How to Listen to Your Intuition

Our heads are very good at coming up with all sorts of excuses for us to take the rational approach. When we’re confronted with facts and figures, how can we justify doing something that goes against all that?

When making a decision, we’ll usually encounter an option that “feels right” even if it’s not necessarily the logical decision. Often we can’t even articulate how or why that particular decision feels right, we just know it’s what we want.

There are many names for this: gut feeling, hunch, intuition. Whichever label we use, they all mean something deep inside us, at the very core of who we are, is urging us to take a particular course. But when logic tells us to do something different, it’s easy to feel torn. How do we know which side to listen to?

Our heads are very good at coming up with all sorts of excuses for us to take the rational approach. When we’re confronted with facts and figures, how can we justify doing something that goes against all that?

The answer is that sometimes we just need to do what’s best for us. That’s often risky, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. Those who consistently make the effort to make a list of pros and cons and consider the consequences may live a safe life, but not necessarily a fulfilling one. When we take the time to consider the numbers involved, we can bog ourselves down in fear: fear of failure; fear of disappointment; fear of letting others down, etc. There are a million things to be afraid of in this world, but a life ruled by fear is not much of a life.

The intuitive choice is often the one that comes to us immediately. When we first consider an option, we usually lean one way or the other right away. We’re often warned not to act rashly, to consider all our options and the consequences before we do something, but we often find our first choice is the best one, regardless of what our heads, or even our friends and family, think we should do.

If an option does not immediately present itself as the most desirable option, and we’re not sure what the best course of action would be, there is still a way for us to calmly consider our choices and find the answer that allows us follow our hearts, rather than our heads.

When we bring each option to mind, we can take stock of how that option makes us feel. If just the thought of it makes us tense up, that’s not a good sign. We should know when we’re considering the right course of action because thinking about it will make us feel relaxed, warm, maybe excited, and we might even smile unintentionally. All these are signs that this is the right course for us to pursue.

Sometimes we consider options and none of the options elicit either a positive or a negative reaction. We feel totally ambivalent about all our choices. This might occur with small decisions where the end result doesn’t really matter much, it could mean we don’t have enough information on the different options, or it could mean we’re too distracted to fully consider the problem before us. In that case, it might be best to deal with whatever is occupying our mind and/or meditate for a few minutes before coming back to the problem at hand.