Successful leaders and businessmen have it
Despite the fact that intuition is not valued in our society, we are told that really successful people all have it. Have you noticed that? It is true, of course. So what the hell is it? This is my take….

What it isn’t

First, I want to get a popular confusion out of the way. Intuition is not the same as instinct, which is to do with basic survival: food, procreation, life or death.

Neither is it just any old feeling about a situation, which can be triggered by fear, bias, prejudice or mere preference.

What is it, then?

Intuition short-circuits the lengthy process of rational assessment and analysis.

It’s a gut feeling, made up of your awareness and responsiveness to the world and other people (sensitivity to the external environment) as well as your knowledge, understanding and experience (awareness of your internal environment).

The intuitive process takes in information from the situation and filters it though

• all your five senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch)
• your bodily sensations/responses (tightening of the diaphragm, feeling faint, nausea, shakiness, holding your breath, the ‘hairs on the back of your neck’ – different people feel it differently) 
• your intelligence, experience and knowledge.

It then processes the information, sorting and assimilating it, arriving (if it’s working well) at accurate and fine-tuned judgement.

Find it, respect it and trust it

Everyone is born with intuition, but under the cosh of rationality and scientific reasoning, our educational system teaches us to dismiss it. There’s a whole lot to say about this, but not here!

Thankfully, people manage to keep and develop it despite all this. It has to be looked after, respected and honed. Sometimes it even has to be found! All this before it can be trusted and relied upon.

Develop it

To develop it, you have to be aware of everything that’s going on around you. You also need to be able to identify, access and process your emotions. That includes your habitual ways of responding: your prejudices and biases, hopes and fears, ways of dealing with people or situations.

Beware!

Intuition can easily be confused with prejudice, bias, fear or wishfulness and a host of other psychological responses like projection, introjection …..etc. It feels the same. That’s why you have to know yourself well, acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses and your default ways of perceiving situations, however unpleasant that acknowledgement may be.

Filed under: Career Coaching, Coaching, Life Coaching by Melanie