This morning I was on Woman’s Hour with Jenny Murray. The other guest speaker was Laurie Cohen, who has written a book tracking women’s thoughts about their careers over 17 years and finding out if their career aspirations have come to fruition.

Jenny asked me why I had always known I wanted to run my own business – and I answered that it was a combination of my Dad always wanting to do the same (and never getting around to it), and also the fact that I am a (very slight) control freak – and really don’t work well as an employee. I remember doing a psyche profile once about 25 years ago and it saying something along the lines of – just give her a task, all the autonomy to create and make it happen and then get out of the way.

I was thinking after I left the Beeb, why is it that some of the things we plan happen and some don’t, and I keep going back to something I have said before and really believe. I think if you have clarity on your vision that is important – but that doesn’t always make the difference. The difference is …I want to say believing …but what I actually mean is KNOWING. When you believe something to the degree that you know it, it is real for you, and you state it to yourself and others as a fact… that’s when the magic happens.

As Tony Robbins says – and apologies if I miss quote him – ‘It’s in our moments of decision that our destiny is formed’.

So when I decided at 16 I was going to run my own business by the time I was 40, that was just what it was. A decision. Not a vision. I had no clarity about what type of business, what it would look like, be called or what type of services/products it would offer. I had no idea about any of those things, I just KNEW I was going to do it.

I don’t know what magic happens when those decisions are made – the ones where there is certainty, where you kind of leave it to the universe to make that happen, the ones that probably sound crazy to other people. But it does happen. Each time in my life when I have made a big life changing decision, or even smaller but equally important decisions, if it has been with this certainty – this ‘knowing’ – it has always happened.

Call it brain programming, call it instinct, call it the universe/law of attraction… call it whatever you want – I just know it’s true.

If you can stop the busyness of life for a minute – spend that minute thinking what you have been dithering about, listen to your heart/your instincts and make a decision, and then leave worrying about the detail. I promise you – it will make a difference.

You can hear the interview below. I was on first so you don’t have to listen to the whole hour!