The role of Intuition, in Your Business and life

The other day I was having a discussion with my colleague about business, importance of numbers, information, analytics and more importantly the “feeling”. We touched upon many instances of decisions of the past and some of them seemed like real case studies. 

Over the years like many, I have also taken many decisions. Some good, some not so good.  In hindsight, I am grateful to have made them because they have generally made me a better person, in business, in life, in everything. In the process, I feel that we develop our own sixth sense, which is hugely valuable for helping us to make better decisions about everything we do. And as a business owner, this sixth sense is extremely valuable. Call it intuition, call it gut, call it instinct, we have all experienced it in some way, isn’t it?

In business it manifests with people, deals, partners, projects, opportunities, customers, in so many ways. We get a feel in a situation with no real information, just a sense of what is going on and what we need to do about it. 

Unfortunately, in the current scheme of things with so much overload of information and clutter around,  the ability to hear and feel the intuition is a lost skill for a lot of people. We have become too busy to hear what our intuition is trying to say. We intellectualize because we are so bombarded with information that we simply cannot hear our intuition in midst of the clutter. 

A few days ago I participated in Leadership workshop. The awesome facilitator, before starting the programme started with a question to the participants. “What is your feeling just now? “. The program actually started with this most simple, but a thought provoking question, that set the stage for the rest of the day. 

It is so important to connect with oneself and check the “feeling”, which will be an answer to many a questions. 

Thinking back, I vividly remember what it feels like, to really be connected with my intuition in various situations that I have had in the past. Certainly, the impact it is having on my life is quite extraordinary.  The more I think and analyse about various decisions that I had taken in the past, the more I get convinced that it was the instinct that helped and guided me to take some of my most important decisions. 

Do you remember yours? Can you list down such instances?

Summarising some of the points, that could help connect with your intuition, gathered through experiences from various situations and insights from my mentors.

In any situation, learn to pause, take a step back and see how you feel, not how you think.

When you first encounter someone, take a moment during the conversation to see how you feel, not how you think about that person. The business owner's sixth sense does not come from the head, it comes from the heart. We have to remember what it feels like when we get a message from our heart and translate that feeling into information we can use.

Don't look for good or bad things, just try to interpret how you feel.

When we analyse pros and cons, we do not actually look for bad things, we look for the reality of a situation. There could be many times our instinct may have told us not to do something in business, but our brain would have generally rationalized the situation and over ridden the intuition, unfortunately to a detriment. We should learn to reconnect with how we feel at a deeper, less intellectual and more emotional level. I have heard of many such instances from a lot of my entrepreneur friends. 

“Me time” - take quality moments during the day to ponder.

This is a very important aspect we tend to forget. Importance of “Me Time”! Learn to take quiet moments during the day with yourself.  Find somewhere peaceful, disconnected and free of distractions and think long and hard about whatever you need to be thinking about for arriving at that decision. Then try to connect with your gut instinct and see what message it is trying to send. 

Learn from when you got it wrong in the past.

Reflect back on situations from the past that have not worked out as well as you wish they did. For example, some really bad business partnerships that perhaps you wish you could undo. But when you take the time to stop and reflect on them, you would say you  knew it before you even entered them that they were not going to work out. And not to mention the grief and money they cost you.

Haven’t we all faced at least one such instance? 

Learn from when you got it right in the past.

Think back about the situations or opportunities that worked out really well. Try to recall how intuitively you felt as they were developing and progressing. They would have been generally clear, clean, positive, light and made you confident in the initial instance itself. That's the intuitive feeling we want to look for, to give us the go ahead.

Be detached from all outcomes so you can hear your intuition more clearly.

Be detached from the outcome. I know, it is easier said, than done. However, when we are less attached to the outcome we tend to think and feel more clearly. If we are hoping to win a huge contract, and if it means in terms of good money and status, it is very easy for our intellect to take over and overshadow our intuition. Our intuition may be screaming to tell us, that this contract will not be what it is cut out to be and we might even regret it if we win it. 

This is one area, if you master it, you can certainly be a master of your decisions. 

Include intuition in checklist for making decisions

You may be having a master checklist for some of the major decisions that you take. I would say, at the bottom of the list please add - "What does my intuition say about the project?". If you get all ticks on your list, but a cross on the question about intuition, you may need to seriously give it a rethink. Your intuition may be giving you some signals. 

We all have this extraordinary skill - intuition, instinct, sixth sense, gut, whatever we want to call. The more we listen to it, the easier it is to hear and the better the decisions we will make, in every part of our life. The more we push it away, the harder it is to hear and the quality of our decisions would reflect this. 

And certainly as a business person, Intuitive skill is one of the most important skill to possess and nurture.

Listen to your self, for your own success :)