If you’ve been following all the right strategies but still feel disconnected from your own voice in business, the answer might not be another framework – it might be coming back to your own authority.

There are three words I return to again and again when I’m building anything in my life or business.

Sovereignty. Autonomy. Self-trust.

These aren’t just concepts. They’re the actual foundation underneath everything I create – my offers, my decisions, the way I lead, the way I rest, the way I show up.

And I’ll be completely honest with you… I didn’t always have them.

When the External Voices Get Louder Than Your Own

There was a season when I looked outside myself for every single answer.

I hired the consultants. I invested in the programs. I followed what other people said worked, consuming strategy after strategy, hoping one of them would finally make everything click into place.

Some of it helped. I’m not going to say it didn’t.

But a lot of it just pulled me further and further from my own knowing.

I remember this feeling of confusion that I couldn’t quite name. Like the more I learned, the less clear I became. The louder the external voices got, the quieter mine became. I was building something that checked all the right boxes on paper… but my body felt tight. Disconnected. Wrong.

I couldn’t hear myself anymore.

And that’s the thing nobody really prepares you for – what happens when you abandon your own authority for too long. The voice gets quieter. The trust erodes. Eventually you stop knowing what you actually want… you only know what you’ve been told you should want.

The Journey Back to Yourself

Coming back took time.

It didn’t happen all at once. It started with the smallest things.

Noticing when something felt off in my body and actually honoring that signal instead of overriding it with logic or shoulds. Making a decision based on what felt true for me… even when it didn’t match what the experts said I was supposed to do. Letting myself move slower when everything in me wanted to rush. Saying no when I needed to, even when it felt uncomfortable.

Little by little, moment by moment, I started to remember something I had forgotten.

Oh. I actually do know.

And that knowing? It had been there the whole time. I just stopped listening to it. I stopped trusting it. I handed my authority over to people who didn’t live in my body, didn’t know my rhythms, didn’t understand my medicine.

What Ten Years Has Taught Me

Here’s what a decade of entrepreneurship has shown me… and what I witness over and over again with the women I work with:

You can have the best strategy in the world. The most proven systems. The perfect frameworks that have worked for thousands of other people.

But without sovereignty over your own choices, without autonomy in how you move, without trusting yourself to make the call when it matters – it won’t hold.

Because you’ll be building on someone else’s foundation instead of your own.

And here’s the truth about someone else’s foundation: it doesn’t fit your body. It doesn’t honor your rhythms. It doesn’t account for your nervous system, your capacity, your unique way of creating and leading. It doesn’t know your medicine.

Only you know that.

If You’re Feeling Disconnected Right Now

If you’ve been feeling disconnected from your own voice lately… if you’ve been following all the steps but something still feels off… if success feels heavier than you thought it would…

Maybe nothing needs to be fixed or optimized or upgraded.

Maybe you just need permission to come back to yourself.

To remember that you are allowed to be the authority of your own life. That you get to move in the way that feels true for you. That the answers you’ve been searching for externally have been living inside you all along.

The Three Foundations

Sovereignty means you are the authority of your own life. You don’t need permission. You don’t need validation. You get to make the choices that are right for you, even when they don’t make sense to anyone else.

Autonomy means you get to move how you want to move. Your pace. Your rhythms. Your way of doing things. You’re not required to follow someone else’s blueprint just because it worked for them.

Self-trust means you already know. Deep down, beneath all the noise and the strategies and the expert advice… you know. You just have to create enough space to listen.

Start there. Build from there.

Everything else follows.

Practices for Coming Back to Your Authority

Notice When You Override Your Body’s Signals

This week, pay attention to the moments when you override what your body is telling you. What would it feel like to pause and actually honor what you’re sensing? Your body has been trying to guide you all along. The tension, the tightness, the resistance… these aren’t obstacles. They’re information. Start listening.

Ask Where You’re Still Seeking Permission

Get honest with yourself: “Where am I still seeking permission outside myself?” Write down one area where you’re ready to reclaim your authority. It might be in how you structure your offers, how you show up online, how you spend your time, or how you make decisions in your business. You don’t need anyone else’s validation to trust what you know.

Check In Before Implementing

Before you implement someone else’s strategy or framework, check in with your system first. Does this actually align with how you want to build? Does it honor your energy and rhythms? Does it feel like you, or does it feel like you’re trying to be someone else? Your business gets to be a reflection of your sovereignty, not a copy of someone else’s path.

Xoxo,
Lauren