We have become a generation that reaches for advice almost instinctively.
Before making a decision, we search.
We ask strangers on the internet what career to pursue. We listen to podcasts about relationships while driving to work. We save Instagram posts we’ll probably never read again. We watch thirty-second videos promising to change our lives.
Information has become our first response to uncertainty.
Perhaps because almost without knowing it, we quietly began to believe that someone else must know us better than we know ourselves.
How can we not when there is an endless stream of therapists, coaches, mentors, experts and influencers all suggesting a different morning routine, productivity hack, manifestation techniques and a ‘five step process’ promising to transform our lives.
We’ve never had access to more information than we do today and we’re constantly being told how to become happier, healthier, wealthier, calmer… More productive… More feminine… More successful.
The list never ends.
So why, with more advice than any generation before us, do so many of us still feel lost?
Perhaps the problem isn’t that we don’t know enough. Perhaps we’ve simply forgotten how to hear our own inner wisdom.
The Information Age
We live in an extraordinary time.
Within seconds we can access centuries of knowledge from our phones. We can listen to world-renowned psychologists while driving to work, watch neuroscientists explain the brain over breakfast and finish the day with a spiritual teacher reminding us to trust the universe.
Knowledge has never been more accessible and yet, certainty feels increasingly rare.
Many of us are no longer asking, ‘What do I think?’
We’re asking, ‘What does everyone else think?’
Before asking ourselves, we ask the world.
Before trusting ourselves, we poll our friends.
Before taking a step, we consume another podcast. Another book. Another opinion.
Little by little, information became a substitute for intuition.
When Did Advice Become a Commodity?
There was a time when advice came from a handful of trusted places. A parent, a close friend, a teacher or a book that had earned its place on your shelf.
Now we’re exposed to thousands of opinions every single day.
Social media has democratised knowledge in remarkable ways, allowing incredible ideas to reach people who may never have discovered them otherwise. But it’s also created something we’ve never experienced before: an economy built on advice.
Algorithms reward certainty. The louder the opinion, the further it travels.
The more definitive the answer, the more likely we are to click.
Nuance doesn’t often go viral and curiosity rarely trends. We’re no longer simply consuming wisdom, we’re consuming content.
And sometimes those two things are very different.
What the Science Suggests
Psychology has long recognised something known as analysis paralysis.
The more options we’re presented with, the harder it can become to make a decision. Add decision fatigue into the mix (the gradual depletion of our mental energy after making countless choices throughout the day) and it’s easy to see why so many of us feel overwhelmed before we’ve even begun.
Then there’s something even more subtle. Confidence isn’t built by collecting information, it’s built by making decisions. By trusting yourself enough to discover that you can handle whatever happens next.
Every time we outsource our judgement, we unintentionally weaken the very muscle we’re trying to strengthen. We begin to believe someone else must know better. Not because they do, but because we’ve stopped practising listening to ourselves.
Ironically, the more advice we consume, the easier it becomes to doubt our own voice.
Perhaps that’s why so many of us feel exhausted, despite doing everything ‘right’. We’re carrying not only the weight of our own expectations, but the expectations of every expert we’ve encountered along the way.
One expert tells us to wake at 5am, while another insists sleep is the ultimate form of self-care. One encourages hustle, while the other encourages surrender. One insists discipline changes everything and another believes healing begins with rest.
Individually, much of the advice is valuable. Collectively, it can become deafening.
Inner Wisdom Has Always Been Different
Almost every spiritual tradition points towards the same truth. Wisdom doesn’t shout, it whispers.
It isn’t usually found in the loudest room or the longest podcast. It often arrives in stillness.
That might be during a walk without headphones. In the few quiet moments before the rest of the house wakes up. Halfway through journalling, or in that fleeting feeling you almost ignored because it didn’t make logical sense.
Whether you call it intuition, inner knowing, your higher self or simply your gut instinct, many traditions suggest we already carry more wisdom than we realise.
The challenge isn’t finding it. The challenge is creating enough silence to hear it.
And perhaps that silence has become one of the rarest luxuries of modern life. Not because we’re incapable of finding it, but because we’ve become uncomfortable with it. The moment there’s space, we fill it. With music, a podcast, a voice note, the television or another scroll through social media.
And so maybe wisdom has always required something advice never could.
Space.
I’ve Been Thinking About This A Lot
The older I get, the less interested I become in collecting answers.
Don’t get me wrong, there was a time when I genuinely believed the next qualification would be the missing piece, or the next course, next podcast, or the next mentor. If I just learned a little more, I’d finally feel ready.
But something unexpected happened. I accumulated knowledge, yet I didn’t necessarily accumulate trust. I could explain nervous system regulation. I could understand attachment. I could discuss grief, trauma, identity and behaviour. But when it came to my own life, I still found myself asking everyone else what they thought.
It made me wonder whether knowledge and wisdom are two entirely different things.
Knowledge tells us what could be true.
Wisdom helps us recognise what is true for us.
I’m not writing this because I think we should stop learning. Quite the opposite. Curiosity has shaped my entire career. I’ve studied counselling, explored neuroscience, nervous system regulation, Reiki, astrology and human behaviour because I’m endlessly fascinated by what makes us who we are.
Learning has given me language for experiences I once couldn’t explain, but learning also taught me something unexpected. No amount of knowledge can tell me who I’m meant to become.
That part has always been an inside job.
Becoming Isn’t About More
This is something I’ve been reflecting on more and more through Becoming Her.
Becoming isn’t necessarily about endlessly adding more, it’s about gently removing the noise.
Not because learning isn’t valuable – it absolutely is – but because there comes a point where growth stops looking like consumption and starts looking like discernment.
Learning which voices expand you and which voices make you anxious.
Knowing which perspectives invite curiosity and which quietly pull you further away from yourself.
We’ve become incredibly good at seeking answers, when perhaps the greatest skill all along isn’t finding another one, it’s learning to sit with a question long enough for your own answer to emerge.
Because maybe wisdom was never about knowing everything, it’s about knowing yourself.
Why Becoming Her Exists
I never wanted Becoming Her to become another place telling women who they should be. There are already enough voices doing that.
Enough checklists. Enough rules. Enough people insisting they’ve found the one right way to live.
I can’t tell you who you’re meant to become, and I don’t believe anyone else can either. Only you can recognise her when you meet her, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need support. We do.
In fact, I believe the right support doesn’t replace your inner wisdom. It helps you remember it.
Sometimes we need someone to ask the question we’ve never thought to ask.
Sometimes we need another woman to say, ‘me too’, so we realise we’re not alone.
Sometimes we need someone to gently hold up a mirror, so we can finally see ourselves more clearly.
That is my intention for Becoming Her.
Not another voice telling you what to do, but a place where your own voice becomes easier to hear. A place to ask better questions. To become curious. To explore science alongside spirituality. To gather perspectives without losing yourself in them. A place where you feel seen, heard and understood, because my role was never to give you the answers; it was always to help you hear your own.
Advice shows you the map, but wisdom is the quiet part of you that knows which path feels like home.
A question to leave with you…
When was the last time you made a decision before asking someone else what they thought?
With warmth,
Becky
Founder, Becoming Her