the feel-good path.
Always. Always. Always.
And only YOU know what feels good to you.
Which means it’s time to start trusting yourself MORE than you trust the voices and opinions of everyone else outside of you. It’s time to follow what feels good TO YOU.
Unless you’d rather live someone else’s life? The choice is always yours.
