Sometimes you have to jump in feet first without knowing where or what you’re going to land on. The only thing you know is that one way or another you will land. It doesn’t mean however, that you jump in blind.
Yesterday I wrote about how life’s got a funny way of letting you know when you’re on the right track and that strong connections with people are one of them. Intuition is another.
A leap of faith
Trusting your intuition means taking a leap of faith. By its nature intuition is based on a feeling rather than rational thinking. It might even go against it. Yet there is something that speaks inside of us saying “Go for it. It’s that way”, but there’s nothing to prove that it is the right thing to do. Just that intangible feeling or voice inside you.
Trusting your intuition when it comes to the big decisions in life can be scary. However, if you have a strong connection with your intuition it can be one of your most dearest and trusted guides through life. A guide that sometimes takes you on a trip in the dark. Perhaps even leads you onto a road that you definitely didn’t have in mind. Initially that is.
Can it help us make big decisions?
For long intuition has been seen as something fluffy, irrational and even a bit irresponsible to listen to. Now, however, research is starting to show that our intuition can actually be more powerful than rationalising your way through a difficult decision. The reason is this:
…it’s becoming increasingly clear that our emotions have a logic all [to] their own, that our instincts are often rooted in the processing powers of the unconscious brain. The massive computational capacity of the Type I system – its ability to process thousands of bits of data in parallel – ensures that we can analyze all the relevant information when assessing alternatives…
…the unconscious is able to handle a surfeit of information, digesting the facts without getting overwhelmed. Human reason, in contrast, has a very strict bottleneck and can only process about four bits of data at any given moment.
From the Wired article How Should We Make Hard Decisions?
Whereas using rational thinking is proving more effective and accurate for simple decision, research is starting to show that for the more complicated ones, we should listen to that initial gut feeling that we have.
How to get in touch with it
Some people rationalise their way through most decisions. Others make them based on emotions. The article from which the quotes are taken talks of some interesting experiments were one group of participants were asked to make the decision based on the details of the products whereas the other was asked to focus on how the different products made them feel.
The assumption is that focusing on feelings leads people to rely on the output of their unconscious, while focusing on details leads to a more deliberate mode of thought.
Wired, How Should We Make Hard Decisions?
How accurate or effective it is I don’t know, but if you’re stuck and don’t know what your intuition is telling you, try focus on the feeling rather than the details of your decision.
In summary
Using rational thinking will always have a place in decision making. Despite having a strong feeling that we would be ok jumping down from e.g. a roof, we don’t do it without assessing the situation first. Jumping from a small shed roof is after all different than jumping from a tall building so with our rational thinking we try to estimate the approximate height, or the type of ground we’re likely to be going to land on. If a bit of rational thinking and research tells us that one side is better to jump down from than the other, we go with the better option. We probably put on good shoes to make the landing that little bit softer, and to ensure we don’t bruise too badly I’d say we’re likely to put on some covering clothes. And we definitely don’t jump head first.
Our gut feeling is hopefully not telling us to jump from physical roofs too often, but sometimes you need to take a risk and when you do, listening to your intuition can be very powerful, leading you on the right way. If you are stood on that “roof”, rationalising every aspect of the decision you are trying to make, you risk never making the jump but instead let the number of cons and potential risks have too much baring. Sometimes only knowing that you’ll be alright, one way or another, that your feet will hold and let you stand up again, even if you fall, is all the knowledge you need.
We know more than we know – that’s what our feelings are trying to tell us.
Wired, How Should We Make Hard Decisions?
Tomorrow – Day 041 | The plan for the weekend
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