Keeping our intuitions alive within our careers.

I recently went on a horse riding hack with my daughter, who has only ridden a handful of times. My usual performance improvement/outcome-orientated self came out 😊 when I asked the instructor “Would you be able to teach my daughter how to get the timings right of moving up and down when trotting?”

The owner of the horses, who has been brought up living and breathing the world of horses, turned to me and said “Children learn a lot quicker than adults as they feel their way. It’s a lot harder to teach an adult to ride as they get so stuck in their heads, thinking about what they “should” be doing that they lose momentum.”

I quickly shut up and took a moment to think about this viewpoint. It brought me back to when I was a young girl galloping on a horse across vast beaches, just feeling the sensations and thrill. Back then, I was simply focused on the task at hand which was to use my intuition and enjoy the ride. As I have grown older, I have fallen culprit to overthinking it!

I think about how these reflections can help within our careers. How knowledge, data and insight are all valuable in work, especially when navigating new territory and making more complex decisions. But as Francis P Cholle’s talks about in his famous book, The Intuitive Compass (2011) “the best decisions balance reason and instinct” and how “Logic is powerful but rarely deep, because it is dualistic in nature….we necessarily need to go past logic” (p159).

Have you ever had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right with a business decision, despite all the data telling you otherwise but you didn’t listen to it? One of the top learnings from leading start-up CEOs is that they wish they had trusted their intuition to take steps to launch their businesses earlier.

But how do we keep our instincts alive in business? How can we have confidence in our IQ (Intuitive Intelligence) to accelerate in moving forward?

Things we can do to keep our intuitive intelligence alive:

1. RECOGNISE WHAT YOUR BODY IS TRYING TO TELL YOU, not just what your head is saying. Take a moment to tune in and concentrate on any feelings in your body. Where are they? What emotions are coming up for you? Explore these and consider these also, when taking your next steps.

2. The good new is, PRACTICE KEEPS OUR INTUITION ALIVE. Our gut instincts are probably the most powerful basic tool that we have as humans- our gut learns, remembers, and doesn’t talk us out of bad decisions the way our brains sometimes can!

3. FINE TUNE YOUR INTUITION so that you stop second-guessing yourself. Allow yourself to move from random to consistent to reliable intuition which happens on command and is actionable.

4. BE AWARE OF OVERLY SATISFYING OUR RISK AVERSENESS. Influencing thoughts in our heads around what others may think or other fears, can make us second guess the confidence to move forward. Ask yourself, if I didn’t care what anyone thought, what would I do in this situation?

If you are looking to accelerate faster within your career and tap into what you want to achieve– I would love to chat with you. You can reach me here or at www.belvederecoaching.com

#consciousleadership #careercoaching #trustyourgut #leadershipdevelop #entrepreneurship #mindset