Listen to the nudges of your intuitive voice
With 39 laps around the sun under my belt, I’m no fresh-faced teen with responsibility-free choices at my feet but, even as a mum responsible for two tiny humans, there’s one rule I’ve learned the hard way that I’m reminding myself of now.
Listen to the nudges, even when they don’t make sense.
Note to self: “even when they don’t make sense”. God, do I love a plan. And lists. And the certainty of knowing what comes next, of making sense (especially to other people). But that need to know is also my achilles heel. It stops me taking risks. It holds me back from going after things that I want. It goes for immediate gratification instead of the long game. It makes me wobble enough to take the option that looks better on paper when something inside tells me otherwise. It encourages me to do what looks right rather than feels right.
And it’s a long-serving habit. (One I’ve been trying to un-learn!)
Image: Bash Please
Instead of another academic subject at school, especially those hours that were wasted studying Design and Communication (my least favourite subject), I really wish there had been a class that taught me about personal development. A subject that would have given me a bit more conviction.
At this point I was firmly in good girl territory studying hard for GCSE’s and choosing subjects for A-Levels, with the assumption that a University would be my next stop.
That’s what a good girl would do, right? Excel academically. Then get a good job.
And I did. And then worked hard to excel at that good job, then the next.
While I had choices, like what options to take for my GCSE’s, what subjects to take at A-Level (just slightly influenced by which teachers you’d get!), which University and what degree - the bigger choice never even entered my young head.
What did I really want to do? Even in my teens, some options already seemed closed off to me - I’d missed the chance/was too “old” for some, or my education/talents would be “wasted” on others, or weren’t “secure” enough to set me up for life. (I don’t know where these messages came from but that mindset steered me to the ‘safe’ and expected route.)
The irony is that even though I did what was expected, still those choices didn’t really play to my talents, give me security or ‘set me up’.
If I was to speak to that younger me now - and the message I’d want to give to my boys when they reach these forks in the road - I’d say, listen. Listen to what pulls you. What are you passionate about? What would you love to do? If you put aside any fear or doubt, what would light you up?
OK, some things may be verging on impossibility. And you might try and fail and be back to square one. But high fives to failing while you’re young! Being curious and trying things out without ‘real life’ practicalities holding you back is surely the way forward. Experiment, try things out, fail. Fail LOTS.
This might sound a bit reckless. A tad naive. But I question the notion that our hearts’ desires should be silenced to, instead, be sensible - especially when we’re young but even when we’re grown-ups with responsibilities.
When I look back, where I’ve taken the wrong turn here and there - which, ultimately, I’m grateful for - the mistake has always been where I’ve ignored that little voice or instinctive nudge to go the other way. The Sensible Choice won out.
And now there are so many more reasons to be sensible and safe. I have a family to look after. I should have a plan as to how it’s all going to work out. But I don’t. Instead I have a vision and a determination to make it work - but certainty is zilch.
Being sensible and safe led me away from my path. Actually, back in my teens I didn’t even know there might be another path. I hadn’t learned to listen to my own instinct, or know that my emotions were signposting me towards something or to get the heck away. I didn’t know me, then. I do now, at least a little better than I did back then.
For all the reasons to play the sensible game that being a mummy brings, it is also the thing that’s inspiring me to finally follow my heart and not just my head. If I want my kinder to find their thing, then I have to blaze the trail. Show them what can be done when you listen to the nudges. It may all play out as I trust it will. I might fail. Who knows. But, two decades later, this good girl is taking another path.
