Why Should You Make More Decisions with Your Heart

Elusive Success?

If you’re reading this article, you may feel that you are not as successful as you’d like. You could be like a friend of mine (that I’ll call Sam). Sam makes good money, but she’d like to make more so she can take a trip each year, pay off her car-- those kinds of things, nothing extravagant. In her personal life she’d like to feel happier. Something seems missing.

If you Google “tips for success,” you’ll get results like these (the top results for me in March, 2018)

• 10 Tips to Achieve Anything You Want in Life
• 5 Real Life Tips for Success
• Richard Branson’s Tips for Success
• 21 Tips for Young Aspiring Entrepreneurs
• 10 Great Tips for Success in Both Life and Business

I did not follow my heart and buy these

I went through all the “tips” and found what you might expect: experts telling me to follow my passion, plan, focus, etc. (the list of common advice is at the bottom of this article with links to all the source material if your interested). What I didn’t find, was anyone telling me to follow my heart. Maybe that’s because following your heart is a bad idea. (See an article in Psychology Today that implores you NOT to follow your heart.)

Or…

Maybe…

Following your heart is exactly what you should do. Very counter-intuitive, I know.

Following your heart, your gut, and your head.

"Please take me home..."

I guess I should define what I mean by “heart.” I’m not talking about raw, knee-jerk emotion. This isn’t about seeing a cute kitten in the window and buying it because it pushed my emotional buttons. If we did that, we’d forever be buying kittens. What I’m talking about is leading with that part of your soul that is guided by what feels right. Before you say, you’re talking about intuition, let me stop you. Intuition is that feeling in your gut that gives you instant feedback based on your prior experiences. Intuition tells you if the nice man with the candy is actually a serial killer. By contrast, "heart" is that intangible swirl of feelings and emotions. This is the part of you that feels peace, happiness, and knows what is right and wrong. When something feels right. It is good and creates happiness or ameliorates sorrow, that is how I’m defining heart.

You may be tempted to throw jealousy, hatred, and anger into this mix. They are NOT “heart.” They are jealousy, hatred, and anger. I’m not going to make decisions based on those emotions. That is courting disaster.

The Year of Heart

I’m going to try another grand experiment on myself. The last time I did something like this, I called it “The Year of the Phoenix.” You can read about my adventures here. The Year of the Phoenix was about trying new things and taking risks... It is how I ended up getting murdered by a giant bunny rabbit on stage at a comedy festival. Yeah... really. The "Year of Heart" is about approaching decisions based on what I feel is right, rather than on what my head tells me to do. I embark on April 1, 2018 and proceed until March 31, 2019.

How Does it Work?

Here’s my protocol:

1. Decide whether a decision aligns with my heart.
2. Evaluate it with my gut. What does my intuition say? 
3. Evaluate it with my mind. 
4. If all agree I’m good. 

So, what’s different here? Well, if the heart and gut agree, I’m going to let them overrule the mind. I find that my mind is overly pessimistic and risk averse. It needs to be tamed. I’m going to live a year with this methodology and see what happens. I’m going to lead with my heart, take advice from my gut, and only use my head to prevent catastrophe.

We’ll see what happens...

Meditation David

Why don’t you join me? 

Send me an email or message on social media. Tell me how your year is going by applying this method. I don’t think it will all be peaches and cream or that I won’t make mistakes. What I’m hoping for is to see if I make better decisions that lead me down a path with more fulfilling experiences and a more vibrant life.

Often the journey is more important than the goal. I hope that living by heart, I will better enjoy the journey and not get so hung up on the end goal.

You can also find David on:

Learn more about the studio at https://www.impossiblestudio.com

Instagram

Facebook

Impossible Dream Studio
105 N. Patterson Ave
Florence, Texas 76527

BTW:

Here’s the top advice from the “success” articles I found on Google. Suffice it to say, there is a lot of “follow your passion” and “plan” kind of stuff in there. The most noteworthy:

• Focus
• Commitment
• Learn
• Stop being nice to yourself
• Get rid of distractions
• Don’t rely on others
• Plan
• Prioritize
• Sweat the Small stuff
• Positive input
• Focus on the big problems
• Follow your dreams
• Make a difference
• Believe in your ideas
• Have fun
• Don’t give up
• Add value
• Be extraordinary
• Start now
• Hunt for good mentors

Sources:

https://www.success.com/article/10-tips-to-achieve-anything-you-want-in-life

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-lorenzen/5-real-life-tips-for-succ_b_5268521.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26575792

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247540

https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-great-tips-for-success-in-both-life-and-business.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/everybody-marries-the-wrong-person/201006/bad-advice-follow-your-heart

#heart #passion #success #secrettosuccess #followyourbliss #bliss #meditation #joy #happiness #now #decisions #focus #positive #followyourheart #gut #followyourgut #intuition