How to Use Your Intuition With Confidence in Business and in Life

Image by PixxlTeufel from Pixabay 

By happy circumstance I found myself at a Soulful CEO circle this week. Six of us sitting in the shade of a mature Cherry Blossom tree in the summer sun, taking time out to contemplate the topic for the session, which was around using our intuition to grow/start our business.

The conversation centred on those intuitive nudges, or flashes of inspiration, we get and – often in instant response – the voice of the inner critic that comes up with all the reasons why that is a bad idea.

It was a good reminder of the tug of war that often happens in my inner world. The inner critic is very convincing as it’s all about safety. However, its voice was born very early on in my life when safety was linked (as it is for all humans) to approval from my primary caregivers. The messages were then reinforced over and over in various settings in childhood, like school and competitive sports, where the desire for approval was very much linked to the innate instinct for belonging and safety.

There was never really a point in my life where someone said “trust your inner voice”, it was more the opposite. Even as an adult it is the same memo that society often plays back, the messaging around the current pandemic could be no clearer a case in point. The overarching theme – certainly here in New Zealand- is “do not trust yourself, trust your government instead, this is the one source of truth”.

I am in wonder that more people are not incredulous at the wildly differing advice, approaches and mandates globally, from these one sources of truth. The only one source of truth that exists, I believe, exists inside each of us.

And yet I suspect the biggest pandemic on planet Earth today is self abandonment.

This is sometimes referred to as the mind versus heart, or ego versus intuition, and how to know which voice is speaking?

Serendipitously, as I’m reading Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living at the moment, she has been talking about this very issue. She recounts a conversation she had with a friend about a pivotal decision in her life. Her friend had suggested that she get really present in her body and out of her head.

When she had become more present in her body – which for me is most easily achieved by intentionally focusing on breathing in/out my tummy and becoming aware of how my body is feeling – her friend asked her to relook at her choices one by one, each time asking “Does that feel warm to me?”

At this point her decision felt obvious, as one choice felt cold, icy actually, like she might die of cold. The other felt warm, soft and spacious. Her friend said “Your body will tell you things your mind will talk you out of. Your body is telling you what direction life is in. Try trusting it. Turn away from what feels cold and toward what feels warm”.

Glennon goes on to say that these days, in business meetings, she is not looking for justifications, judgements or opinions, she is looking for knowing. She listens for statements like “I did the research and sat with these options for a while, this one feels warm to me”.

I was talking to a friend about growing his business. Since starting the company, he had taken on a couple of employees, both more by chance rather than through a specific job search. I love this organic approach, but I also think its potency truly comes into its own when setting some intentionality around it.

If he can take some time to imagine a future team of people who collectively represent the same values that he himself projects from his inner world, who can collectively deliver his vision, he can start to wonder just how that might come about and listen out for the intuitive nudges that will undoubtedly pop into his head.

Envisioning the biggest contribution I can make in life, spending time just wondering how that could look, then actively asking, “I wonder how this will come about” primes me neurologically to receive all sorts of interesting insights and impulses into how my dreams can be achieved. The trick is to follow the ones that feel right, without letting my inner critic sabotage each idea before it even takes flight.

Right now I have the impulse to update my online presence and profile in terms of what I have to offer in the business arena. My current presence doesn’t convey the level of skills and experience I have working on businesses as well as in them very succinctly.

With all the years I had in senior management, working at the strategic end of business, I haven’t even listed three of the four businesses I have helped set up and run; far less joined a lot of dots that give me quite a comprehensive toolkit as a business coach/consultant. I need to create outwardly the shifts that have occurred within me.

As I said in Do You Want to Make a Heartfelt Change to Your Career? between my own personal growth that needed to happen, and the collective dysfunction that I’d seen over and over in organisations getting in the way of meaningful and lasting change, I hadn’t expected I’d even want to return to that world so I hadn’t really focused too much on it.

Of course my inner critic has been hard as work with every impulse I’ve had, “who are you to offer these services?”, “are you good enough?”, “do you have enough skills and experience?” and lots of comparison with many others out there. In the session under the cherry tree this week, I listened to most of the others voice the same concerns about growing their own ventures while simultaneously thinking, felling and saying to them “Of course you can do it, go for it”.

I recognise these voices for what they are, momentary doubt from my inner critic just trying to keep me safe. But it’s all good, I am safe. It’s actually mainly with excited anticipation I think about stepping back into the arena. I have an authentic edge now that makes all the difference to me in the type of work I’ll engage in, assisting and guiding people in running a business by helping them clarify the vision of their business and how it fits with their personal goals. 

As I listened to some of the others air their inner critic at the Soulful CEO circle, I thought of Glennon’s advice and realised that, when I lean into this, it feels warm, smoking hot, like I’ve got this. I can hear and I trust my inner knowing.

What about you, have you had any impulses or intuitive nudges regarding your career or business? What has your soul been whispering and what has your inner critic had to say about it? Maybe it’s time to thank our inner critic for trying to keep us safe but, smiling, say “I’ve got this” and go step forward into your new future.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Why the Integration of Feelings and Logic Will Save the Human Race, How to Quieten the Inner Critic, When to Act on Possibility, Embracing the Feminine within All of Us, , What You Give Your Attention to Is Your Greatest Contribution, Connect to Your Well-Being  and Could a Broader Perspective Benefit Us All Right Now? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.