Lesson #3,271: Trust Yourself
Update: A friend points out that this post makes things sound bad. Nah. I didn’t trust my gut, and feel shitty about it, but it’s not a big deal. The world isn’t ending, and I’ve moved on and so has everything and everyone else. Things are fine, and in fact going well.
I’ve made the same mistake twice in the course of just a few weeks. I’ve been running a start-up for three years now (only two of them full-time, it should be said) so you would think I would have learned this lesson a long time ago: Trust yourself.
At the end of the day it’s your decision to make. Everyone — everyone — is going to have an opinion. Everyone is going to offer input. Everyone is going to have their own way of doing things, their own style. They’re going to offer you the best advice they have based on the (often imperfect) information that they have.
It’s your responsibility to listen to all of these people. If you didn’t your decisions would often be quite poor. But, after careful listening and consideration, the decision is still yours to make. You have to trust yourself. If you think that you know the right way to go — if, in your gut, you’re sure of it — it’s your responsibility to go that way just as much as it’s your responsibility to listen to everyone’s input.
In the space of just a couple few weeks I’ve gone against that gut feeling — that strong inclination — twice. Both times I was wrong, and it hurt both me and the company. Lesson learned.
