So this tool that I’m talking about today isn’t actually a tool as such. It’s not a thing, something you can buy or touch, plug in or customize. Yet, when it comes to your business, your celebrant practice and the way that you run both, it really is a must-have ‘tool.’
You may have seen an awesome post that my business wife Claire wrote yesterday all about it. Accompanied by a simple graphic which said ‘trust your gut,’ she touched on this extremely important topic and inspired and paved the way for me to dig more deeply into it. Yep, we’re high-fiving the trust-your-gut tool.
It doesn’t matter how good your celebrant training is or was, or how much celebrant knowledge you have, trusting your gut is something that celebrant training cannot teach you but which is as valuable, if not more valuable than anything that you’ll ever learn.
As a celebrant you cannot always rely on what you’ve been taught. Or told. Or shown. Or given. You’ve simply got to listen to yourself and go with what your gut is telling you. We are such big believers in intuition and gut instincts at the Celebrants Collective that Claire has made it one of the ten guiding principles that we teach our celebrant trainees on our celebrant training courses. Because it’s THAT important.
Your gut will guide you in so many ways. Like when during a ceremony, your gut wants to let you know that it’s okay for you to say things that aren’t in your script because the moment is perfect for it and what you’ll say will be welcomed and loved. Like when your gut tells you it’s time to raise your prices. Like when your gut tells you that a venue or a couple aren’t your cup of tea. Your gut is the gift that keeps on giving. Ew, that sounds a bit gross, but you know what I mean!
My gut-trusting mechanism is probably the sharpest tool I have in my business tool box. I listen to it for EVERYTHING and it’s become so intrinsic in everything that I do. I now recognise it as a physical feeling. It’s a real tug in the pit of my stomach that pulls or pushes me into the place that I need to be.
Here are some of the ways I’ve trusted my gut over the years and some where I should have listened.
Setting up the Celebrants Collective
My gut told me that celebrants of all backgrounds and experiences needed and wanted a space where they could come together, where they could learn together and lift one another up with positivity and support. My head tried to talk me out of it with all manner of BS excuses, but I went with my gut. My gut was right.
Expanding my wedding business
My gut had actually been telling me for a long time that I needed to expand my wedding business and bring on celebrant associates to create a team, but I managed to avoid listening to it. Until I finally did and I never looked back, and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
A great teaching opportunity
I was given the opportunity to teach celebrant business to celebrants who belong to a different celebrant organisation. It was such an honour to be asked, but my gut instantly said not to do it. It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in. And so I said ‘no’ and it turned out to be the right answer.
But I haven’t always listened to my gut, and like most things, it’s something you have to get good at doing and to practice tuning into and going with what your intuition is telling you.
There was a time that as a newish celebrant, after being insulted during a Skype video call with a potential couple, although they had apologised afterwards I still felt very raw about the whole thing. So when they came back to me by email a few days later, saying that they wanted to book me, I should have listened to my gut, which was yelling at the top of its lungs (yeah guts can have lungs, lol!?) ‘Noooooo, don’t do it.’ But I did. And the whole process of working with them turned out to be a horrible one. No celebrant should drive home after a wedding saying ‘thank f*ck, that’s over,’ as I did, and only because I didn’t listen to my intuition.
So what about you? How good are you at tuning into your intuition? What situations have you had when you should have listened to your gut? How has listening to your gut paid off?
If you hadn’t picked up on it already, the moral of this story is to listen to yourself more than you probably already do. Because even if you don’t think it, you know more about what’s right for you, than anything or anyone else.
The end.
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