Posted on

Access your inner guidance

“The really valuable thing is intuition. The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

– Albert Einstein

The routines of everyday life—the same rituals in the home or work place—don’t make big demands on our decision-making capacities. But when making decisions under pressure, or choosing between solutions, or while making important choices about a career direction, many of us feel ill equipped to make the right choice. This is because most of us developed logic and reasoning skills through education and learned only to think rather than feel our way through life. So we navigate through life using only our logical left brains as a compass thereby undervaluing the intuitive capacities of our right brain. Most often our intuition capacities remain unappreciated and are largely left unused.

Many of us are hesitant about going with our gut instincts because we believe that they are uncertain. We fail to recognise that intuition serves as a means of self-expression. Whenever you experienced the feeling that something in a situation wasn’t right, then you’ve experienced intuition. Same way, if you ever experienced a situation where everything did seem to come together or right, that is also your intuition.

Why is ‘intuition’ important?

Learning to access your intuitive intelligence is important because of the expanse of information that is available with countless data, opinions, and endless expert advice telling you what you should do. With information coming from all directions, it becomes even more important to rely on your inner guidance system to make good choices and decisions that will guide you towards your best interests.

Research shows that accessing your intuitive capacities is one way to unleash your creativity. Learning to trust your intuition not only helps you in making better decisions but also boosts your creativity, guidance, clarity and confidence. You cannot always consciously rationalise every choice you make. Sometimes you have to go with your instincts, especially when you feel strongly about something. When faced with making tough choices, trusting your instincts can steer you in the right direction and can be a reliable guide in your decision-making process and you will be able to make well-informed decisions. By accessing your intuitional capacities, you will be able to find solutions more easily and be able to develop a complete and a broader perspective of issues outside of yourself.

Understanding ‘intuition’..

Intuition is not what most people think it is; it is not what we think. It comes from a different side of the brain from that of logic and is defined as the ability to understand something instinctively without the need for conscious reasoning. The ability to understand something, without having to consciously process it, or to rationalise to make sense of it. It is a deep down or subconscious understanding to what we mostly refer to as gut feeling. It is an instinctive response to something that you immediately know, identify, or recognise with.

You probably use or access your intuition on a regular basis without being fully aware of it like for instance,

• when you have to make a decision or a choice and weigh the pros and cons, and are still confused or uncertain, and are at crossroads of your decision-making process.

• when there is too much information to digest consciously in a situation, you tend to go with an option that fits with your intuition rather than the guidance of others.

• When you don’t have enough time to rationalise a probability thoroughly, you resort to an instinctive action.

The intuitive process differs from person to person influenced by factors like their personality, attitude, their environment, culture, and other situations. Your intuitiveness tends to be more aligned with your subconscious of which your reasoning mind is unaware as your intuition depends on the collection of all your subconscious experiences.

So, what impedes your intuitiveness?

We all can access our intuitive capacities. But it depends on how you develop your intuitiveness and stay in tune with it and make it to work. Some factors can impede your ability to access your inner guidance during your decision-making and may let the logical mind control your thoughts and actions. Here are some such factors:

• Your intuitive capacities are fully intact but often hidden behind screen of logic and reasoning. Logic interferes with intuition.

•Lack of focus Often, intuitive messages are drowned by all the noise and activities that are going on in and around you. With distractions you cannot access your true feelings, thoughts and words.

•Lack of awareness of your surroundings and insight prevents you to get in touch with your intuitiveness. Your inner sense impressions most often come to you through one of your five senses. And the lack of awareness of your mental filters and learning to perceive reality objectively makes your intuition distorted.

• You will not be able to access your inner guidance by being fast-paced. The subtle messages go unnoticed and aren’t available to those who has the free attention to notice them.

• You can’t live Intuitively if you have an unhealthy emotional state. If you constantly compare yourself to others, or worry, or stressed, or exhausted, your will end up interpreting your intuition wrongly.

How to improve your intuitiveness?

“Intuition does not come to an unprepared mind.”- Albert Einstein

While making important decisions, we often face difficulty as we rely on only on our conscious mind and get lost weighing many options and variables. The left brain has knowledge, but without the intuitive wisdom of the right brain every decision comes out half-baked. By establishing a cooperative relationship between your conscious and subconscious, you can tune into your intuitiveness to make better decisions. Here are certain ways to access your inner guidance and to improve your intuitive capabilities.

Let go of logic

In order to begin accessing and trusting your intuitive powers, you need to stop being so reasonable and let go of logic sometimes. Logical mind dominates and devalues the intuitive messages and logical thinking distances you from using what you already intuitively know to navigate through certain situations. Use both logic and intuition, but not at the same time.

Trust your intuitive messages

“ If you have some idea you believe in, don’t listen to the croaking chorus. Listen only to what your own inner voice tells you.” – Daniel Carnegie

Believing in your ability to access and understand the messages can help you make better decisions. Trusting your intuition is a way of listening to your basic self through your physical senses and emotions. The better you can see, feel, or hear the inner guidance, the better equipped you will be in accessing your intuitiveness. Have the willingness to trust your instincts, when you feel uncertain or doubtful.

Make time to reflect and relax

You must be receptive, passive and open to notice subtle things that pop up. The more relaxed you are, the more your usually dominant, logical left brain steps back and your intuitive capacities come forward. To access your inner guidance, you have to make time to reflect on your experiences. Reflecting on the past experiences can give you a more objective view of things and makes you more aware of your negative emotions that might be preventing you from picking up intuitiveness of your subconscious.

Apply intuitive perspective

You may sometimes lack sufficient perspective to make a clear decision. How can you know the consequences of a decision ten years from now? you cannot know. But you can gain an intuitive perspective by using your imagination into the future. This enables you to apply intuitive wisdom to a decision by anticipating the future consequences of that decision rather than looking only from view-point of present. Asking questions that are aligned with your goals and seeking answers to them can raise your intuitive perspective.

Believe in your higher self

Intuition must ultimately rely on faith, because your inner guidance does not necessarily lead to risk-free decisions. Sometimes your intuition guides you onto a difficult path. But this doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. Believing in your higher self can teach you to deal with difficulties and evolve in the process.

Finally, Intuitiveness can’t flourish in a busy environment. To access your inner guidance, you have to build in time in your schedule to meditate. In a meditative state, you can gain awareness and let go of your negative thoughts attuning you to clarity. This will make room for your inner voice and can lead to decisions that result in better outcomes.

“ When we consciously breathe, we connect to the present moment. This is when we are most in alignment with our intuition.”

Conclusion

Intuition is not about certainty. It is about trusting and having the courage to treat everything that happens as exactly what you need for your highest good and learning. With the inner guidance you will be able to navigate any situation with a sense of joy and ease. It may not tell you what you want to hear, but it will tell you what you need to do, can be a reliable guide and can be something that is worth following in your everyday lives.

“Follow your instinct. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself.” – Oprah Winfrey

Posted on

Make your decision-making effective

We all make different decisions every single day either big or small. Most of the decisions made on a daily basis are relatively inconsequential or small and are made without us paying much attention to them. Whereas making some of the big decisions like career related choices or work/business related matters can be tough and can have a major impact on our personal and professional lives.

Why decision-making is important?

Your competency is often measured by the quality of decisions you make and the outcomes achieved in your life or work. Whether you manage a team at work place or manage an organistation, your success depends on you making right decisions and learning from wrong ones. No matter how big or small a decision is, it is important to have a clear intention for why you are choosing a specific course of action. Our lives are an accumulation of the decisions we make both big and small. Making the best decisions becomes important in many disciplines. But not everyone is well equipped with good decision-making capabilities especially when it comes to making tougher ones.

Difficulty in making decisions

Throughout our lives, we come across situations, where we need to make hard choices, especially when the decisions we need to make are life-altering, it gets much harder. In other words, making such decisions makes us uncomfortable as we tend to think what we choose will say something about what we are and what we value. Some of us get anxious when making these decisions by weighing the merits of each option back and forth in our mind thereby making us indecisive. Some of us are used to having a need to rationalise each possibility before deciding on the best course of action. When faced with too many options, we just cant make a choice. Difficulties in making decisions can lead to stress, anxiety and depression and if left unchecked, can distort your perception of the world of yourself.

The reasons behind such indecisiveness is largely due to doubt or regret or the element of uncertainty and is mostly rooted back to certain personality traits and cognitive biases. For example, people witch strong need to reach a conclusion in a given situation tend to engage in black-and-white thinking, while ambivalent tend ṭo be more comfortable with uncertainty. Sometimes, the internal biases hold you back from making decisions. We all have them and they can affect our “big picture” decisions for better or worse without we realising it and would often impact our decision-making capabilities. These biases can lead us to judge a situation too quickly. Here are some of the most common ones.

Status-Quo bias

Change more often is not preferred, so if given a choice, many stick to what they know as they are comfortable with and are afraid to deviate from them. They make past choices as established custom and do not go by logic or rationality or relevance while making a decision. To overcome this, believe that change can be good and start with small changes and be open to doing things differently.

Confirmation bias

We all like being right. But sometimes we ignore information that challenges our beliefs. We don’t want ṭo seek the information that opposes our views thereby creating a bias in the decision taken. To balance out your prejudice, it is always better to consider the information even if that opposes your views.

In-group bias

We tend to feel more comfortable with those who have things in common with as we feel more understood and accepted. We begin to treat these people more favourably or become more aligned to such a group. In other words, we start judging a book by its cover. To break this bias, try to interact genuinely with individuals outside of your group. You might have more in common and can transcend surface-level differences.

Anchoring

When we place too much emphasis on certain piece of information, we tend to use that as a reference point to measure the remaining information creating the anchoring effect. In order not to let this happen, take time to evaluate by considering various aspects instead of rushing into a decision.

Being aware of your own biases will help you view your situation more objectively and to gain clarity around the decisions you make.

How to make effective decisions?

All of us have innate desire to be able to make better decisions and to protect ourselves from the wrong ones in order to create a bright future. But many factors; conscious and subconscious affect our choices and we need to know the ones that will help us improve our decision-making. Here are some ways to improve your decision-making.

Identify the triggers for indecisiveness

If you have difficulty making decisions – there is a chance that you are afraid of something. Figure out the reasons behind those fears to recognise triggers that cloud your mind. Is it a fear of failure? Or fear of missing out? Or is it because of your insecurities? By knowing the reason behind your discomfort, you can figure out how much sense it makes and whether it leads you to making the right decision. It would be a positive mental shift in seeing options as ‘ good’ and ‘bad’, to just choice A and choice B. Train yourself to think pros and cons with out being emotionally affected. Be aware of your triggers and practice challenging your previous choice patterns.

Squash all the biases

With biases we become prejudiced and make decisions without proper clarity. Simple errors lead to poor decisions due to our emotional ambiguous state. It is important to spot these errors and omit them to make better choices. You need to consider the likelihood of all particular outcomes. Instead of taking into account every possible outcome, look at the ones that are most likely to happen. You need to guard yourself against biases to think clearly when making decision.

Gather right information

Assuming that you know everything about a choice that needs to be made may not lead you to right decision. You can only make a decision based on the best information you have at the time. That is why it is important to gather right facts as many as relating to what you are contemplating on. Question your assumptions instead of jumping straight into something without properly considering the facts. All big choices have consequences and could result in more failures and regrets. If you rely on your assumptions, you run the risk of accepting a bias. The more you explore the background information, the more reliable your decision will be.

Consider what is at stake

Do not allow others’ agenda to sway you from making the choice thats right for you. You should be making difficult decisions with yourself in mind. Ask yourself:”will I like myself after making this choice.” Anyone can tick all the boxes in terms of a solution, without taking into account how that decision may make them feel about themselves. Consider how you’ll feel about yourself when you’ve made that choice. If you choose the easier, unassertive option, you risk a drop in self-esteem. Trust yourself enough to believe your decision is well informed and good.

Entertain doubt

Once you made a decision, it is easy to find evidence to support it. confirmation bias will ensure you find more and more reasons why you are right. So Instead of trying to prove your potential decision is right, prove it wrong. Look for reasons to doubt it, of you can’t find any then you can have confidence that decision you are making is a good one. Test your decision against multiple scenarios and if it still looks the best choice from different perspectives, go with it.

Identify alternatives

Don’t prejudice outcomes. There are always more variables to consider. The more alternatives you consider, the more likely you are to arrive at a better decision. But with too many, you may find it too hard to make your decision. Keep them limited. Step back and identify alternatives to seek others’ view points. Listen to arguments and probe for understanding. There may be valid perspectives you hadn’t considered, which could pave way for right course of action. Looking for alternatives creates different points of view, new insights and new choices.

Don’t overanalyse

Sometimes people mull over too many dimensions and are unable to choose a course of action. There’s this or that person to consider, the consequences that might arise, and sometimes it might be the fear of making mistakes, or fear of what others might think and so on. The flip side of over analysing is that we fail to identify what is outside our control. Take decisions based on what feels right, with proper assessment of the best available information instead of overanalysing.

Finally, Trust your instincts in making your decisions based on right principles and establish clear objectives that identify with your desired outcome or that which provides solutions to your problems. Decide on the lines of whether to if your decision is efficient and effective.

Next time around while making a decision that is crucial to you follow these steps to make better decisions. Once you’ve made your decision, act on it. Make your decision measurable and achievable.

Posted on

How to get your thoughts working for you

The decisions and choices we make determine the direction we take in our lives, and we do so by our thoughts. Thoughts if aligned with our goals and with what we want to achieve can take us forward—and, obviously, this is the direction most of us want to take. But many times, we go in the opposite direction because of various negative factors. We must be able to Identify and get these thoughts working for us,

Instead of they moving us away from our goals and shifting our direction. With conscious effort, we can correct their alignment by making them more harmonious with our desires and get these thoughts work for us and not against.

Your thoughts have huge influence on the choices you make.

We are all engaged in a continuous internal dialogue in which the meaning and emotional associations of one thought triggers the next, without we being consciously aware of the process. We launch our desires in the form of a thought and they are an important part of our inner wisdom. A thought held long enough and repeated enough becomes a belief. We shape our lives by the choices made around these beliefs and build our identity without even realising it. Every choice you’ve made – the big or small ones – have lead you to this moment in your life. We contribute towards the creation of every condition in our lives with our internal thought process influencing us. But when we get involved in negative emotions and feelings, we begin to compare, criticise, form opinions, and we fall out of tune, and tend to make wrong choices thereby making them work against to what we want to achieve.

Your thoughts have consequences

Everything that has or had not happened in your life is because of the choices you have made so far and your thoughts play a major role. Our mind has a tendency to dwell on the past or stress about the future and can often cause us more confusion and stress leading to negative and stressful thoughts. When your mind is untrained, it can lead you to a negative path based on past memories and perceptions. More negative thoughts, more are the chances of making bad choices and this can further sabotage your efforts of creating the life you would dream of. It is simple fact that positive thoughts lead to better choices and thus to a positive life. Negativity leads to limited and wrong choices,

You are the creator of your thoughts

You are the only person who is in charge of your thoughts. You get to have whatever you choose to think. So rather than trying to stop thinking, it is important to train yourself to a habit of thinking the sort of thoughts you want which help you make better choices. By changing your thoughts you can change your reality. According to science, our brain is highly flexible and have the ability to reset its circuit through what we choose to focus our thoughts on. You have the power to use your thoughts to rewire your brain to positive pathways.

Why is it important to get your thoughts working for you

We say we want to be happy, but we make choices that bring us the opposite. It’s your choices that create your experiences.

“ your mind is a tool you can choose to use any way you wish.”

If you believe that you can change a thought, then your choice of this thought will make it true for you.

Your thoughts are shaped by your memories, your goals, your desires, your beliefs that makes you who you are. But your thoughts can’t always be trusted as some of them might be created by your negativity of emotions and feelings. For instance, you might want things to be, rather than accepting whatever might happen when you put forth your best effort. You get frustrated because you are attached to how you want them to be, rather than accepting them as they are. You might choose to procrastinate, as you are attached to things being easy and comfortable rather than accepting that to do something, you have to push into discomfort and so on.

Acquiring a positive mental attitude can:

Free you from your negative self

By making positive choices you precisely free yourself from all the negativity inhabiting your mind. Negative thoughts and choices prevent you from making a step forward because they make you feel incapable of doing something. You surrender to them each time and never consider going against them. This makes you take poor and limited choices. With positive thinking, you can liberate yourself from negativity rooted inside you.

Open up different possibilities

Negativity compels you to behave in a specified manner and you tend to restrict yourself from taking action as you are frightened of certain outcome. Hence, you cannot go beyond that outcome and cannot increase your possibilities. Your mind gets conditioned to see the bleak side of thing. By making your thoughts positive, you can see different possibilities and resolve a situation in the best possible manner.

Help in self-empowerment

Positive thinking empowers you by identifying your unique skill set and talents which otherwise you would have never explored due to your negative thoughts and choices. Positive thinking boosts your confidence to find out what you are good at and helps you make good choices. You can refine your raw talents and make them help you to achieve your goals.

How to get your thoughts working for you

“ you are what you are and you are where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You change what you are and you change where you are by changing what goes into your mind.” – Zig Ziglar

A positive thought process can help you focus on the positive and productive by shutting out the negative and unrewarding. Choose your thoughts to take yourself from where you are to where you want to be. Acknowledge and transform your negative thoughts and get them aligned with your goals and not against.

Here are some do’s and don’ts to reinforce your positive thoughts and choices.

Stop blaming

Stop blaming your past, or people for how your life is. Nobody has a perfect life and many have lived through bad phases. You cannot change your past, however you can choose to change how you feel about it and how you allow it to affect you. Don’t choose to hang on to your old story as your excuse for how awful your life is right now. You don’t have to blame yourself for negative experiences. Let go of all guilt, blame and do not hate yourself for having negative thoughts. Learn from these experiences and use them to build you up to take you towards your goals.

Challenge your negative thoughts

Identify your negative thoughts and challenge as to how realistic your current concerns are and their logic. Test the illogical thoughts. Analyse how likely each of those thing is to actually happen and how you would deal with the problem if it were to occur. You need to keep reinforcing positive thoughts. This will open up your possibilities. “When the negative weeds grow, pluck them out as quickly as you can.”

At the same time do not punish yourself for making negative choices, you’ll find it difficult to let them go and move on to more positive choices.

Avoid being delusional

“Your life is a result of the choices you make. If you don’t like your life, it is time to start making better choices.”

If you don’t like the choices that have gotten you up to this point, face the truth and identify what isn’t working in your life. Take a step back and figure out why. Do not delude yourself that things are going to get better to make you happy. Don’t fall victim to fake hope syndrome by setting unrealistic expectations and making frequent attempts to change them.

Practice positive mental diet

When you feed your mind with positive affirmations, information, conversations, books and thoughts, you develop a more positive attitude and can make positive choices. ‘Good-in, Good-out.’ When you make a clear decision to eliminate negativity, you can choose to make positive choices that make you more capable and competent. A positive mind keepe the thoughts in sync with your goals, plans and dreams.

Stop complaining

If you want something different from what you have right now, then you have to do something different from what you’re doing. If you want others to treat you differently, start yourself treating differently. Stop complaining and start taking responsibility for the way things are in your life. If you want different outcomes, make different choices. Desires and goals can produce anxiety, stress, and competitiveness and you need to recognise those that do. you can choose to rearrange your thoughts to make the situation better instead of wasting time in complaining.

Practice positive self-talk

Just because you say you want something different or better, your inner being is not going to go along with you. What you believe about yourself and your worthiness or ability to have what you want is important. It is important to build self-worth and value in yourself because when you feel not good enough, you choose ways to keep yourself miserable, choose to procrastinate, and might opt for unhealthy food choicesnand habits. Positive self-talk is programming yourself to change. Using positive affirmations and positive statements to control your inner dialoguelets you make better choices.

Practice mindfulness

In mindfulness, you will essentially be looking at your own thoughts and can assess them. Be persistent in giving yourself few quite moments each day to reflect on your process of change. Become aware of negative thoughts and nurture the willingness to let go of them.

Nourish and affirm your intentions to keep you on track and enable you to meet your goals.

Finally, take full responsibility for where you are currently in life. If you’re not happy with what you have today and make a choice right now to make a change in your life by changing the way you think in order to make your thoughts work for you. Recognise the power of the freedom of will which allows you to change anything that you do not agree with.

“We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.” —Stephen Covey