CLIENT SESSION: How Can I Trust My Instincts? | Ep 158 | Self-Belief Chief

3, 2, 1. And we are live. Welcome to the Self Belief Chief podcast, you wonderful people. You're here with David Holman. And if you've ever asked the question, am I good enough? Whether it's in your relationships or your performance or your career or in terms of your health, whatever it might be, then you're in the right place. We're not here to hype you up. We're here to give you strategies and techniques to help you transform your life in those areas. Ones that I've shared with the highest performers, from Olympic athletes to business owners. So make sure to hit that subscribe button. Share your favorite episodes and remember, if you change today, today will change your life. Today's quote is, your brain can play tricks on you. Your heart can be blind, but your instinct will always be right. And that's a quote by Rachel Walchin that perfectly encapsulates today's episode. And so let's go in for the usual summary. You're going to hear a conversation between myself and a client who wants to better trust her own instincts. And for her, her definition of trusting her instincts is for her to be more present, that she can be more aware of her situation, her surroundings, that she can really experience it. And therefore, she can let her instincts flow better. And this is particularly in her personal life, because in her career, she's. She's doing very well. She's very successful, very capable, provides a lot of value for people. But her personal life, she's just not sure she's totally present and can trust her instincts. What you're gonna hear me say is that thoughts are answers. The thoughts that we have are answers. They're answers to questions that we subconsciously asked ourselves. So when we say, maybe I'm not good enough, maybe I can't trust my instincts, maybe I can't have this, maybe I can't have that, we have to have asked ourselves a question first and foremost to get that answer. And so if you want to change the quality of your life, change the questions you ask yourself. Because if you start changing the questions you ask yourself, it changes the quality of the answers. And the more quality answers you have, the greater the quality of your life will be. Let's get into it.

What is the question that you think subconsciously at least if not consciously you ask yourself, that stops you being present.

That's a good question. Do you know what it's normally the focus is? Normally work. But I think that's more of a screen than a focus, if you know what I mean. Okay, so it's like a distraction. And I think that it's more to do with work has always given me a sense of higher self esteem because I know I'm good at my job.

Yeah.

And I know I'm respected. So I guess it's more to do with, you know, am I good enough or what do they want from me or can I give it to them? I don't know. It's something.

Yeah.

Fear.

So I often think most of our thoughts are answers to questions. We just don't. We're just not aware what the question is.

But we have a thought.

Well, how do we arrive at that thought? There's got to be a question. So, okay, you provided me a few questions. So you know, what. What is it that I know makes me feel good enough? Okay. My work and.

Yeah, but then it's the wrong things, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly. And so part often people want to change their thoughts sometimes if we know if we believe that thoughts are answers. Sometimes an easy thing is just to ask a different question because then it forces the answer.

Yeah.

What might help is wiggle and breathe. And you have what I call a go to question. A question that makes sure you always have the right answer in front of you. And so. And that you can't possibly think of this or this or this or anything else. And you could maybe sometimes it's helpful to know, okay, what's. What do I want the answer to be? And work backwards to work out the question. But let me just ask you, what do you think the question should be that would improve your focus and make sure you answer, you do the right thing and therefore you are.

The answer is got to be I am good enough. So what the question is, I guess. Okay, well the question could be anything, I suppose. But the answer is always got to. It's always got to be back to self, hasn't it? And that will enable you. Or sometimes, sometimes like the other thing I suppose is just, you know, if you sort of sit there and you. And you stay in your head like I am good enough or like I'm loved or whatever, like I find that then hello, you that, that you just relax and then you just bring it back and you. Not even so I don't know what the question is. It's okay, fine, but that's the answer. Those are the answers, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And it could, you could go down that road. You could go down the road of, you know, even simple things like what is it that allows me to trust myself better, you know, and you might go, actually, I don't. As we basically found the terms of trusting yourself, apparently it's nothing to do with work because you're good at your job. And yet part of the problem was, do I really trust my instincts? Do I trust myself? And do I trust myself to be present? Just phrase, a frame, a question that goes, you know, what is it that allows me to trust myself? Or what is it that, you know, how do I get present? Or whatever it might be? So you might even refer back to the clarity bit in terms of, okay, what is it I'm trying to do? Because the one thing I don't want to happen in the future is you ask yourself a question like, what makes me good enough? And you feel like you could answer that by saying, what my work.

Okay, yeah, I see what you mean.

So, yeah, right. In terms of. That's the right answer. I just want to make sure the question.

Making sure that the question provides the right answer. Yeah, yeah. Or to being a hurricane.

That at some point. Yeah. Okay.

Let me just come in and explain the tornado analogy. This client had mentioned a number of weeks back that her life felt like a tornado moving a million miles per hour. And so what we did is we took that metaphor and started to understand, well, let's use that imagery and picture, because emotion is contained inside a picture. So if we start changing the picture, it starts changing the emotions. We talked in previous sessions about how to slow that tornado down so that she could take control of her life again. So you're just hearing a very slight tangent of just how she's managed to, in recent weeks, slow that tornado down. Let's get back into the conversation.

On that. How fast is the tornado going these days?

Do you know what? It's barely there at all. Occasionally I'm suddenly like, right, I've got a good job. I'm just going to get stuff done, and then I just get it done. But it's more a case of I've chosen to, you know, to just. That hour is just busy and, you know, I'm just cracking through a list of whatever and then. But the morning is like, normally it'd be so, so crazy. You know, the morning, every morning is like meditate, maybe do a hit or yoga, have a read, have a coffee. And I think that that in itself just slowing down the morning and whether the kids are whining and whinging or not, I just sort of, I don't know, focus it out. Like. Well, this morning Mark came and did a hit session with me. Actually, um, and that's okay, you know, but it's, I think, doing those things and making sure that I do those things every day, it's actually slowed everything else down.

Good, good. Yeah, yeah. When we're with that, you know, from a million miles per hour, as it was phrased, to not moving at all, like 20.

Yeah. And, you know, I even fell asleep in the garden on Saturday in the sun. That just would never normally have happened.

Yeah. Okay, so we're at a gentle. We're at a gentle breeze now.

That's good.

We are. Yeah. So it's keeping it there, isn't it?

Yeah.

And, but, but, but most people, to sort of the point you just made, as is the consistency of it. Most people look for the one big hit, like, what's a big thing I can do to make to really either slow things down or whatever it is that they want, have to find a big thing. It's just doing a small thing consistently.

It's the consistency that's the key, isn't it? Because I could stop doing all those things now.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, but it's keeping them going, isn't it? And recognizing that those are the things that actually do keep you in a good place.

Yeah, Lots. Lots of people make that mistake is, you know, with things like my meditation, for example, I can have a backlog of doing that every day for five or 10 minutes for a couple of years, and I might go, oh, okay. And then one day, for whatever reason, I've not been able to do it, and I can go, oh, I feel all right. Like, maybe I don't need to do this anymore. And then within five or six days, you quickly find out you do. And it's. But, yeah, but it always, always needs to be really simple to find consistency because if you're too complex in any way, shape or form, you don't keep it up.

Yeah. I tend to find. And I don't like too rigid routines either. I really kind of find that I will battered against those after a while. So it's about. So I do it five days a week, and then on the weekends I don't. And I'll do something else. But that kind of works because it means that then I'm doing. Going a bit more with the flow at the weekends, which allows me that variety that I so desperately need.

Exactly. Yeah. Good. Are you using all the right words there? So you're right. It's finding that balance for us.

That.

Over, you know, you feel like you've got it down now. You keep it up. You start to pick up little things along the way, and you just start to really become a pro at knowing how you work and what the best combination is for you. So that can feel. That can actually be never ending, even when we feel like we have solved it. But.

Yeah.

So, okay, so in terms of this question, what we want. So you talked about feeling good enough. Okay, that's important. So something that directs us to what. What we're really saying here in terms of trust or presence. Remember, it was about trusting yourself, wasn't it?

Yeah, it's. I think it's about knowing that I'm right. That or it's even. You know what? It's not even necessarily about knowing I'm right. It's almost being okay knowing that it's okay to make that decision. Because that decision may be okay on that given day. It may. But you might change it in the future. I guess it's just knowing that whatever I've. Whatever the intuition is that that's right in that moment, does that make sense?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Yep. I take that point. Yeah, absolutely. So what would you do when your intuition is saying work every day? Does it. Will it do that? Or how would. How would. How do we make sure that doesn't happen? Because that used to. That sounds like that used to be your intuition.

I don't think it's the intuition. I guess I was hiding behind it because it helped me to feel good.

Okay, fair enough. Okay, I'll take that point. So if intuitions are good words, that differentiates that what you've just said then. Which is. It's not about intuition. Intuition steers me the right way, whether it's hiding or feeling, you know, capable steers me over here. So you can use the word intuition. So, okay, so if it's about intuition, what do you think the question might be to help you focus continually going forward?

I think maybe it's like, what's your intuition telling you? It's listening to it.

Good.

Because I think that's where I was getting stressed. It's because my intuition wasn't telling me to work when she was telling me to hang or hang out with the kids. But I couldn't. I couldn't find a way through to let it go.

So that's good. And the one thing I'd like us to do, therefore, just to take it up another level, is for the question to give us more credit. What I mean by that is actually the question is somewhat complementary. So rather, you know, what do we do here? Is actually say this is. I'm not saying you should say this, but for the question going, what makes my intuition correct? Good.

Okay.

Yeah, something like that. So it's. So you're already giving yourself credit. Pat on the back. And then you just let that answer flow as well. Because what it will do is it will strengthen the answers even more. So rather than saying this, oh, maybe I should do this, and not knowing if that's a good thing. So how could you make what you just said, your question, into something that gives you a bit more credit?

I guess it's almost like saying, why question your intuition?

Absolutely. Now, the only thing wrong with that one. Yeah, fine. Is you might go, well, because sometimes you're wrong, someone else can do it better. So this is how pedantic I am. Is because one day that question you in the wrong moment if the question is not tight enough.

A crap answer, I guess, adding in when you're right at the end.

What could be a snap, A shorter, snappier version of it? It could be.

You know, it could.

Even be something like, why does instinct make me happy? Or it could be something like.

What's.

The benefit of instinct?

No, I think maybe the first one, because I think it's to. I need to remind myself that it does make me happy when I make a choice and don't question it. I'm pretty good at making good judgment calls. It's just I then question them.

What is the answer to that question? Why does instinct make me happy?

Because I'll always do what's right for me. Because I know what's right for me.

So could you hear in that conversation at the end the quality of that answer? See, I've not given her the answer, but she's voluntarily said that. That she trusts her instincts, that she knows what the right thing to do is. And that's quite a change in tune from what was the beginning of that session that. That we had together. You know, the questions that we ask ourselves are so important, but our brain is designed to help us survive, not make us happy. So our brain asks us questions that makes us look out for danger and spot problems and see things that aren't good. It requires conscious effort to change our thought patterns. But rather than trying to have positive thinking and tell yourself you're good enough, which rarely works, if you ask yourself a question first, your brain is sort of simultaneously both smart and stupid. You ask it a question, it just goes, okay, well, here's the answer. And so you ask yourself a question, you sort of almost trick yourself into giving yourself the right thoughts, in other words, the right answers. So you change the questions, change your thoughts, change your answers. But you need to have a real high quality question. As you heard in that conversation, we can kept sharpening the question, sharpening the question, sharpening the question. Because if you have a casual question or a vague question, you'll get vague answers. So if you have a really sharp, really specific question that really only provides the one answer that is the right answer, that is the best answer, and you keep reinforcing that question, you'll keep reinforcing a high quality answer for your life and you keep reinforcing that. Over time we start to identify with the answer that we are someone that trusts our instincts, that can be present, that can be available. This isn't just sort of having a casual thought or feeling. We want to shift our identity over time that needs constant reinforcement. So find yourself that high quality question. High quality question gives you a high quality answer. High quality answers give you a high quality life. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day, enjoy the rest of your life and I'll speak to you on the next episode. If you enjoyed this episode and are enjoying the podcast, make sure to subscribe to keep up to date with the latest episodes. And if you would like a free copy of my book, Very simple. Leave a review on itunes and email self belief chiefmail.com with the headline free book and we'll make sure to send you an audio copy of the book. Otherwise, we'll speak to you next time.