Kelly King Anderson writes about entrepreneurship, parenting, and internet marketing at one of my favorite blogs, StartupPrincess.com.
Recently a friend asked me, “What does your heart say?†when I was faced with a very challenging business decision. Instantly I gave her my reply…Of course, I knew the answer, but I wasn’t trusting myself—instead I was asking her, “what should I do?†I wasn’t ready to embrace the next step and put my “heart into action.â€
Sometimes following your heart is very scary and overwhelming—this was the case for me. My friend “held my hand†over the phone as I confronted my fears and even mourned for the loss of my big dream being redefined. Following my heart meant I had to turn off the fire of a start up I had worked on for two years (and won 2nd place at a national MBA business plan competition) and turn on the fire of another business (Start Up Princess) begging for my attention. It meant saying “no†to dreams and saying “yes†to unknowns and creating new dreams…redefining who I wanted to be and where I wanted to focus my time, energy, and resources.
Once I got through the next couple of days of telling my board of advisors and mentors my new plans and taking the huge leap of faith, things settled down and I began to feel more peaceful about life. I believe that peace is your inner voice telling you “you’ve done good, real good.†Now I’m asking my heart, “what’s the next step?†and trying to pay close attention!
So, my challenge to you is…what does your heart say? Is there a decision you’ve been putting off? Is there a feeling nagging at you? Now have the courage to listen and act upon those feelings. Once you respond to the pleadings of your heart, you’ll feel peace again and no doubt you’ll be headed in the right direction. Your heart knows best.
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Kelly King Anderson is the Founder of Start Up Princess.com, a site dedicated to women entrepreneurs. Kelly is passionate about helping others succeed and believes all people have every gift, talent, and ability to make their dreams come true, they just need a little encouragement and a great network. Kelly and her prince, Matt try to live happily ever after with their three young children.
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Sparkplugging Founder Wendy Piersall is dang passionate about helping people start & grow a business while maintaining life balance (somehow). 
Easton Ellsworth is owner of 
I am a new reader, and I love your blog! Rock on.
Kelly,
your article really spoke to me. I’m a new mom entrepreneur with two young kids. A year ago I started Gissy Bella and I never imagined where the decision to start this new ‘adventure’ would lead me! It seems that my goals, business plan and strategies have changed several times and each time I seriously doubted myself! Sometimes change can be so hard to make! Well, thank you for sharing your experience.
I wish you all the best with your company.
Thanks Marina! Sounds like you’ve figured out how to listen to your heart and head very well…your business is growing strong! Congrats for your success!
Great words of advise. I struggled with the same thing when we fist got started. The thing I had to keep telling myself was this is not the time to pursue my other dream. What experience I learn through my current venture may help me in the future with something else.
How do you know your heart isn’t just telling you to jump ship when things get hard? When things become too stressful, one can find an easier path and always seem more peaceful. If successful people finish what they start, when does a person who wants to be success know when to quit?
New opportunites are perhaps the biggest obstacles in being successful.
Chusten, I believe there is a huge difference between taking the easy way out to relieve stress, and following your heart.
Indeed, my heart has led me down the more difficult path far more often than the easy path!! “Listening to your heart” is a combination of intuition, listening to inner wisdom, and brutal self-honesty.
In the short term, it doesn’t always lead to inner peace. But in the long term, I have found that listening to your heart ALWAYS leads to inner peace.
Does that clarify things for you?
ah, two of my favorite bloggers in one place. This is a great article and I’ve had to weigh head vs. heart decisions this last year as I’ve launched my business. It’s hard to know which is right but I agree with Kelly, I think following her advice here will allow you to be happier over time, and know that you aren’t compromising “what’s right.” Much easier said than done, though.
Jason Alba
CEO – JibberJobber.com
Kelly,
You couldn’t have said it any better! I know exactly what you mean and have been dealing with the same emotions over the past year. Following your heart can present huge challenges and obstacles to overcome, but I truly believe that once you get to where your “heart” wants you to be, life will feel calm and complete! Thanks for the great entry!
Liz
Great post, Kelly! This semester has been about that debate for me. My heart’s been telling me to go solo for years (which is why I ended up at MBA school in the first place), but as I near graduation, more and more voices were saying I should consider working for someone else for a bit.
I tried to follow that logic–getting more experience first makes sense, right?–but couldn’t get my heart into it. I finally let it go once and for all a few weeks ago, and have since felt much better about the future!
Now I just need business and revenue models….:-)
Thanks Brilliant Friends who left comments,
Here are my replies:
Stephanie, you co-founded http://TodaysMama.com initially because you followed your heart and now you are demonstrating your head…you’re realistic about your involvement…I admire you!
Chusten, excellent points, bro! (this is my real brother!) I understand your point, but I also feel that you should take the “path of least resistance” sometimes when your heart says go for it…my other venture isn’t “off” forever, rather onhold until kids are older or until I have adequate funding to hire the management, etc. Until then, Start Up Princess is calling my name.
Great to see you here and thanks for the support as always, Jason! Wendy, Jason will be at the SOB conf, meet up!
Liz, glad to see you’re feeling peaceful about following your heart, keep it up!
Amy, business plan help is my specialty! Give me a holler when you’re ready and I’ll be your #1 Fairy Godmother for it.
I have to just add that sometimes our heart leads us down paths that may not materialize right away or may change directions…its ok, because sometimes the road picks back up again later with a new connection or opportunity to realize the old dream at a better time.
Make a wish, make it happen!
Kelly
I think I need to go back and read “The Alchemist” now.
I really loved that article.
Chusten, I will read the Alchemist too. Here’s an inspiring quote from it:
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself,” the alchemist replies. “And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity
Jenny, glad you liked the article. thanks for stopping by eMoms at home and Start Up Princess.
WOW! I have many examples in my life where ‘Ask and you shall recieve’ plays a big part (and most likely many more examples that I missed). The perfect topic on the perfect day – just what I needed! Opportunity is knocking for me and I am ansering! I know in my heart that there has been something swirling around me – a quest – a new life for myself – a new career. The Universe has been knocking for a couple years now and I am JUST getting to the door.
Wow, great post Kelly. I just grabbed your feed from Start Up Princess.
I’m with Wendy’s comment:
Something everyone should know…our hearts don’t know fear. Our hearts know love and all the qualities around love.
Yet, our hearts don’t live in a vacuum. Rather, our hearts are part – the central part, in face – of our entire being. So when we feel fear or sadness or hurt our hearts respond accordingly.
But our hearts are enormous vessels. I once read, “Nothing in creation can contain the Reality of God, except the human heart.”
If this is true, what would happen if we take off the shackles of our beliefs, fears, pain, hurt and blocks and lived from this vessel? How would our lives be different?
((this may be a double comment, but I didn’t see my comment after posting it. Sorry if it is))
Wow, great post Kelly. I just grabbed your feed from Start Up Princess.
I’m with Wendy’s comment:
Something everyone should know…our hearts don’t know fear. Our hearts know love and all the qualities around love.
Yet, our hearts don’t live in a vacuum. Rather, our hearts are part – the central part, in face – of our entire being. So when we feel fear or sadness or hurt our hearts respond accordingly.
But our hearts are enormous vessels. I once read, “Nothing in creation can contain the Reality of God, except the human heart.”
If this is true, what would happen if we take off the shackles of our beliefs, fears, pain, hurt and blocks and lived from this vessel? How would our lives be different?
Yup, Kel that’s maybe my fav quote from The Alchemist:
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself,†the alchemist replies. “And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
Fear of loss is a greater motivator than a hope for gain.
Kelly – This was a really great post and I’ve really enjoyed the subsequent conversation. It warms my heart and bolsters my resolve to hear others going through some of the same things in regards to twists and turns in the road.
This comment from Chusten really hit me square between the eyes:
“New opportunites are perhaps the biggest obstacles in being successful.”
Yep, yep, yep! So very true!
Off to check out StartupPrincess!!
Sue, Congrats for choosing the path of your heart. You will be amazed at what the universe has in store for you! Watch The Secret, http://www.thesecret.tv
Dawud Miracle, I don’t know if that is your real last name, but if it is…that is beautiful. With a name like that you surely expect magic everyday. We all should, we all deserve to have the desires of our hearts. You’re right, you have said, “our hearts don’t know fear”. Fear is all in our heads…
At the pony rides today with my 3 yr old (who sadly just recently is learning fear) I met a 10 yr old girl scared to ride the pony. Her mom said, “she can ride horses fine…but the pony scares her because she got thrown off once.”Hmmm…but she rode today and her mom had tears in her eyes.
Chusten, Thanks for the inspiration here. If we can attract what we want to gain then we will stop attracting what we fear!
Lisa, You’re so right…us entrepreneurs are always distracted by the next big idea…! But to persist day in and day out and keep following our hearts, that is really impressive. I hope I can fulfill what I’m trying to create with Start Up PRincess.
Thanks to all who have read these comments and who are following their hearts!!
Blessings to all.
Kelly
John,
So true! It doesn’t always make logical sense to follow our hearts. Once we walked away from a financial opportunity that was almost 100% guaranteed to make a million bucks and I knew it; but it wasn’t the place we were supposed to invest our energy or time…we had to follow our hearts and now, 5 years later, we know why!
Irene,
Good for you to trust the process!
Anyone who has ever stopped by a friend’s house on a whim and found a friend who needed a hug has “followed their heart”…hundreds of examples in our lives, it’s rather exciting to listen and wait to see what happens.
Trust your heart everybody. Thanks for this opportunity to share my experience.
Great conversation… there’s a point you mentioned, Kelly:
“It doesn’t always make logical sense to follow our hearts.”
True, and I’ve found it depends on which direction you’re looking from.
My heart can show me things that my mind doesn’t know (as in your example about the financial opportunity), and so I can think, “that doesn’t make sense!” But doing that implies that my mind’s knowing should trump my heart’s knowing.
If, instead, I take what my heart knows and bring it together with what my mind knows, there always seems to be a place where the two come together — I see what I couldn’t see before, and there’s harmony.
Anyone else’s experience, too?
Adam – I agree with you almost all of the way. But there have been a couple of times in which it didn’t seem rational at all to listen to my heart – but based on past experiences of not listening (the fallout!!), I’ve learned to simply listen and trust, even if it doesn’t make a shred of sense.
I have been thinking about this post since it first went up. I have had days of clarity where I feel like I listened to my heart and made the right decision – scary but right. Then the voices come making me wonder and question what I had moments/days before been so sure of. So I am reading this oen over to quell the fear and trust those decisions. They came to me for a reason and IF they are not the brilliant ideas they will lead me to where I need to go. Trust the process!
Sue, thanks for the comment here and sharing your fears about trusting your heart. You are on the right path…The Secret film/book says that you don’t need to see all the way to NYC while you drive, only the next 200 feet. One mile at a time…;)