3 Times My Gut Served Me Well (& Helped My Stress)
Have you ever just had a profound gut feeling telling you that you need to do something? Whether it’s quit a job, leave a relationship, move on from a friendship, or even something small like taking a day off from working out…
Those gut feelings can be really powerful…but if you’re anything like I was, you may really struggle to listen to your gut.
I used to joke frequently that I didn’t have intuition. That my mom was, ironically, the intuition that I didn’t have. She always seemed to know when I was going to break up with a boyfriend. She even knew when I was going to leave my career, commenting recently “I never thought you’d stay in science.” She’s always known the things about me that I didn’t know myself. Until I started doing things that built my intuition: spending more time by myself, journaling, and meditating, for example.
You see, I never realized it, but your intuition can be built. That gut instinct can be built.
I listened to a meditation teacher, Emily Fletcher, describe it like this: your conscious voice yells and our intuitive voices whispers. But doing things like meditating helps to turn up the volume on our intuitive voice. And there’s a reason why we need to do that…
A while back, I posted a blog that’s kind of been collecting dust. In it, I described something that I call intuitive achievement. Basically, intuitive achievement is a way to do all the amazing shit you want to do in your life without burning yourself. I define it as “the achievement of goals, accomplishments, and fulfillment in life that prioritizes your thoughts, feelings, and emotions - without judgment...” Today, I want to show you all the ways that stepping into a place of intuition and trusting my gut not only served me but helped me to manage—and even decrease—my stress…
01. it’s helped me make career moves
When I think back on the decision that changed my entire life—quitting my Ph.D.—that decision was derived from, you guessed it, a gut feeling. It was one of the first times I ever felt that gut feeling. But, it was just there nagging at me…
I joined my Ph.D. program to become Dr. Ellyn. To be a researcher. That was the whole point. And yet, I just didn’t feel like I could get there. I tried and tried and tried, and I couldn’t find that success, but I also just couldn’t find the fulfillment that I wanted. I’d been externally validated for so long that I didn’t really realize or understand what it meant to listen to my gut because my gut feelings were never important to me—other people’s opinions and perspectives were.
But there it was. This feeling in the pit of my stomach just nagging at me.
And soon that nagging feeling became thoughts about the path that I was on.
And then those nagging thoughts led me to start taking action.
And soon I was leaving the only career I’d ever planned on.
It all started with this nagging gut feeling that I just wasn’t meant to be where I was. That this career path I’d put myself on—that no one had chosen for me—just didn’t make sense to me anymore. Just wasn’t worth it to me anymore.
And so I left.
In retrospect, I realize that following that first gut feeling is usually the hardest, especially for achievers. We’re so rational, so logic-driven, that making a decision from a place of intuition and feelings (especially about our careers) just doesn’t come naturally to us. It’s why it took me 1.5 years of feeling that feeling in my gut to finally decided that I needed to step away.
And in doing so, the emotional burnout that I’d been feeling for years dissipated. Up until that point, my values and fulfillment were shoved so far back on the shelf of my conscious awareness that I didn’t even know they were there. All of a sudden, they buoyed to the surface, as if to say “thank you for finally seeing me!”
Since then, though, it’s gotten a lot easier. Hell, my recent decision to step down from and leave management in my day job was gut-driven perhaps more so than it was time-driven. And it was this same sort of feeling as before. This feeling that said, “this just isn’t worth it anymore.”
02. It’s helped me build a business that I love
I have so many thoughts when it comes to how we’re told we “should” build business nowadays. There’s this unspoken pressure to build big and build quickly, as if you’re a failure if you’re not full-time and making 6-figures after the first year.
I’d fallen for that trap for years and, I’ll be honest, my early years of entrepreneurship and being a business owner were very similar to my years of being in science. Like uncannily similar. They were fraught with external validation, people-pleasing, and putting other peoples’ opinions and perspectives above my own.
“Ellyn, you should work with STEM professionals because you were one…” Okay! So I tried it.
“Ellyn, you should do time management/productivity coaching because you’re so good at it!” Okay! Enter creating a paper planner that—don’t get me wrong, I still like it—but that I don’t even use anymore.
I’m the queen of putting other people’s opinion ahead of my gut instincts and, make no mistake, that made it into my business as well. And yet, my business was burning me out. I wasn’t motivated to work on it. And, some of the time, I wasn’t even sure of or a huge fan of the very products I put out there. And I know more than anyone how quickly that emotional burnout, overwhelm, etc. can set back in when your heart just isn’t in what you’re doing.
The biggest shifts in my business came when I made a very radical decision: no more group programs! I had sunk so much money into group programs and coaching—some of which were great and that I have and will continue to recommend, some not so much—that I lost site of what I wanted. There were so many inputs coming in of these “leaders” in my industry telling me to do this or do that that I didn’t actually know what felt good anymore. So, to save my bank account and my sanity, I made a deal with myself. I’m not allowed to invest in any group programs this year, only revisit the programs I’ve already purchased. Honestly, as I type this, I’m intrigued and am thinking about doing this again…
But, anyways, this turned into a huge moment for me! It was so huge because suddenly I was prioritizing my own desires, gut feelings, motivations, etc. and as a result of doing that, burnout came to the surface.
I will never forget the day that I first had that aha: “Oh my gosh, everything I've ever done in the coaching space fits underneath the realm of burnout!” Health and fitness, self-care, productivity and time management, clarity, self-awareness, mindfulness … literally everything I'd ever had an interest in or considered coaching fit underneath the realm of burnout. And that realization only came to be once I stopped listening to other people and gave space for my gut instinct to finally start speaking up.
Since then, I’ve pivoted my offerings, ditched products, changed the structure of my business, and completely revamped things on those gut instincts. I’ll realize that something isn’t working anymore and stop. I’m not only connected with my gut, but I’m so much more self-aware because my instincts have a voice now. A voice that I’m actively listening to.
03. It’s helped me adapt my self-care to what I need.
Like I briefly mentioned—and some of you just know this because you’ve been with me since this time—I used to be in health and fitness as a coach with Beachbody. Now, don't get me wrong—I am a massive fan of Beachbody. If you ask me, their at-home workouts are completely unparalleled. But that being said, they have some thoughts around health and fitness and healthy routines that I just can't get on board with. For example, they have a sort of “no days off” mentality, and “push yourself until you can’t give anymore” perspective on fitness that, yes, might get you results…but that also has a dark side.
However, this is how I built health and fitness habits in my life: through Beachbody. So, even when I started doing burnout coaching, this was still how I approached self care and my health habits. However, I would quickly learn this wasn't the best way for me to take care of myself and my health.
Over time, especially as my business got bigger and my day job required more of me, I realized that I was approaching myself care and habits from the perspective of guilt. if I didn't do everything that day, I was somehow a slacker. I was somehow not enough. I was somehow not achieving everything I could or living to my fullest potential…
This thing that was meant to help when it came to my stress and burnout wasn’t because my expectations were so far off of what was practical. What was reality.
It was only through a lot of trial and error that I realized something important: this is not how self-care should be. Self-care should meet you where you're at, and once I started learning that I was able to adapt my self-care and my habits so that it did just that for me.
Now, when I’m not feeling 100%, I modify my workouts and expectations of myself for the day so that I don’t add to my stress, but instead manage it. And we can only do that through that gut instinct. through that intuition. Through listening to what our body, mind, and soul need. Sometimes, that might mean a lazy day of TV watching. Sometimes, that might mean stretching instead of a tough weight-lifting workout.
No workout program can anticipate the days where we need to go a little lighter. We have to do that for ourselves. And that’s perhaps one of the biggest places, day-to-day, that my gut served me. Sure, I have fitness wearables now that help me track me stress, but sometimes the only thing that can tell me what I need is me…
I’m sure that i could keep writing about this,
but these are the 3 ways that listening to my gut has had the biggest impact on me…
What do you think? How has your gut impacted you?
Drop a comment below!
