Trust Your Intuition

Many years back, as a junior executive, I was managing a project in its critical stage. The project, which involved many cross-functional stakeholders, was encountering some issues, and I “felt” that I should inform the project sponsor about the impending problems.

But, unfortunately, my conscious mind sang a different tune- it prompted me not to speak up, lest the project sponsor may think I was incompetent. I kept working overtime to resolve the many issues but to little avail. Finally, later in the week, distraught, I caught up with my mentor for guidance, and he advised me to inform the project sponsor about the challenges I was encountering.

“At the outset, I did have this feeling that I must inform the project sponsor, but somehow I ignored it,” I admitted to my mentor.

“You should have listened to your gut feeling,” my mentor responded gravely.

I realized I had made a mistake by ignoring my intuition.

What is Intuition?

Intuition is that silent voice from our hearts that tells us what we should be doing. It is an inner voice, not so loud and clear. Unfortunately, our mind is louder than this voice of the heart/gut, which is why we often ignore it.

Our mind is “trained” to follow the rules and respond to things in a certain way, dictated by our preconceived beliefs and notions. However, in contrast, the great thing about intuition is that it follows no rules. It is like an internal compass pointing you to the right thing.

Much of what we do is driven by ego and self-interest, and many times, we override the ‘gut feeling” and do what feels safe or convenient, often leading to adverse outcomes. Listening to our gut feeling demands that we slow down, cut through the noise in our minds, pay attention to the inner compass, and then follow it !!

The bottom line is that Learning to trust one’s “intuition” is a vital life skill we should develop.