I wanted to title this post “what to do when you’re overwhelmed by the cesspit of conflicting advice on how to live your life” but it seemed just a tad too long.
Is it just me, or have you ever noticed that if you spend more than about five minutes looking something up on the internet, you wind up with about fifty gazillion bits of conflicting advice?
Is waking up earlier the key to unlocking your success or is it totally ok that you prefer to live your life a little on the later side?
Is it important to meditate once a day or is once every couple of days or even once a week ok? Oh my goodness, maybe twice a day is optimum. And do you meditate for twenty minutes or a full hour? And hang on, is meditation actually even necessary?
Is yoga the path to everlasting peace? Or would you be better off going for a run, getting out in nature or sweating it out in a kickboxing class?
Is Paleo the best way to eat? Or vegetarian? Or vegan? Or none of the above? Sugar is evil. So is fresh fruit ok…or not?
Is saving money responsibly the answer to your financial dreams or are you just creating a mindset of lack? Wouldn’t you be better off spending what you want and locking in the knowing that you can create more whenever necessary?
For your business, should you create content every day, every few days, once a week? Some of the most successful people write every day. But then, some of the most successful people don’t.
Should you write down everything you want and go the whole hog on creating exactly the life you want in exactly the way you prescribe it or should you surrender to the universe and just go with the flow?
And what about your routine? You have a morning routine, right? Because we all know by now that a morning routine is…well, you’ve just go to. Yoga? Mantras? Mandalas? Journaling? Bulletproof coffee? Green juice? Prayer? Reading?
But wait, I forgot about the evening routine. Goddess bath? Candles? Epsom salts? More yoga? A few chants? Crystals? Meditation? It’s all about self love, right? Yeah…don’t even get me started on the fact that the self we’re trying to love is all a figment of our imaginations anyway.
I don’t know about you, but there kind of comes a point when, after reading all this stuff for several years, it slowly starts to dawn on you…
If this person says X is the best thing and that person says Y is the best thing then…what’s actually true?
What actually is the best way to live? What actually are the best ways to create success? Internal peace? A life you love? Perfect health?
And this is exactly why, as my dear friend once put it, I will never be the leader of a country. Because the only thing I believe is that you have to look inside, tune in and feel what is right for you.
There is no ultimate way. There is no definitive answer. There isn’t even a definitive answer for you. What’s right one moment or one day isn’t right the next.
So next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the conflicting advice out there in the big bad world about how to live your life, I would so love you to remember this:
When you were born, you were born with the perfect guidebook for living your life. Every single person is born with that guidebook. It’s inbuilt into each and every one of us. It’s not that Alison got the guidebook and Michelle didn’t and so everyone has to go to Alison to figure out how to live life. No, no, no. We all got the guidebook.
So in any moment when you’re trying to figure out what the best course of action is for you, please, forget all the guidebooks out there on the internet (except the ones pointing your back to yourself). They are brilliant guidebooks, no doubt, for the people who wrote them. But they are not yours. Yours lives inside of you. So tune out the noise, tune into what feels true for you, and have faith that whatever comes is the perfect guidance for you, in this moment, in your life.
Love and courage,
Leah