8 Tips to Listen to Your Inner Voice and Become Your True Self

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

-Steve Jobs

Do you hear your inner voice?
Are you following your intuition?
Are you believing in yourself?

It is hard to answer, don’t you think? I think I am strong, I can make decisions of my own free will, I am free, and I speak up…

Until I am in a situation where I ask others, “What do you think?”

You may be surprised, but people ask me that question too!

Working in corporate, to develop my own career, I’ve had to consider what others think. Am I articulating correctly so it is well interpreted? I think I spend more time worrying about this than thinking about what I want. That’s no way to make decisions. So what am I going to do about that?

Normally, a corporate life has some predefined career paths. Not formally, but with the skills you develop and your experience, it is common to have the expectation of what is next, depending on your desired career path. 

It makes sense from the organizational perspective, but from the personal perspective? 

Not always.

Then there’s the fact that those promotions we wanted may not be what we actually wanted. We get mixed up, what we really want vs. what our career path tells us we want.

I’m using an example from career development, which is so difficult when trying to shape our own selves. From the time we start school, we start to build a concept of what success looks like. Most of the time, it is safer following known paths, and building proven reputation and status. It’s hard to compete with reputation and status.

So when we say we need to listen to our inner voice, that comes with a bit of work. We have to ask ourselves what is our inner voice and what does our inner voice sounds like.

Here are 8 tips for practicing finding and listening to your inner voice:

1. Book moments to be with yourself. There will be times when you are doing something that doesn’t require much thinking, like folding laundry, washing dishes, taking a shower. Do it in silence. No distractions. No music, TV, radio, or podcast. Let your thoughts come to you and listen to what your inner voice has to say.

2. Go for a walk in nature. Listen to nature, and let your thoughts flow.

3.  Go to a public place alone. When you’re at Starbucks by yourself, having your coffee, don’t be on your phone or another type of distraction. Good news, though! A journal is allowed!

4. Journal using a notebook and pen. This is a great way to let your thoughts flow through writing, to get them out of your head. No worries about spelling, grammar, or handwriting. Just let it flow.

5. Do something you really enjoy! The goal is to be in a state of flow. This means you are in a perfect state of YES I CAN, so your mind can be free to speak from a happy place, giving the freedom to your inner voice.

6. Have a person who you can trust in confidence, free of judgment, and who can do the job of listening to your free flow of thoughts. This also practices your pitch to someone else, in case you need help speaking up.

7. Be curious. Ask WHY. This will help you to be available to different emotions, to try different things, to be more exposed, and to have more feelings with different intensities and patterns.

8. Start to recognize your emotional patterns and prepare some hacks to have you in a positive state, so your inner voice is not fading. 

Try these tips to be more aware of your inner voice, so you can be more confident when you stand up for yourself.

Hope this is helpful and never forget, YOU DECIDE!