When To Listen To Yourself, And When To Tell Yourself To Shut The Hell Up
By Kim Quindlen
Listen to yourself when the thought of trying something new brings goosebumps and butterflies to your body. Being nervous means you’re on the right track. Tell yourself to shut the hell up when you start thinking of all the ways that trying something new could make you look silly, stupid, or like a failure. The people that let those thoughts impact their decisions are the ones who always fail.
Listen to yourself when you know you know you’re with someone who’s wrong for you. Listen when your gut is trying to tell you that settling is not the answer to happiness. Tell yourself to shut the hell up when you start thinking that it’s better to be with someone who’s not right for you than it is to be alone. Because it is much better to be by yourself than it is to wake up ten years down the line and realize you’re married to someone you don’t love.
Listen to yourself when you desperately want something, but you know you don’t yet deserve it. Listen to yourself when you want benefits and rewards but you know you cannot have them until you work for it, until you earn it. Tell yourself to shut the hell up when you feel the sickening sense of entitlement seeping in – when you sense yourself trying to feel victimized or cheated over something you haven’t worked hard enough on yet to deserve. Working your ass off and refusing to quit will get you farther than entitlement ever could.
Listen to yourself when you know you need a break – whether that’s a break from your phone for a couple hours, or taking a personal day from work, or taking a whole weekend to catch up on sleep and just take care of you. Tell yourself to shut the hell up when you start thinking I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Ignore yourself when you feel like being “so busy” is the equivalent to being important. There is nothing wrong with giving your mind or your body a break when you truly need it and have earned it.
Listen to yourself when you know someone is treating you poorly – a friend, a coworker, a family member, a partner, a boss. Trust yourself that you know when this is more than just “being sensitive.” Tell yourself to shut the hell up when your mind tries to convince you that this is just the way it is, and that you don’t want to stir up drama. No one should walk around expecting to be praised and coddled, but everyone should walk around expecting to be treated with kindness and dignity.
Listen to yourself when that sickening feeling of doing nothing sinks into your stomach. The feeling where you know you’re not reaching your full potential and really aren’t doing anything to challenge yourself or force yourself out of your comfort zone. Listen to yourself when you know it’s time to stop sitting around. Tell yourself to shut the hell up when you start listing reasons why you’re too busy to do anything else, or why you’re perfectly fine in the comfortable box that you’re in. When you start recognizing that your life needs more change or more spark, your nervous ego is going to start trying to tell you why it’s a bad idea. So just tell yourself to shut the hell up.
Listen to yourself when you’re feeling disconnected. It’s your mind trying to tell you something. Put the phone down, look up from your computer, look away from the television. Look into the eyes of the person who’s trying to talk to you. Tell yourself to shut up when you’re convinced you need to read your texts right in this moment, that your boss needs you to email them back this very instant. Put the screen down and look at the person across the table or next to you on the couch or laying in bed with you. You’ll feel a weight lift that you didn’t even know was there.
Listen to yourself when the world is quiet, when you’re actually by yourself for once and your soul finally has time to talk to you. Then tell yourself to shut the hell up when you start mentally listing a million other things you should be getting done right now. Stop thinking so much. Just listen.