Using Intuition to Make Better Life Decisions

Intuition is when you know something without any facts or scientific proof. Whether you know this or not, human decision making process already uses intuition to some degree. In situations where the amount of information and time available to make a decision are not enough for a completely rational decision, the human brain will naturally resort to the use of intuition to make a final decision. How to ensure you are using intuition to make better life decisions?

The best alternative is to combine both experience and information analysis based and intuition based processes in our daily decision making. What our culture has so far emphasized was only the first, totally rational based style. When that happens, you may choose an accounting career as opposed to the acting career you internally dream to pursue, because you were taught you couldn’t make a living with the latter one. Then, instead of trying to develop an acting career on the side, you don’t even give it a try because you never followed your gut and just shut the dream down. That is, until the day it comes back to haunt you, because being an accountant will never fulfill you like acting would.

On the other hand, if you feel a hunch you should invest all your savings in a risky investment but all the data says your chances of losing it are big, you should also take the data into consideration, and the fact that this hunch might not have actually been intuition based (your intuition is your friend).

Discovering Your Intuition

Everyone has intuition. Maybe you’ve had that moment where you just knew someone was going to show up before they did. Or you sensed when someone was telling you a lie. If you’ve ever had a hunch not to take the usual route back from work one day and you found later there had been an accident, it was your intuition warning you. 

Intuition is a type of intelligence that lies within your subconscious mind. The best way to develop it is by practice, and once you learn how to tap into it, it can help with what is in your best interest in any situation or decision. 

Intuition Is Often Overlooked

Intuition can be subtle for many people most of the time, because it’s an inward sense. With all distractions in today’s society with cell phones, televisions and even other people, listening to our inner senses and using our intuitions when something may not feel right isn’t as easy as it used to be. Besides, it’s easy to ask a friend or family member for their advice on a decision because people will offer their opinion right away without much thought which makes them seem like they would know better than we do… A trained counselor, in the meantime, would more likely guide us to listen to our intuitions when making decisions that work better for us instead.

Because intuition can be subtle, if you’re not used to listening or trusting yourself, you may dismiss it and ignore it. If you haven’t practiced using your intuition, then it will come and go. You can make it more constant in your life and business decisions by using it more regularly with practice.

Using Intuition in Your Business

For our entire lives, we’ve been taught to let logic take over. But according to Inc Magazine and Forbes, it seems like that may not be the best idea for leaders and business owners anymore. Intuition gives you an edge because it taps into unknown knowledge which goes beyond logic. Tap into your imagination by using your intuition. Combine this with the known facts about a situation as well as information gathered from research on other companies within said field of expertise, then voila: you’ve just cracked open another door filled with opportunities and potential success!

As Napoleon Hill said, “whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”. Using intuition the right way allows you to do just that!

Highly successful inventors like Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla used intuition to achieve their creations, and even modern day examples like the late Steve Jobs and Elon Musk used intuition to build their businesses. Using intuition in your business provides you with a form of intelligence, imagination, and competitiveness that could lead to breakthrough innovating products and services.

Additional Benefits of Using Intuition In Business

• Make fast decisions that benefit your business even in high risk situations, rapidly changing situations.
• Go beyond regular advice that does not align to your strengths. Get deep, accurate wisdom that applies to what will align to your core values, strengths and other factors in your business.
• Use more creativity in your projects, by tapping into your intuition, and getting access to your creative intelligence.
• Greater self awareness. By listening to your inner voice, you can recognize both your strengths and limitations.
• Increased self confidence. As you gain trust in your decisions and start to see success, you improve your mental, physical and emotional well being. 

Many entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business owners claim intuition was a key to their successes. It takes practice to listen to your intuition, but once you learn to listen to it, it is like connecting to the intelligence of the universe. 

Can My Intuition be Wrong?

When you have a hunch, you may interpret it as being you intuition when it’s not. So how can you tell the difference?

People who have the habit of using their intuitive side describe the feelings associated with it as positive: calmness, joy, clarity, fulfillment, inspiration, certainty and connection. When the sense is not intuition based (it could stem from fear, or impulse), some of the feelings connected to it are anxiety, worry, fear, and uncertainty. So make sure to check on how it feels before assuming your “gut feeling” is a true intuition.

Intuition can be experienced through different senses. We’ll go through the different ways you can experience intuition. When you identify which one is the kind you usually experience, stay tuned to when it happens to get familiar with it. You can always add on another intuitive sense you pick up on later.

Feeling

Do you often pick up on the emotions of others? All of us have an inner feeling that connects us to our intuition.

Many people aren’t in tune with their emotions, but they react to them daily without even knowing. By tuning into your emotions as your intuition, you can learn to trust your first reaction as being the answer for you. Most often, you may dismiss your feelings. By learning to listen to your feelings, you’ll find they’re scarily accurate often.

Hearing

Hearing an inner voice in your mind that appears from nowhere is often how your hearing inner sense works. It can sometimes appear outside of you like someone is talking to you but there’s no one there. 

Knowing

Have you ever known something before it happens, or before you are given the information about it? You may get a clear thought in your mind that comes from nowhere. One minute it isn’t there and the next minute it is not. If you experience this often, knowing is likely your dominant way of receiving intuition. 

Seeing

You may get visual images in your inner mind or moving pictures like the movies. The inner images and movies may come through fast. You may often have to ask them to slow down or write really fast to keep up. 

Pick one intuitive sense above and practice it until you feel comfortable using it in your decision making. Once you feel comfortable, add on a secondary sense to use and practice it alone or in conjunction with the prior one. 

Fear Not – Your Intuition Knows Best

In case you hesitate about using your intuition, let me put you at ease. By tuning into your intuition, you will gain more trust with using it as you practice. If you simply just turn it off, you may never know the benefits it brings to your business and life. You don’t need to make important decisions based on your intuitions at first if you don’t trust them. Just start practicing and making notes of them, and later comparing the outcomes using them or not.

Trust your intuition. As you learn and grow with using it, you will start to rely on it more and more and understand that using intuition to make better life decisions is a powerful tool.

Identifying When Your Intuition is Talking to You

Below are some examples of how your intuition communicates so that you can learn to recognize it. Use this guide to help you be more aware of when your intuition is speaking with you. 

• Feeling good or bad about something means it feels right or wrong to you
• Knowing whether you want to answer no or yes instinctively in your mind. There’s no guessing, you just know the answer with clarity. It’s your neutral inner voice telling you what to do.
• Hearing a voice that is guiding you toward your best decisions. It is neutral and gives you insight into the present moment.
• You see, hear, and know clearly the direction to follow. There’s no guesswork or confusion. You can ask questions and get clear answers.

How to Tap Into Your Intuition

There’s several ways to tap into your intuition. You don’t have to go up on a mountain and isolate to hear your inner voice. Here’s a few ideas: 

• Meditate/Pray
• Do yoga
• Go for a walk
• Read or write (Journal)
• Listen to (or play) music
• Answer prompts that make you reflect (see below)
• Dance
• Paint or draw
• Focus on your emotions and your inner senses
• Daydream

Prompts to Improve Your Intuition

One of the best ways to improve your intuition is to practice using it. If you are still not sure about whether you can trust your intuition, use the prompts below to practice. 

Journal Prompts: 
What do I need to prioritize today?
What am I sensing about this situation/decision?
What do I most need to make a clear decision right now?

With this knowledge I hope you are able to enjoy your newly found intuitive power and put it to use. Happy decision making!