Why Is Everybody Telling You To Follow Your Heart?
You open Facebook and all you see is an array of inspiration and motivation pushing you to follow your heart, to do what passionates you, what makes you happy. You go over to Instagram and it’s the same.
Is this a new trend? Most likely. But, should you actually follow your heart? That’s up to you. If you ask me, I would tell you, hell yeah you should! But, that’s only because I’m one of those inspiring to do so.
But recently, as I noticed that more and more people are actually taking action on this. As I see so many people quitting their corporate jobs in search of doing something they can be passionate about, I began to wonder if “follow your heart” is really an advice we should be giving.
I don’t think this following your heart thing is for everybody which, is why I don’t intend to convince you to do so. Actually, I don’t think you need to quit your corporate job or sell everything you own and move to Bhutan for the sake of following your heart. But, what I do think you should do, is listen to it.
What does follow your heart mean?
For a while, you’ve been flirting with the idea of a change in your life. You don’t know exactly what it is but, there is something inside of you telling you, “you must go for it.” Whether going back to university, starting your own business, moving to another country, whatever it may be, it just feels right thinking about it.
You know how it goes, you’ve seen the movie. A girl quits the horrible corporate job that was making her life miserable, decides to open a bakery and next thing you know, she has stores nationwide, struck millions, found the love of her life and has a great family.
If only…
Let’s face it, with everybody telling you to follow your heart, it may seem as the solution to all your problems. As if nothing bad can happen when you go after your dreams because passion will lead you through. Debt, bankruptcy, divorce and who knows what else, can also happen when you follow your heart!
So, why is everybody telling you to follow your heart? What is so great about it if it doesn’t make success certain? Driven by this question and my own experience I concluded the following.
Why you should listen to it!
Deciding to follow you heart can be the most rewarding thing you may ever do. But, I don’t think that the rewards come from the fact that you try to live your passion instead, I believe the whole things come from the actual journey.
To be able to follow your heart, you must go through a process of self-reflection that allows you to get to know yourself better. This process gives you an inside view of who you are, what you are passionate about, what your goals are, your dreams, and so on.
These may all be assumptions at first but, they are a great starting point. As you embark on your journey looking to prove them, you will have to do a constant reflection of your experience. It’s here where I believe where the success of following your heart comes from.
By checking in with yourself every now and then, you begin to understand yourself more and more. With time, this allows you to make better decisions and get ahead with your goals. At the same time, it also gives you better tools to select the people around you and especially your relationships.
Little by little, as you continue your journey, your self-confidence builds, with each challenge you overcome, you grow and learn how to keep a strong positive attitude. Soon you discover that to continue moving forward you need to develop a growth mindset, giving you the ability to continuously improve yourself.
The new you.
It’s this personal growth what takes you to success and not quitting the “trap” in which you find yourself now.
The beauty is that you don’t need to give your life an 180-degree change to test these assumptions. If you sit down and figure out what you are passionate about, if you figure out who you are and what you want, your environment will give you enough resources to test your assumptions.
You don’t need to give your life an 180-degree change to follow your heart #life #dreams.
Wanna open a bakery? Work on Saturdays in one to learn about it. Not willing to dedicate your Saturday for it? Then good luck going after your dreams. Then maybe I shouldn’t tell you the journey can take years!
But if you are willing to do what it takes, then be ready for your emotional roller coaster, full of spins, ups and downs because finding yourself and building a life around doing what you love it’s not supposed to be easy; otherwise, everybody would do it.
The beauty is that along the way, everything you develop will add up, making you a whole new person, giving you the skills you need to succeed in any endeavour you decide to embark in. And this is exactly why people tell you to follow your heart.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Are you thinking of following your heart right? Please share in the comment section below what are you struggling with right now or was.
If there is anybody you know who should read this post, make sure to share it with them.
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Originally published at skillsoflife.net on April 21, 2016.
