Look to Yourself First
A theme has been developing over the last few months—this idea of getting to know yourself and, I’ll add as a build here, looking to yourself first.
It’s common to look externally when we are unsure, are seeking direction, or want to find our bearings. When it comes to making decisions for our personal and professional lives, it’s easy to be influenced by voices around us. We may even seek them out. And as much as we think we just want to do what we want to do, it’s easy to shirk the responsibility of making a decision of our own volition and instead look to others to lead the way.
Around career decisions, I often hear from coaching clients, “I just don’t know what I want to do!” I’ve been there, too. So, I was curious to ask Lisa Lewis Miller, author of “Career Clarity,” about this—what do we do when we don’t seem to know? In interviewing Lisa in The Sustainable Ambition Podcast Episode #11, she shares, “There’s an interesting paradox... You are the only person who can know what you want. So this tension between feeling like we don’t know, but also being the only definitive source of information to answer this question is a really interesting place to be.”
What if we do know? We all hold more answers than we realize. We hold the answer to what we want, for our career and our lives. And, we hold the keys to a lot more. I don’t state this to make it feel burdensome, but rather to have us realize that success actually lies in playing our own game, not anyone else’s.
So ask, “What can I look to myself for?” Get quiet to hear yourself. And then trust yourself to know the answers and actions you want to take. You will unlock whatever might be next and a lot is possible.
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