Follow Your Heart: The Power of Choosing Yourself Over Others

Listen to your feelings. If you do that, you will make better decisions.

"Don't listen to others – choose yourself. Follow your intuition." "Listen to your feelings." How often do you hear this?

Some people think this sounds vague and rely more on their reason and logic.

As a coach, I notice that clients' challenges often have to do with not listening to their feelings.

Instead of focusing on what we want and feel, we become overwhelmed by our environment and what we think other people expect of us.

That is logical and explainable, but it is a shame.

The Doubt Between Reason and Feeling

Your feelings are based on much more than just logic and knowledge. They are based on everything you consciously and unconsciously absorb.

Suppose someone smiles at you and says, "I agree with you." Your mind then tells you that it is so.

But your feelings register that the eyes are not smiling and the voice does not sound convinced.

Your mind forgets to tell you the latter.

Another example: Your mind tells you that this job is 'sensible' and good for your career.

But your gut tells you that it's not really what you want. Your mind tells you that changing jobs involves risks.

Your feelings tell you that you would be much happier if you did something else.

Often, you don't have to think anymore, but trust yourself more.

Who Is Right: Your Reason or Your Feelings?

Listen to your feelings: It's all feelings.

Ultimately, we do everything we do to get a certain feeling out of it. We are looking for a sense of security, a sense of happiness, a sense of success.

The actions we take create that feeling.

You also use your mind to get a certain feeling. You use your mind to make the best choice that will give you a certain result.

What do you want with that result? You want to create a certain feeling. You want to feel happy or successful.

You now know that your feelings rarely deceive you and are based on more than just your knowledge and logic.

You also know that what you ultimately want is always a certain feeling. Then isn't it logical to listen more to your feelings?

Then you can be sure that you are on the right track. Choose yourself – choose your feelings!

How to Get Close to Your Feelings

If you want to know what your feelings are telling you, listen to your emotions. What do they tell you? Do you feel joy, relief, sadness, uncertainty, confidence?

That's your feeling. Your mind tells you that you should be happy, but you feel tension, for example.

That feeling (tension) is an indication of what you really feel when you turn off your mind for a moment.

Then you can ask yourself the question: "What do I actually want?" "What kind of feeling do I really want?" "And what should I do for that?"

If you block, it may be that you are in your head too much, preoccupied with your thoughts.

Sometimes it helps to put your hand on your stomach, take a few deep breaths, and then wait for a certain feeling to arise.

It may take some practice at first, but your feelings are the core of who you are and what you want, and are therefore too important to ignore.

Why We Still Have Doubts

We tend to hide our feelings when we are concerned with our environment or our fears:

Environment: We want to make a decision that differs from what our environment does or what other people advise us.

Example: We would like to get another job, but everyone tells us that it involves too many risks these days.

We better be sensible and choose certainty.

This has everything to do with your self-confidence. If you trust yourself, you follow your own path because you believe in who you are and what you can do.

Fears: The moment we are afraid of making the wrong decision, we turn to our minds and reason everything logically.

Why? Because in our fear we no longer trust our feelings.

Example: We are afraid of making a certain decision and making the wrong choice.

We suppress our feelings that tell us to make that decision and come up with reasons why it is wiser not to do it.

What Would Happen if You Followed Your Gut?

If you follow your gut feeling, things can hardly go wrong.

You, and only you, know what you want and choosing it is making a choice for your own happiness.

Even if the world says it is not possible or that something else would be wiser, stay close to your feelings and choose based on your intuition.

Deep in your heart, you know whether a choice is the right one for you.

Why would you settle for less?

You may be afraid that it won't work. But it's not without reason that they say, "If you aim for the stars and you miss, you're still in heaven."

If you make a choice based on your feelings and it later turns out not to have worked out, you have still followed your heart.

You have chosen your wishes and desires. That's better than making a decision you don't actually support, just because it would be 'sensible.'

Why would you choose something you don't support?

Be a little unreasonable and choose your feelings, no matter what others say. Take a little risk and trust yourself.

Listen to Your Feelings: When You Ignore Your Feelings

Sometimes you have experienced a situation and afterward, you think, "See, I knew it. My gut feeling said it wasn't right."

You can prevent this by listening to your feelings.

This is often the case with relationships. You make a choice for a person and ignore the signals.

The other one looks good, right? You've been together for so long, haven't you? Doesn't he or she say she's going to change? You also have nice moments together, don't you?

But the signals say something different and in the back of your mind there is a little voice that says, "It just doesn't feel right."

And later, when you look back, you can tell exactly when this feeling spoke to you and let you know that something was wrong.

Choose yourself – but then you have to trust your feelings first.

Choose Your Feelings

Your feelings don't deceive you. They tell you exactly what makes you happy. All other decisions you make are second choices.

And why wouldn't you go for the grand prize?

Listen to your gut and make it the main voice in your choices and decisions: you won't be disappointed!

Reason tells you what is wise. Your feelings tell you what you really want. Those could well be two different things.

You also use your mind to ultimately become happier. Following your feelings is the fastest way to happiness and self-confidence.

Listening to your feelings is listening to your heart. Only you know what that says to you.

Follow your heart because it's right.

The More Self-Confidence, the More You Choose for Yourself

Because that's actually what you want, right?

Listening to your feelings is an art that you can learn.

People often ask me, "How can you listen to your feelings better?" That's a simple question with a simple answer:

Practice more.

The only reason you want to listen to your feelings more closely is because you are not successful yet. And the only reason you can't do it yet is because you haven't practiced it enough yet.

That's the same reason you can read, but you can't do somersaults:

Practice, practice, practice.

You and I were not raised to "listen to your heart" or "listen to your gut." We grow up always being told the same thing:

"Be careful! Think before you act. Be sensible. Think about it carefully first!"

Listening to your feelings is not taught anywhere.

In every situation, we are taught NOT to follow our feelings:

– We have to make a wise study choice instead of doing what we want. – We shouldn't jump into the arms of the first person because falling in love will pass and then you're left with nothing. – It is not realistic to dream of emigrating to Spain or Bali. Because the internet there is bad and the facilities are even worse.

Everything in our life teaches us not to follow our feelings. So if you have trouble listening to your gut, it makes sense:

You've practiced it all your life!

So when I say:

"Listen to your feelings, listen to your heart."

"Because that's right. That suits you. That's what you really want."

When I say that, you might think:

"Yes, that sounds good. I'm going to do that! From now on I'm going to follow my feelings!"

But then you notice that it is not that simple. Because all your experiences, all the people around you have taught you that you should NOT do this.

So if you start listening to your feelings more closely, you will feel…

…weird.

Listen to Your Gut, Even if It Feels Strange

It just feels strange at first. It feels unnatural.

You become twice as anxious because your mind thinks:

"Hey, I used to be in control, and now I'm not! I determined what happened, not the heart. Help, panic! Now anything can go wrong!"

In short, you will notice that following your feelings feels strange and unnatural at first.

But if you practice listening to your feelings more, those panic thoughts will disappear.

And with the first positive result, you get more confirmation that following your feelings could turn out well.

That gives you more confidence. And more confidence ensures that the voice in your head sounds less panicky. Because that voice in our heads is simply the voice of fear.

Your feelings, that is the voice of your confidence.

So you have to practice with that. In the end, you immediately know what feels good. Then you no longer have any doubts.

Then you not only listen to your feelings, but you also follow that feeling.

Then you listen to your heart because it is right.

Always.