Boosting your confidence with gut instinct

Elizabeth M. Johnson, MA
Life, Work, Self-esteem

I've been studying confidence for years, specifically what confidence looks and sounds like in women. No matter what work I've been doing, time and again I see a lack of confidence as one of the biggest issues that hold women back. Not only clients but co-workers, friends, bosses, etc. Today most of the work that I do in my workshops and with individual clients centers on finding simple, practical solutions to everyday problems. A lack of confidence is no different. So today I want to focus on one easy, painless way to get more confident: using your gut instinct.

Kids listen more easily than we do.

Kids listen more easily than we do.

But what is gut instinct exactly? 13th century Persian poet Rumi said, "There's a voice that doesn't use words. Listen". That voice is gut instinct. Some people say "intuition" or "gut feelings"; it's all the same. Gut instinct is the voiceless voice that lives inside your soul. It often comes to us unexpectedly. It's not something that you can tease out. You don't wait for gut instinct to show up; the judgment or assessment that is behind the feeling is either there or it isn't. Gut instinct is reliable but we're not always paying attention.

But we should! Here are three ways using gut instinct can boost confidence:

  1. It helps you know when to push back, let go or get the heck out. Gut instinct is the magic that warns you, "danger, danger" when you're in an unfamiliar place and something is off. My clients who use gut instinct are better able to correctly assess situations, opportunities, potential relationships as they arise.

  2. It builds trust in yourself. Trusting yourself more means less second-guessing, back-pedaling and waffling. Gut instinct is what propelled me to get on a plane to see my mom one last time. If I hadn't listened to gut instinct (and both of my sisters' gut instincts), I might not have gone. And if I hadn't, I would have regretted that decision for the rest of my life.

  3. It helps you be the best version of yourself you can be. If you're like most women I talk to, you'd love to bring more "you" into your daily life. Well, when you listen to yourself by paying attention to gut instinct, you become more confident with being that first rate version of yourself. 

There's a lot of power in using gut instinct as a way to be more confident in the small and large moments of your days. Test it out, let me know how it goes.

Elizabeth M. Johnson, MA
Life, Work, Self-esteem
, , , ,
Elizabeth M. Johnson, MA

Using a trauma-sensitive and social justice framework, my work is helping you understand how culture and personal history influence the decisions you make. So you can shed fear, guilt or shame based "yeses" and "no's" for choices that honor your values, intuition, talents and skills.

I have worked with abuse survivors for 15 years including at three different human services agencies. In those capacities, I've coordinated training and education for community partners and volunteers on abuse dynamics, lethality assessment and crisis intervention. I have also managed a 24 hour domestic violence crisis line, training and overseeing 50 agency volunteers, including students.

Website

Time and Space

Unpacking Outside The Mom Box