It takes courage to trust and take action on our intuitive hunches. One of underlying reasons why we do not follow our inner guidance is often because we do not want to risk making a mistake.
Most of us would rather be safe than to change, even when we know our choice is no longer working for us. It is only when we make the time to carefully examine our lives that many of us finally admit that our misfortunes in life are often due to us ignoring or refusing to act on what we felt in our hearts was the right thing to do.
Part of the challenge in taking action on what our intuition alerts us to do is because we do not know how to decipher the invisible signals it sends us. In the book Thrive: The Third Metric to Defining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington, Psychologists Martin Seligman and Michael Kahana describe intuition-based decision making as:
(a) Rapid
(b) Not conscious
(c) Used for decisions involving multiple dimensions
(d) Based on vast stores of prior experiences
(e) Characteristic of experts
(f) Not easily or accurately articulated afterwards
(g) Often made with high confidence
Since intuition is hard to define, it is easy for us brush our feelings aside because we do not have the courage to stand up for something that we cannot rationalize to another person. Two of the common factors which play a part in our inability to trust our inner knowing are, we often refuse to take action because we do not want to risk hurting or disagreeing with someone, and daring to be different from the group or community that we belong to.
Truth be told, most of us are much more comfortable with following than leading. Creative thinkers are rare. It is ironic that we actually increase our chances for success when we open our minds to our intuition.
If we are really honest with ourselves, it is often hard for us to admit to others that our gut is the primary factor in our decision making process. We live in a world that relies on tables, charts and other hard data as the underlying factor for most of the choices we make. Standing firm and believing in your feelings despite what others want to do takes courage. We express our inner strength whenever we speak our truth regardless of what anyone else is doing.
What makes humans unique is the right we have to make our own choices. Many of us are extremely frustrated that things are not going right in our lives, yet we do not have the courage to act and make the changes needed for things to be different. If we are really honest with ourselves, most of us have stayed too long in jobs, relationships, and even places that we live, simply because we do not have the courage to change.
Our intuitive abilities are always there to help guide us by steering us in the right direction by picking up on intricate details that our conscious minds may not notice. The key in being willing to trust our instincts is based primarily on the inner relationship we have developed with ourselves.
Strengthening our intuition muscle begins with self-discovery. This does not happen while we are talking on our iphone, listening to music and playing a video game all at the same time. Moment of self-reflection happen when we consciously choose to turn off the external noise and to become silent.
It is during moments of silence, or meditation that we learn to be comfortable in knowing ourselves–and begin to love the good and not-so-good aspects of who we are. It is through our self-love that we learn to pay attention and become more comfortable with acting on our inner nudges and hunches. When we ignore our inner knowing it retreats from us.
Everyday we are surrounded by opportunities to act on the guidance and direction we receive from our intuition. The better we know ourselves, it is easier to become totally comfortable in trusting our instincts and feelings. Having the courage to take action on your intuitive hunches is like flexing an invisible muscles everyday; making it stronger and even more precise.