I used to let other people tell me what to think.
Not in a dramatic way. No one was forcing me. I just didn't trust my own voice. When I had an opinion, I'd check it against someone else's first. Is this right? Does this make sense? What would they say?
I outsourced my own thinking without noticing. I thought I was being careful. I was just being quiet.
This week, I tried something: I listened to my own voice before I listened to anyone else's.
Not in big decisions. In small ones. What do I think of this song? Not what the reviews say — what do I hear? What do I want for dinner? Not what's trending — what am I actually in the mood for? What do I feel about this situation? Not what a friend would say — what's my first, unedited reaction?
It was uncomfortable at first. My first reaction was often: I don't know. Because I had spent so long letting others think for me that my own voice had gone quiet from disuse. It was like a muscle I hadn't flexed in years.
By day three, something shifted. I started to notice that I did have opinions. They were just buried under layers of "but what if I'm wrong" and "let me check first."
My own voice wasn't gone. It was just shy. It needed permission to speak. Permission I had been giving to everyone else.
I'm not saying my first instinct is always right. It's not. I've had plenty of first reactions that were wrong, unkind, or based on incomplete information. But here's what I noticed: even when my first reaction was wrong — it was mine. And I could only correct it after I had heard it.
If I skip straight to what others think, I never even get to hear my own mistake. I stay in the safety of borrowed opinions. And borrowed opinions have a ceiling. They can take you only as far as the person you borrowed them from.
This week's practice:
Before you check a review, ask a friend, or search for an answer — pause for five seconds. Ask yourself: What do I think? What do I feel?
You don't have to act on it. You don't have to trust it. Just hear it. Let it exist before you let it be overwritten.
I'm still learning to trust my own voice. Some days it's clear. Some days it's just silence. But I've stopped filling that silence with other people's voices right away. I let mine go first now — even if it stutters.
It's not about being right. It's about being present in my own thinking.