Personal Power

“Erin, can I come over right now? I have a big decision to make TODAY and what I am thinking of deciding is a little crazy.”

This was a few weeks ago when a friend of mine had a job offer in her hand. This was something she had been talking about, dreaming about, and wanting for over a year. But it was in an entirely different field than where she had spent the last two decades of her life. And it meant that she would have to take a significant pay cut to go after it. I knew she had given considerable thought on all of her options, but she was having a hard time making the final call. I invited her over and we did a day of Personal Power review to help her get clear on what she really wanted.

I reminded her that many of us underestimate the Personal Power we have inside of us. We are born with an inner strength and resilience that helps us learn and grow, but we often forget about it or take it for granted. It is our Personal Power that guides us into action. It is what allows us to build strong relationships, bounce back from adversity, and chase boldly after our dreams. Our Personal Power comes from our core, our basic instinct and intuition that guides us through this lifetime.

But we often fail to recognize this Personal Power. We ignore our inner voices time and time again, to the point where the whispers are no longer loud enough for us to hear. We set aside our own deepest wishes, thoughts, and desires to satisfy those that are expected of us. We may end up in the wrong career, the wrong relationship, living the wrong lifestyle all because we forgot about our Personal Power.

The good news is that we can get back in touch with it very easily. All we have to do is re- engage with our Personal Power. As I did with my friend Amanda, there are 3 easy things we can all start doing today to recapture our Personal Power.

• Listen. When we are faced with a big decision, one of the things we can do is get quiet and listen. When we put everything down – turn off our phones, TVs, ipads, computers, and get rid of any background noise and just sit, we can start to hear our inner voice. Closing our eyes and paying attention to our bodies is an incredibly useful experience. If it is a decision we should be saying yes to, there can be a physical reaction in our bodies. We may feel a sense of lightness in our spirit, an opening up of our chest, our shoulders releasing, and our spirits calming down. We feel lighter, happier, excited. When it is a decision that may be against what we really want, the opposite may occur. We might feel constrained, restricted, our muscles may tense up and tighten. We might feel our shoulder slouching down, inward, where we are physically curling up and getting smaller. Spending a few minutes really reading our bodies can tell us a lot about ourselves. We have infinite intelligence right within us that we can tap into.

• Awareness. When we are self aware, we have a better understanding of what we want out of our lives, and what we are really up for. In the case of my friend Amanda, starting a new career at the age of 40 would mean she would have to start all over. She would have to walk into an entry level position in a new workplace where she didn’t know anyone. She would be out of her element. But she knew herself well enough to know that she was up for the challenge. She knows that she gets bored easily and that she loves change – for this situation, it would suit her perfectly.  A new challenge that would energize and excite her. For other people, depending on their situation, starting all over could be daunting and exhausting and make them feel physically tired and drained.

•  Trust. When we start trusting ourselves again, we start recognizing our own inner power at play and can make better decisions. This means that we keep the promises we make to ourselves. It looks like waking up early to work out when we told ourselves we were going to get back into shape. It may mean not staying up to finish watching our favorite Netflix when we have been saying we want to get more sleep. It is saying No to things we know are bad for us even though it would be easier to say yes. When we start trusting ourselves, we get back in touch with our Personal Power and know that no matter what happens and that no matter what we decide to do with our lives, we will be okay.

 
Your Personal Power is there waiting for you to tap into.

So tell me in the comments below, how are you going to get back in touch with your Personal Power today?