Indecisive? Don’t trust your decisions? Build your intuition for radical self-belief.
Intuition could be described as a knowing without necessarily knowing why. When you are in tune with your intuition and trust your decisions (even when you can’t explain why), you foster radical self-belief. From this place, whatever happens next is ok because you trust that you are acting in a way that is right for you.
Are you indecisive? Do you find it difficult to make even the smallest decisions?
Take for example, choosing what to have on a menu. This is somewhere that I have often found myself to be terribly indecisive! There are so many delicious sounds choices and when I try to check in with what I actually want I get nothing back. Which makes it pretty hard to choose!
If this sounds like you, you might find that this indecisiveness is reflected in other areas of your life. You might often feel paralysed by indecision. You weigh up all of the options but still can’t seem to work out what is the right thing to do.
This might be a sign that you find it difficult to listen to your intuition.
I used to think that I didn’t have any intuition. I relied heavily on what was logical and what I could prove (and what I could see would be the results of different choices).
We live in a world that champions logic and facts over feelings and senses. I believe that this is the reason so many of us have lost touch with our intuition. We were taught to ignore what we couldn’t prove. If you can’t explain why you know something, you are at risk of ridicule. And who wants to put themselves in that vulnerable place?!
The crazy thing is, if you take a look at many of the world’s incredible inventors (Albert Einstein, Nicola Tesla, Steve Jobs…) they used their intuition (the intuitive mind) as much as they used logic (the rational mind). The two are meant to work together in balance. Without that balance we don’t open ourselves up to new possibilities or creative thinking, we go round and round in what we already know. If we rely to heavily on the rational mind we end up limiting ourselves by working only with what we already know. The intuitive mind doesn’t get caught up in these limits, it creates new possibilities and employs the rational mind to make these a reality.
So what does intuition feel like? Well this can be hard to quantify. To me, it is a grounded feeling of knowing without necessarily being able to explain why. Some people describe it as a gut-feeling, perhaps feeling it physically. For me, it can be a niggling thought that pops up again and again. If I ignore it, try to reason with it or push it away it just shows up again and again.
Recently I’ve been considering that when my intuition gives me a nudge, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I need to take action or solve a problem, it’s just an invitation to notice. Sometimes this recognition is a relief and at other times it feels frustrating. I am so used to immediately going into problem solving mode and sorting things out as soon as something uncomfortable presents itself (that’s the rational mind again!).
So how do you strengthen your intuition? Practice learning to listen to yourself!
There are all sorts of different ways we can do this but for me, one of the most joyful ways is through my creative practice.
A creative practice will feed your intuition, and your intuition will feed your creative practice!
A simple exercise that you can start right now…
Throughout the day stop to check in with yourself; to really feel into what’s alive in you in that moment, to really lean into your feelings.
Then try this simple ‘HELL YES and HECK NO’ exercise: In any moment, start noticing what’s around you and ask yourself if it’s a yes (it pleases me/ I want that/ I love that) or a no (it doesn’t please me/ yuck/ get it out of my sight!).
It can be illuminating to realise what you can easily say yes or no to and what feels somewhere in the murky middle.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with compromise, tolerance or an easy-going nature, but knowing what your preferences are and making the decision to have an amenable attitude from there leads to deeper knowing, more intuition, and ultimately gives you creative power over your life.