Welcome to Amplify with Jess Ekstrom. A show designed to help women get out of their heads and into their zones of influence.

Happy Monday, everyone. Here’s some food for thought to start your week.

Imagine you had an assistant that could fit in your pocket and tell you any piece of information you desired. How many stars are in the galaxy? How do I make a sourdough starter? (which I did try to follow all the directions for, and still failed). What does it mean when something uploads to the cloud? <laugh>

Well, I think we all know by now that we actually do have that assistant in our pocket, and it can tell us anything we want to know. That assistant is our handy-dandy phone.

When you think about it, it feels like this should be a great thing—we have access to all the information we could ever need. However, I feel like access to so much knowledge is actually one of the main thorns in our side that prevents us from acting like students, being beginners, and trusting ourselves.

There are a few reasons why access to this vast amount of information can kill our motivation. When we’re aware of them, we can help dodge these pitfalls.

The first reason is that overconsumption of knowledge actually distracts us from creating, because we’re too busy consuming. The best gift I ever gave myself was a $12 alarm clock. Why? Because when I set my alarm on my phone, I’d swipe up and immediately go down a rabbit hole of apps, emails, news, or any texts I missed during the night.

When I removed the temptation to immediately check my phone upon waking up, I realized something amazing: the world keeps spinning, even if I am not reading about it or communicating with people first thing in the morning. Your morning mind is precious real estate. It’s untouched by other people’s thoughts, podcasts, noise, worries, and requests. Why put that real estate up for sale when you could hold onto it and create your own ideas before consuming others?

The second reason is that being constantly fed information actually makes us feel like we should know everything by now, simply because we have access to it. If we have access to a whole universe of information, it makes us feel like being a beginner is somehow illegal. How could you not know what you’re doing? There’s a whole YouTube channel, a Wikipedia article, and countless TikTok experts on this!

As an adult, being new or a beginner at something can feel super vulnerable. This is why we need to keep training that muscle by exposing ourselves to moments where we have no idea what’s going on—whether it’s playing a new board game or learning a new skill. Exposure to being a beginner actually helps us reduce the stigma of insecurity when we’re in the process of figuring things out.

The third reason is that overconsumption of knowledge keeps us from our intuition.

This one is a biggie. I have a really bad habit of always using my GPS, even when I am driving somewhere locally that I’ve been a million times before. As a result, I don’t trust my intuition for directions when I’m driving because I’m so conditioned to rely on a GPS telling me where I should be going.

This idea of overconsumption of knowledge keeping us from our intuition really hit me in the face when it came to parenting—especially baby sleep. There’s a whole multi-million-dollar industry dedicated to baby sleep courses, feeding schedules, nighttime routines, products, sound machines…everything down to flipping your baby upside down before putting them in the crib, because it’s supposed to help them sleep better. Not even kidding.

The same way Taylor Swift fans keep tabs on her and watch her every move, I was basically a Swiftie for baby sleep. My husband and I consumed countless courses before the baby came. We read all the books. Every social media algorithm for me was about how to make your baby sleep through the night and pay for their college by the time they’re seven weeks. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but <laugh>, you get my point.

So, by the time it came to actually put everything I learned into action, I found myself drowning in acronyms from courses, tips from influencers, and flipping through books to find where they talked about pacifiers. Every decision I made felt like the wrong one, because there were twelve other options I had read about. Why did I sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” when the video told me to sing “Hush, Little Baby”? <laugh>

What I didn’t realize was that my default was just like my GPS—trusting other people’s directions before trusting my own. The access to information was keeping me from my own intuition. I wasn’t thinking, What do I think is right? or What is my gut telling me to do? I was just digging to see what the experts would say.

So I made a change, and hopefully this can help you too. I found one or two experts in certain areas that I trusted, unfollowed the rest, and only listened to them when I needed advice. I also made my intuition my default and only fell back on articles, books, and other information when I truly needed it.

Now, it’s up to you to find your balance—how much information is making you better, and how much is weighing down one end of your seesaw so heavily that you’ll fly off the other side?

Maybe it’s narrowing down your experts. Maybe it’s auditing your social media. Or maybe it’s just being mindful and pausing before you look for the answer outside first, and instead checking inside.

I’ll also share what another mom told me when I was drowning in these articles. She said to me, “You don’t need the resource if what you’re doing is working for you.” That sounds obvious, but it isn’t. If what you’re doing is working for you, your work, your family—you don’t need the supplemental resources. Let them go.

I’ll leave you with this: when we overconsume knowledge, we build a barrier between ourselves and our intuition. Learn to trust your thoughts before you consume someone else’s.

Thanks for listening to Amplify. If you’re a fan of the show, show us some podcast love by giving us a rating and review, and give us a follow at Mic Drop Workshop and at Jess Ekstrom.

Coming up on Amplify: What Imposter Syndrome Is. Imposter syndrome is essentially comparing ourselves to everyone else and thinking, I suck. So if we take that away and start to think in terms of, Okay, you know what? Jess is better than me at this one thing, but wow, I’m going to work hard to be supportive of that. I’ll share her content, ask for her advice, and seek her time and support. Now, it’s no longer a “me against Jess” thing; it’s a “me and Jess” thing.

This episode was edited and produced by Earfluence, and I’m Jess Ekstrom, your host. Remember, you deserve the biggest stage. So let’s find out how to get you there. I’ll see you again soon.