The journey of listening to and obeying my inner voice

I remember watching a short video by Oprah Winfrey a few years ago. I have been trying to find it over the last few months to no avail, because I don’t know what it was called. What I remember however is that I got one message from that video which has stuck with me for a lifetime. To say the least, it has become a lifestyle for me. It was about paying attention, listening, hearing and most importantly, obeying your inner voice. 

It is hard sometimes to explain these matters to a desirable level of comprehension by the reader or listener, as they are rather spiritual than physical. However, there indeed is an inner voice. It is not audible.  It is simply that urge to do or not do something that comes once, and twice and again. 

I learnt from that video almost ten years ago, about the importance of paying attention to these subtle urges from our own whether it is mind or soul - I will leave the nitty gritty of what it is for the experts. But today, I would like to share a few of my personal examples and why I believe that you can allow yourself to be guided. These are some values and practices I have picked along the life journey and have so far, almost always, worked for me.

1.   Start with the end in mind. 

If I give you all the examples here you may be compelled to believe that I have just been enrolled to a cult or something of a sort. I can assure you, I have not. Let me give you just a few examples that have quickly popped to my mind.

When I decided that I was going to pursue a master’s degree in 2014, I made two other decisions in tandem. That I was going to take it in a foreign country and that I was going to need a scholarship. Right. I also set out a plan. I was going to go to the office on weekends to do my applications. Once I was well into executing my plan, I could vividly envision the day I was going to tender my resignation letter and I even started writing it before I had received any scholarship award news.

Now this may sound crazy – I cannot explain what causes the other. But what I know for sure, when you really want to achieve something and you have dedicated time and effort to it, you should be able to envision its outcomes. It works the other way around too – envisioning a desirable future feeds your motivation to work harder in achieving it. On the other hand, lack of motivation and the inability to envision the outcome may be a sign that you are potentially on the wrong path. So here, paying attention is especially essential. These two are cues: how motivated do you feel when you are working on your course? How visible is the future when you close your eyes and imagine it?

A similar pattern happened when I decided that I was going to pursue a PhD. The idea had occurred to me in 2017, two years before I actively started working on it. In 2019, I had two critical decisions to make: 1. leave my job and relocate to join my family in Nairobi, 2. stay out of employment for at least six months and use the time to reflect about my next steps (one of them became the PhD journey).

The reason I wanted to stay out of work for six months was because I had come to a point where I could no longer envision a somewhat clear future with respect to my career. I was working for a great company and had opportunities to grow. But there was a broken link between what I was doing and what I wished to become. I believe this is a continuous challenge we are faced with at most stages in our lives. The younger you are however, the more chances you have to take. Know when, and have the courage to act.

These dilemma moments I must say are turning points in a career. When your mind constantly nags you to figure out what’s next and receives blank answers, it tends to manifest in lack of motivation. You start pursuing multiple things at the same time. If you are not intentional about swimming against this wave of low motivation and dispersed priorities, you will indeed wonder how it happened you have been in a junior position for almost decade. 

On the other hand, these dilemma moments may also trigger irrational decisions. Such as taking on a new job without objectively analyzing your career prospects in that new job. In other words:

... you need to give yourself a fulfilling answer to these questions: “why are you leaving the job?” Does the new job resolve the issues you are leaving this one for?

My main reason was to be with my family. It was surprising to me how insignificant this response appeared to most people who asked. But remember:

... you need to answer objectively and satisfactorily first to yourself before answering to anyone else.

Some of the popular reactions I received were “I hope you are not going to give birth to a football team”, “are you going to be a stay at home mum?”, and a few concerned comments implying their disbelief about how I could fall in love so blindly. 

Well, I am not at all suggesting that you should retort towards comments like these. In fact, refrain from any such approach. Take all these comments as inputs to your decision-making processes. Use them to prepare backup plans whenever possible. Definitely have multiple plans. In terms of responding, simply assure them that your mental faculties are intact and you are making the decision while aware of the risks. 

Most importantly, there is no shame in failure. Acknowledge that your decision is not full-proof. It may fail. But even if it does, it was still a well-thought decision at the time of making it. 

Remember, some people have a very well developed “I told you so” attitude and would be quick to say that the soonest you fail. It’s their business, not yours.

2.   Ego is the worst enemy of finding solutions – bag it. Try even the silliest, least probable chances

Once I had received admission from a university in the UK for my Master’s degree, I was now on a journey to seek funding. I did two unlikely things: 1. I posted in one group here on LinkedIn that I was looking for a scholarship; 2. I sent a LinkedIn message to one of my connections who is a former government minister, hoping that he could link me to some government funding. Remember:

... the importance of obeying your inner voice and doing the things it directs you is so that at the end of the day you can sit back and confidently say I did my best, instead of what if I did this and that. 

The same thing happened when I was applying for my PhD scholarships. This time I did one silly and unlikely thing. I sent a LinkedIn message to one of the influencers and just asked if she could sponsor my education. Seriously. Well… you can laugh. Even I am laughing. The thing is, before you do it, you feel like it’s the perfect thing to do and you even get convinced that it may become successful. When they never get back that’s when you know it was a lost cause. But again, you listened, and you obeyed. Perhaps is it true that:

... when you do your best, the universe conspires in your favour.

3.   Know when to stop 

Like I said above, you must always be honest with yourself. Was whatever you did, to the best of your ability? You see, we sometimes have the tendency to justify stuff. I didn’t go to church because I slept very late – well, if you wanted to go to church you would have gone to bed earlier. I was too busy I didn’t get the time to do that task – yet you had an hour of scrolling on Instagram. We are not perfect, that is true. But we must have the courage to say:

... I did not do my best; I could have done better. Or I don’t have any reason to justify why I haven’t gone to church. I will do better next time.

Another example happened both times I was searching for funding for my Master’s and PhD studies. For the former, I first subscribed with multiple scholarship websites and shortlisted a number of potential scholarships I would apply. I added to the list whenever I came across a new opportunity. At the same time, I kept submitting and checking off those I had applied. In total I made about ten applications, received regrets for most and no answers for others. It was the very last in my list of applications, the BG scholarship in which I was finally successful and it happened at a point when I had completed my round of applications. 

To digress a little, I learnt about the BG scholarship in a conversation here on LinkedIn. A gentleman called James Mughenyi shared the link when I asked on that conversation and the rest is history. I have told this story quite a number of times especially when I spread the gospel about the importance of social networking ;)

The approach I took for seeking my PhD scholarship was slightly different. I started by setting out the maximum amount of time I was going to use for the applications. I settled on three months, January to March 2019. I said whatever applications I will have made in those three months would be enough and if none came through, I was probably going to visit my plans B, C, etc. 

Remember the most important thing here is that by the end of March when the time window would close, I was supposed to be able to honestly tell myself that I had done my best and it was enough. So, I embarked on the journey, submitted a dozen applications and thankfully, one of the two last ones went through.  

Whatever your cause is, you must be willing to put in the effort. It’s no easy work. It’s often a case of no pain no gain. But remember to have a moment when you can say this is enough. Also be flexible to change gears.