Why You Need to Learn to Listen to Your Inner Compass

You can only fool yourself for so long.

Photo by Dunamis Church on Unsplash

I found a new topic to rabbit-hole into: Human Design. It’s a LOT to take in, and it’s incredibly fascinating. I’ve only scratched the surface of the insane complexity of the subject, so this article is not about human design. It’s about a big epiphany I had while translating and interpreting the meaning of my human design chart.

Here goes:

You can only fool yourself for so long.

Here’s why…

Everybody has an inner compass. Whether you’re somebody who assigns a lot of importance to having a life purpose or somebody who neglects all of that entirely and just goes through the motions, you have an inner compass.

I like how Katie de Jong described the concept of an inner compass:

Your inner compass is your true essence; the part of you that is all-knowing, all-powerful, creative, loving, and limitless — connected to the infinite part of you that come refer to as your ‘soul’. Your soul is not limited by fear, anxiety, or self-doubt. It knows the path of your fullest expression.

In other words — your inner compass points to the path you’re meant to be on without all the fear, judgments, insecurity and critique that the ego usually brings to the party. The ego (aka the mind, aka that asshole voice who tells you you’re not good enough) wants you to stay the same. Your inner compass knows you’re meant to do great things and wants nothing more than for you to not stay the same.

Here’s a part of the explanation of my chart:

‘’You cannot stray for long from a natural sense of self or purpose. If you do, you’re not being true to your nature and you’ll sense an inner angst or frustration, as if you’re swimming against the tide. But when you find your true path, there’s a ‘Nothing can stop me’ quality about your chosen direction.’’

When you get to a point that you realize your inner compass is pointing North, and your stubbornly ignoring that and going South, your overall wellbeing is going to suffer.

I’m not speaking from a textbook. I’m speaking from experience.

As I’m always happy to function as a guinea pig for the awesome readers on Medium, I’ll let you in on my own North/South fiasco.

I’m swimming against the current.

I’ve been working as a Strategy Manager (lots of left braining, data analysis and stuff) for a tech company and I’ve recently realized that I couldn’t care less about this direction I’m going in. I didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of this beforehand, but it started to dawn on me more and more that the thing I spend 40 hours per week on does not improve anyone’s life. For some people, that’s completely fine. For me, apparently, it’s not.

I’ve heard my compass loud and clear now: I need to go in the direction where I help people. Where I make a real impact on people’s lives, not a minor impact on one tech company.

These two directions are complete opposites. I know I need to go North (helping people) but I’m still going South (working for a company). This is really just the result of practicalities: I’m not skilled enough in any field to be really helping people right off the bat.

I took a leap of faith two months ago and I’m currently training to become a hypnotherapist, so I am preparing to go North.

And I gotta tell you — since I made that decision to at least prepare to go North, to go into the direction that I feel aligned with, I’m way less anxious and restless. Like, waaaay less.

It’s like my inner compass was like, ‘’Okay, I see you got the message and you’re working to move onto the right path for you so I’ll hold off with the anxiety for now.’’

Your overall wellbeing will short circuit and suffer when you stubbornly stay on a path you know is not meant for you. Your inner compass knows when you’re fooling yourself. And you’ll pay for it — be it in happiness, serenity, energy, or fulfillment.

The clearer I got on the fact that I was walking down a path that was not the right one for me (anymore), the more I started feeling the price in all those areas mentioned above.

Since I acknowledged this, explored what I could do to take a baby step in the right direction, and actually made the first investment, I’ve been feeling infinitely lighter and more confident.

You can’t unrealize what you realized.

I think the main thing here is that the moment I actually realized I was on the wrong path, the anxiety and restlessness grew exponentially. Before I realized it and when I was still obliviously going through the motions at my job, I wasn’t as anxious. Or maybe I was less aware of it. I think as soon as your ‘’compass’’ realizes that you had a look at that compass and realized you’re headed the wrong way, it starts to add to the pressure, making you tick like a time bomb.

So here’s my free advice for you: If you know you are walking the path that’s not aligned with your purpose and true essence, you’re going to feel the frustration and anxiety sooner or later. It almost sounds like a threat but really it’s just a friendly warning from a fellow purpose-searcher who’s been in your shoes.

Take it from me: if you have even the slightest idea of a path that might be right for you, where you’re more aligned with your true self than your current path, take a baby step towards it.

You don’t have to get it right on the first try. You might pivot to a different career and then realize that’s not it either. Then you adjust, iterate and move forward on a new one again.

For me, now it’s hypnotherapy. That’s the baby step I took in a different direction. It might be the case that I want nothing to do with it by the time I’ve finished my certification, but then at least I created the momentum to take another step in a slightly different direction.

And my compass has been suspiciously content and quiet lately… That must count for something, don’t you think?

Ripples make waves.

Whatever that thing is that you’ve been carrying around in the back of your mind, whatever the thing you’re scared to try or whatever idea you think everyone will criticize… Just take a baby step towards it. Ripples make waves.

Feel how that baby step makes you feel. Don’t pay too much attention what your mind tells you because our minds don’t always want what’s really best for us. Notice the reaction in your body when you think about that idea coming to fruition.

There’s an exercise that helped me get clearer on my inner compass.

When I close my eyes and visualize my life 2 years from now, there are essentially two visualizations I could do:

1. Life if I continue working the same job I know is not really meant for me: I automatically get a heavy feeling in my chest.
2. Life if I pivot towards helping people (especially working on my own terms, impacting lives, and living wherever I want): I automatically feel light and get a smile on my face.

Pay close attention to the physical reaction to your visualizations.

Your mind can lie to you. Your body can’t.

Parting Note

Here’s what I learned in short: if you stray too far from your true self for too long, be it for money, power or status, you’ll end up feeling anxious and unfulfilled. There’s really no way around it. You can’t fool yourself for too long.

So learn to listen to your compass, honor it, and know that going South while you know you need to go North in order to truly feel fulfilled won’t bring you any good.

Oh, and human design is awesome!