To follow your own path is hard!

Let’s face it, to follow your own path is damn hard. Anything else is a lie. It’s probably because deep down most of us really want to fit into our closer community or societal norms as such.

Although, I sometimes wonder whether maybe deep down most os us don’t feel like we belong, sensing us more on the outside than being part of an actual community.

When I speak about following your own path, we maybe need to talk about what that means.

What does it mean to you? To follow your own path, is it important or not?

Personally I never set out with the mission to follow my own path, yet a lot of friends always say:

‘You seem to be so guided by your own intuition.’

I believe, I kind of couldn’t quite help it and maybe it’s also due to the artist’s soul many of us have. That’s kind of calling out to us with certain impulses on what to do next or little hunches aka visions.

One of the most challenging things is, when we follow our own voice, that it can at times be very lonely. When we have to forge the path, when we feel lost in between for example.

Sometimes thinking:

"What the heck am I doing, actually?”

At least I have been in this place numerous times…

Maybe that’s because to me personally it always felt like to follow my own path is to be able to listen to my intuition. The trouble with the intuition is it usually only shows you the next step and then the next one after that. There’s a lot of trust involved, as well as uncertainty.

A grand plan for the next ten years doesn’t exist. But I guess there are some people who follow a longterm plan and still are able to walk their own path. Maybe it means something entirely different to them, who knows.

Probably this would be a greater philosophical question about what these longterm plans are all about? Our own wishes, or some indoctrinated dreams sold to us by the mainstream or by a subculture we pay attention to? It’s tricky…

There are narratives about what success should look like or the things we should have accomplished by a certain age. How we should eat as an alternative person, etc. You name it.

When I look back at my vision boards I used to make, quite frankly, they were quite influenced by the subcultures I was emerged in at the time. As well as the belief, that everything was possible…

Some of them were the typical things we are supposed to have, a happy relationship for example.

Maybe that’s exactly why I feel allowing for more improvisation as well as intuition is immensely supportive in following ones own path. It feels truer to me. Because it somehow bypasses all the brainwashing as well as the ‘supposed to’s’.

It’s complicated, because on the one hand I feel when we do follow our own path authentically we have more chances finding people, that are on the same wavelength with us. On the other hand we need to stomach the good chance, that we will be on our own often too.

It can happen when we stay truthful to ourselves and our own values.

For me for example it’s always been important to be authentic, especially when it comes to marketing. I hate any kind of manipulation games. It for sure is a longer, more winded road doing business that way.

Unfortunately there are also a lot of enterprises built on the foundation, that they actually don’t want people to be authentic nor following their own path. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to sell their product anymore.

I think it’s easy to forget because we seem to live in this free, individualistic society, where we have so many choices.

Sometimes I wonder whether following your own path has actually become more difficult now? Or maybe differently difficult would be more accurate I guess.

Another question is:

‘What’s the win in following your own path anyway?’ You tell me!

Maybe we’re able to say we stood in our own integrity or maybe there’s not such a big gain after all. I’m being a bit provocative here.

But seriously, has been following your own path important to you in your life? Or has it been more crucial to belong? Or a bit of both?

If both could coincide, this would be an optimal scenario obviously… But what if it turned out to be one over the other?

Let me know what you think on the matter, as usual, I would love to hear.