For years, I told myself: I should have listened to my own intuition. I knew what was coming — so why did I keep asking everybody else? Again.

For years, I asked everyone around me before I made any decisions. I told myself I was being considerate, inclusive, kind.

Sometimes I got so confused by all the suggestions that I couldn't decide on anything — not even something as simple as what to eat for dinner. Do you ever do that?

I often went with what other people suggested rather than trusting my own inner voice — the job someone else thought was a great choice, the plans someone else preferred. I put myself last — the last person considered, even in decisions I had to live with afterwards.

This built up for years. Until one day, it snapped — after another weekend spent doing everything everyone else wanted, with nothing left for me. I was DONE being the "I just want everybody to be happy" version of me.

The new, stronger, more powerful version of me arrived, and she said: I love you all, but things are going to be different from now on.

5 things I stopped doing:

1. I stopped listening to what everyone else told me was right for me — the career they thought I should have, the choices they thought made sense — because they weren't the ones who had to live with it afterwards. I was.

2. I stopped shrinking my ideas down in meetings, in conversations, in my own head, until they felt small and safe for everyone else. I gave myself permission to let them be as big and as loud as they actually were.

3. I stopped explaining every decision — why I said no, why I needed the afternoon, why I wasn't doing it their way — to people who didn't care to understand it anyway. I started keeping those reasons just for me.

4. I stopped chasing the next thing I thought would finally make me enough — the right weight, the right look, a bigger salary, or a business that finally took off. I decided I was enough today, not once I got there — and the second I believed that, I felt liberated.

5. And I stopped waiting until I had more time, more money, or more confidence before I started. I took the one small step that was already in front of me — especially on the days when I felt like I didn’t have all the answers.

That New Me hasn't disappeared since then — she's who I've been becoming every time I choose my own answer, my voice, my style and my purpose.

What I realised is that the quickest way to stay stuck is to keep living for what others - our parents, our friends, or our colleagues might think and keep putting off the thing we actually want, deep down, for someday.

Claim your power. Trust you are capable enough to create the life you dream about.
Trust your intuition. It's the only compass that's ever going to get you home.

You've got this 👑

Keep shining & keep smiling ✨ Have a super powerful day 🏆

Natalie O'Rourke 💖