The Highest Authority In Your Life #MondayMusings

It’s often easy to forget this truth – you are the highest authority in your life. Please don’t misunderstand. It’s not an arrogant statement. It’s an affirmation that each of us know deep within what we really need, what we can do without, what makes us deeply content.

Sometimes I allow myself to forget that I know what’s best for me. I ask for advice – that’s a good idea, until I start to feel guilty about not following that advice. I don’t need to feel guilt, especially when I’ve genuinely weighed the advice and decided not to follow it.

By surviving passages of doubt and depression of the vocational journey, I have become clear about at least one thing: self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care it requires, we do so not only for ourselves but for the many others whose lives we touch. – Parker Palmer

I struggle with self-doubt – very often beating myself up for not doing more, constantly checking myself about my behaviour and choices. While I get that reflection and corrective action are necessary, self-doubt can be crippling. I am aware that it hold me back from being all I can be.

The Highest Authority In Your Life

My sense of self-judgement needs working on. I have to keep affirming the fact that I know best for myself.

Reading one of Seth Godin’s latest posts, I am reminded that this is a common problem.

Those things you’re bad at? You’re not nearly as bad at them as you fear.

And those things you’re great at? Probably not nearly as good as you hope.

We beat ourselves up a lot, but often focus on the wrong areas, avoiding the soft spots and doubling down on the places where we are well armored.

Mirrors are a fairly new invention. For millennia, we had little idea what we looked like. And only in the last two generations have people had any clue about what they sounded like. Today, even though we’re surrounded by sound, video and light reflecting on us, not to mention comments and the social media maelstrom, we’re still quite bad at self-judgment.

You’re better than you think you are.

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