You're not wrong

How often do you make decisions based on what you simply seem to know, in your core, to be true? 

You can call it instinct, or intuition... or just your 'gut'.  Whatever it is, do you trust it?

If you do, you have probably been called impulsive. Unpredictable. Even crazy.

But here's the thing: you're not wrong.




A little story
When I was 20, I leaned in and kissed him.

We talked and kissed again. Made vague plans for a future date. Parted for the night.

Actually, we parted.

I had seen him a few times before that particular date.  We had met at a party of mutual friends.  We shared a love of buffalo wings. He had me in tears with laughter with stories about his brothers.  He was a grad student in engineering.  We went out a couple of times - dinner, a picnic. He was kind of perfect.

Kind of.  Until I kissed him.  And then we never went out again.

For a long time, I tried to figure it out.  What had gone sideways?  I would still occasionally see him in the student union or out with a group of friends, and he was friendly but distant.  Over and over again, I replayed the time we spent together.  I did not mistake the attraction. I did not misinterpret our connection. I did not make up the desire.

My intuition was not wrong.  But somehow, my action was not quite right.

How often do you follow your gut?
Our intuition, inner voice, gut instinct... choose the term you prefer... picks up on cues beyond our basic visual and audio data.  It picks up on micro expressions our eyes don't have time to register but our brains do.  It picks up on vocal quivers that indicate a deeper level of feeling. It reads the energy behind the words, the gestures that indicate nervousness or excitement.  Our intuition tells us when someone is repressing a strong emotion, when someone is lying - to us or to herself- or when a situation is about to go sideways.  It's that feeling you get that goes beyond your logical thoughts or the activity you see around you.

Using your intuition - respecting it and responding to it - is a powerful action. It's trusting yourself fully.

But there are times when even though your intuition is spot on, the action you take based on that may seem wrong - that is, it doesn't generate the response you expected given what you "know".  As in the case of that kiss. Was I wrong for going along with my intuition?

I was not.  Because while I questioned my ability to read a person and situation for a long time after that, I did later learn that my intuition was spot-on but there was another reason, which had nothing to do with me, that triggered the engineering student's sudden distance.

More importantly, by following my intuition, I  learned. Quite a bit. I learned that Mr. Near Perfect was not for me, nor would he ever be.  I learned that spending hours replaying scenarios and making up new ones with imaginary conversations is a colossal waste of time. I learned that I can spend many days making up 57 counter arguments to what my gut is telling me and still won't be any the wiser until I finally take action.

I gained a greater sense of trust in myself and in my observation skills.  I gained the joy of being spontaneous. I gained the pleasure of owning my reactions - emotional and logical - and not feeling the need to explain them or apologize for them. I gained the freedom to just be myself.

If you follow your gut, allow yourself to be that curious, somewhat unpredictable person who's eager to burst out, what do you have to lose?

But more importantly, what do you have to gain?


Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to create an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here. 

Are you one of the Walking Dead?

2014 was not an easy year. 

I would sit at my desk, fingers at my temples vainly massaging at yet another migraine, and think, "Thank God, this year is almost over."  I would lean against my kitchen counter, too tired to cook but too tired to go out, fighting the desire for a bag of potato chips and trying desperately to tune into the words of my daughter as she describes her latest art project.  I would race from work, to Kendo, to the store, to the vet, to the doctor... wondering when I could grasp a few moments of silence on a solitary run. Yes, 2014 was a year long on hours, short on relief.

But last week, in a rare moment of downtime, I sifted through my photos from the past year.  And I realized, as I scanned the moments captured in between the piercing migraines and soul-thrashing potato chip cravings, that I have been focusing on quite the wrong things.

One year ago, this week, my kids and I completed a six-day road trip from Arizona to Florida, stopping along the way to run three miles amid the aliens of Roswell, devour the best breakfast in the United States in a tiny southwestern diner we stumbled upon by chance, explore the fantastic underground caves of Sonora, relive the brutality at the Alamo, enjoy dinner on San Antonio's Riverwalk and spend New Year's Eve reveling on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  Shortly after that, we finished the Special Ops Spartan Sprint in Tampa, kayaked in the Everglades, paddle boarded along the quiet beaches of Naples, broke out of a Miami Beach prison cell in 60 minutes, hiked the White Tank Mountain in Arizona, walked Hollywood Blvd in Los Angeles, celebrated my 20 year wedding anniversary in London, caught many pounds of snapper in the deep blue waters of the Gulf, practiced marksmanship under an FBI sharpshooter instructor (who also happens to be my uncle) and ran a few more obstacle course races...

So what was I rubbing my temples about?

Oh, there were challenges in 2014. Believe me... more than a few.  It's so easy to remember the negative.  To focus on the moments that cause our hearts to drop into our stomach, that keep our minds whirring and problem solving into the wee hours of the morning.  These are the moments that keep us trapped in the negative, that cause us to freeze, to worry.  When has worry ever, ever, been a productive part of your life?  It isn't.  It paralyzes us so that we're not living, but we're in zombie
mode, not really paying attention to what's going on around us.  It's autopilot, just going through the motions to get through the day. Who wants to just 'get through' a day?

Reality? Those moments make up parts of my life, yes. I will never fully eliminate worry or stress. I can't control my beloved mutt, Sika, much less the rest of the world.  But when I look back at 2014, I don't want to remember the time spent reconciling the household budget, calling the plumber yet again for the clogged toilet or taking Big Ben to the mechanic. Again.  Instead, I want to recall the excitement on my oldest son's face when he climbed inside a Cessna for his first flight lesson; cheering my youngest son, in full Kendo gear, as he brings his instructor to his knees is a swift, graceful move with his sword; singing random not-so-pop songs in Big Ben with my daughter, enjoying these last few months with her before college looms next fall;  drinking wine in the gorgeous central square of Strasbourg, Germany, with my husband. I choose to remember crossing the Continental Divide and exploring the vineyards in Napa Valley with my Dirty Girl partner.  I soak myself in the memories of a challenging half marathon, a lovely dinner on the beach and successfully (sometimes) staring down Sheila, my self-sabotage gremlin who adores those damn potato chips.

Why would I let the mundane and temporary worries of a late work project or a failed water heater overshadow all this?

But I did.  We all do.

So for 2015... and here after... let's not go there.  Let's not live in temporary crisis mode.  Don't let the clogged toilet outweigh the success of brewing a perfect pot of coffee. Stop worrying about your kitchen being clean enough for the neighbors to pop in and instead enjoy their conversation and fresh baked cookies.  Let the laundry sit another day if it means a few extra hours of the Walking Dead marathon with your kids.  Is it more important to have a clean bra or shared moment with your offspring? I am not minimizing the importance of a clean bra... really, I'm not... but I can't recapture that moment with my kids and I can always squeeze in a late night load of laundry if I'm desperate.


There are so many things we "can't" do because the mundane becomes our "must."  This is our guilt gremlin talking. It's our fear. We must get the dishes done now. We must organize the pantry.  We must sweep the garage.  We must do these things that tick off the checklist for daily life management.  But why? What stops in our world, what crashes down on our fragile heads if the spice rack isn't alphabetized, if the carpet isn't vacuumed this moment or if you Febreze your bra because you forgot to wash it?  (Right, like you never thought of that...)

I am not advocating total irresponsibility.  I am not suggesting you never balance your checkbook, clean your house or vacuum out your car.  I am merely asking you to consider where, given your choices for living your life, those tasks fall in your order of priority and tackle them accordingly.

A full life doesn't have to be exotic or expensive.  My thrill on New Year's Day? I discovered a new brand of coffee that will now gloriously fuel my addiction.  My best moment over the holidays?  Lunch with my family, listening to all the inside jokes and inanity (insanity?) that creates our home culture and that surely looks and sounds bizarre to an outside observer. But we know what we mean and there is joy and comfort in that. What is living successfully?  You decide. But make it about you... not about the details that can overrun your life.

My house will always be chaotic and what my DGC partner affectionately calls "lived in".  But my door is always open.  My home cooked meals sometimes start with dessert.  But the conversation over brownie sundaes and grilled cheese sandwiches is always entertaining.  And no matter how hard I try, I will always be behind on laundry.  But I am not missing a single episode of the Walking Dead with my boys for the sake of clean... anything.

That's where my focus will be in 2015.  Where is yours?

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.

Your most important relationship

I was driving to work.  It was 7:15am on a Tuesday.

I had meetings starting at 8:00am and was booked back-to-back for most of the day.  I brought my lunch but couldn't quite figure out, looking at my calendar, at what point I could actually eat it.  I had three high profile projects in various stages of development to shepherd forth and a meeting with the CEO to walk through one of them that afternoon. Also on my agenda - getting my daughter to a doctor appointment, transferring money between bank accounts, and oh... Christmas shopping.  Right.  Someone is going to want a gift.

As I drove past one fast food place, I thought, "I love their breakfast sandwiches... I should..."

The next block, I passed a family restaurant and remembered the ad I had seen on TV just the night before about breakfast all day and a new steak and eggs deluxe something or other.  What time was my first meeting?

Two blocks further was my favorite coffee shop.   They have an egg and sausage wrap that's really quite delicious.

The cravings continued to tease me until I reached the office.  No, I didn't stop.  And it wasn't because I have amazing willpower.  It was because I wasn't hungry.

I realized this when I passed the coffee shop but before reaching yet another family restaurant with bursting omelettes of goodness and syrupy french toast.  I wasn't hungry because I had eaten breakfast before I left the house.  With coffee.  Logically, I couldn't justify taking the extra time to get to the office or the extra calories.

But I *felt* hungry.

Meet Sheila.  She's a gremlin.
That was my stress talking.  Let's call her Sheila.  Sheila, my stress gremlin, wasn't just talking.  She was screaming.  And twisting and biting.  She was throwing quite the fit and crying, "Pay attention to me!  Feed me!"  And I very much wanted to listen to Sheila.  I wanted to calm her down, help her find a happy place to settle in and not worry so much.  Poor Sheila was so uncomfortable and it seemed the only thing that might settle her was a juicy, fat-laden, carb-heavy steak, egg and cheese bagel sandwich.  With some hash browns.  And maybe another coffee, extra light with two sugars.

I usually drink my coffee black, so when I'm throwing in the added junk, I know that's Sheila making the decisions.

What stopped my car from turning into any of the beckoning parking lots and drive-thrus was rational thought.  Rather than feeding Sheila, I needed to take some time to figure out just why I thought I needed food.  I sat in the office parking lot for a few moments and applied some lipstick. A quick mental inventory told me that my 2pm meeting was a group call with another person presenting, so I could get lunch in at that time. Mental note: do remember the mute button; no one needs to hear you chewing. Ever.  Two of my high profile projects were already in flight.  The next step on one was a simple check in with the rest of the team to gauge progress.  The next step on the other required me putting slides together and time was already booked on my calendar to devote to that.  I was prepared for the CEO meeting and have no control over his reactions, so no use worrying over that.  My daughter's appointment was close to the office.  And the Christmas shopping... well, that's the fun part.  So at the end of my mental inventory, the heavy burden of stress suddenly felt more manageable. I had a plan. I had it all along.

For me, a few moments of rationalization helped skew my day - and my diet - in a more positive direction. Perhaps for you, there's a different process - meditation, self motivating pep talks, looking at photos of something you love... what it is that brings you mentally back on track and helps your own Sheila find a happy place?  In my office, I keep a photo of my kids from a road trip we took over a year ago.  They're standing in front of The Alamo, smiling and relaxed.  When I am feeling harried in the office, I purposefully pause to study that photo.  That's my mental reminder of why I do what I do... and that mini mental break is often enough to shake loose the coils of drama or chaos and allow me to regroup with purpose.

Your body is a... pair of red stilettos?
Our relationship with food is more habitual and more impactful than we think. In fact, most of the time when it comes to our relationship with food, we don't think.  That's a bigger problem... because
our relationship with food is reflective of our relationship with ourselves.  Tired of the adage, "your body is your temple"?  Fine.  Make it your Ferrari.  Make it your tiki hut.  Make it your little black dress, red shoes or any other icon that you feel represents your best "you".   Be Wonder Woman... or Cat Woman... or Xena the Warrior Princess... or any other figure you choose.  Research has proven that if we preface a food decision with "Would Xena eat this?" our choices tend to reflect what we believe Xena would choose. We can and do indeed mold ourselves after our icons.

If you know me well, you know I'm not saying you should never indulge.  I have never been known to turn down dessert.  Or potato chips.  Especially not potato chips...  But as much as I love the potato chip, I love me and the life I live enough to say no - not all the time, but often enough.   And believe me, each and every decision point is just that... a very conscious decision.  And some days, Sheila gets her way. (But then it's not just a handful of potato chips... it's the bag.  And some hot, crispy tater tots... maybe a pint of Ben & Jerry's to top it off.  Sheila can be a very hungry girl.)


Food is certainly an easy way for us to privately examine and really dig into how well we love ourselves.  I'm not suggesting we all adopt radical diets nor that everyone should be a certain weight or maintain a particular BMI.  What I am saying is that if we take a moment to be more mindful of what we put in our mouths, we're being more mindful of not just of how we're treating our selves, but why.

When you can answer the why, you can break through to any goal you set.


Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.

It's just fear... in really good shoes, but it's still fear

It's very cliche to talk about the journey.  

We're all on a journey.  It's all about the journey, not the destination.  We each have our own journey.  But a journey is a hard thing - it implies long distances, singular adversity and undoubtedly a little bad weather.

What if it's not a journey?  

What if it's an expanse... wide open spaces that surround us.  Make a slow, 360 degree turn.  We can choose to go in any given direction.  We can choose to head into a city or a sleepy village, a forrest or the beach. We can choose to move towards people or away from them.  We can choose to eat chicken breasts and mixed greens or fried chicken and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy.  Or my personal favorite, lava cake and tawny port...

We can choose.

So why don't we?

Think of the number of decisions you make in any given day, week or year.  How many of those reflect what you believe is the 'right' decision - the decision that will have friends, family and society at large smiling kindly at you?

A lot.  We make a lot of decisions to just get along.  We seek affirmation and value from those around us and we make decisions that make it more likely we'll garner that approval.  We choose our brand of peanut butter based on what was the cupboard when we were kids.  We like the cars our fathers drove.  We majored in parent-approved fields, dated friend-approved men, wear peer-approved clothing and adopt boss-approved behaviors at work.  And we do much of it without thinking. This is how we're trained.  This is how we get along.  We stumble into each stage of our life, following the pattern of what's expected without questioning what we want. We go to school, we get married, we have kids, we have jobs...

What happens when you make a decision that is truly reflective of what you want and who you are?  For starters, you might actually get what you want.  That's the upside.  But the rest...?  Our family might think we're making bad choices.  Our friends might disapprove.  Our peers may raise an eyebrow and gossip.  Our boss might deny that promotion. We might be ignored. We might be shunned. We might be happy. That's a lot of mights.

And it's a lot of fear.

We keep up appearances.  We move forward through the parent-approved life playbook, marry the friend-approved man and dress in our peer-approved high heels.  And we fall forward into these lives not even conscious that much of what drives us is fear... "in really good shoes, but it's still fear," (thank you, Elizabeth Gilbert).

Decisions are not always as easy as buying a jar of peanut butter or choosing between classic black leather pumps or a strappy red heel.  When you consider divorce, illness, a new job, a cross country move... other people are involved and impacted.  Sometimes legalities add complications.  But at the end of the day, you still have to make a decision.  Or put another way, you have to decide how to best explore your possibilities.  What criteria will you use?

Most of us don't even see the 360 degree expanse of the world that is around us and the unending possibilities.  We are focused on that journey, with predetermined curves and bumps, with the embedded idea of a predetermined destination.  Most days, we aren't even sure which turn we took to get us this far along the journey in the first place.

So I invite you to stop. Make the 360 degree turn. Slowly. Really take in the possibilities. Forget the journey. Open your eyes to the expanse around you.  It can be overwhelming.  It can be deafening.  It can be freeing. There are decisions to be made out there. They are ours to make, to consciously choose and own.

Put your favorite heels on - you know, the strappy four-inch ones that your mom hates and your best friend covets - and step firmly forward.  In any direction you choose.


Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.