Why Following your Heart is the Best Decision

I watched this video by Elliot Hulse on the idea of following your heart. He talks about why in the society we live in today, we hold back from following our dreams because it’s considered as going away from the path that things like our family and the school system set up for us.

They say the ‘real world’ begins after you finish your high school diploma and that’s true. We get pressured by society, what our friends are doing, what our family wants and what’s perceived to be as the most logical thing to do.

Your ‘heart’, that deep feeling inside of you wants to do something others would call crazy. Maybe you want to travel the world, become a famous rockstar or, in the case of me and a lot of you reading this blog, become a professional footballer.

But your head stops you. Your head says it’s illogical to at 16, 18 or 20 years old to even try doing something like that. So you forget about it… but only for a brief moment, because that feeling of “what if?” will always be there.

If I had never taken the decision to follow my heart at age 16,  I would be a version of a person not even close to what he is today. I would have never explored the boundaries of the mind and body, facing fears, and truly understanding how much crap you have to go through to achieve big things. I could go on and on about how much I learnt, but most of all, I would have never learnt how great it feels to do something, knowing that your heart is in the right place.

And what happens if you realize that your dreams weren’t what you had expected them  to be, or the vision you had in your head? Well, you can live with the satisfaction for the rest of your life knowing that you tried, and not with the knowledge of “What if?”.

Because maybe you were meant to be a coach, or as Elliot Hulse found out, more than playing American football in college, he really loved lifting weights, and even more, talking to the kids he trained about their personal problems which is how he came to find his true calling as a mentor.

I know that all of you have been told at some point to follow your passions. Maybe you’re thinking that doing that doesn’t make sense, but ultimately it’s the smartest decision you could ever make because by following your heart you’ll find yourself, and what it really is that you came to do on this earth.