Do you listen to your hunches, when it comes to decision-making?
You might be thinking,” What are hunches?”
A hunch is a gut feeling, flash in the mind, voice inside, sixth sense, or intuition. A hunch holds the internal compass that keeps you on track. It is a decision-making partner that you can use to your benefit, or ignore all together. A hunch works for you in all areas of life, personal or professional. It is an ace-in-the-hole, the inside track, a direct communication link to the universal intelligence.
Hunches are always right. And yet, I don’t pay attention to them all of the time. Do you?
Examples of not using hunches:
– We had agreed to help a friend financially with a business venture. All of a sudden, there was a new partner on the scene. For some reason we didn’t like the guy, red lights were flashing for us, but we went ahead anyway. The ordeal cost us well over $100,000 plus a ton of time.
– On a canoeing excursion, I awoke in the morning with a voice in my head saying, “don’t let anyone go on that hike up the canyon.” Logically, the voice didn’t make any sense, so we hiked. One of our group died in a flash flood.
I could give you dozens of examples where I let my logical, rational, reasonable brain make the decision and the results were highly undesirable.
There have also been hundreds of times where we have consciously used our hunches for guidance, with fabulous results.
Examples of using hunches:
– It was time to leave home, but I felt I needed to wait a few minutes. Had I left at the earlier time, I would likely have been at the right place at the right time to be involved in a severe highway accident that occurred.
– We had planned to leave Friday night on a tenting trip with some friends. My guts were in turmoil. At the last minute, we called our friends to postpone until the morning. A huge windstorm hit the area where we were to stay and huge trees had toppled on the campsites.
– It was pitch dark and foggy as we drove home. Carol was sleeping in the passenger seat. Suddenly she awoke and said, “Dan, stop now!” I crammed on the brakes and a huge moose walked across the road a short distance in front of us.
I know that if you ponder on your life, you’ve had communication with your hunches, consciously or unconsciously. The key is to pay attention to them; the internal feeling, the flash in the mind, or the voice inside, without question.
How can we use our hunches consciously – so we can make good decisions every time and in all areas of life?
Here’s a strategy that works for me and I encourage you to give it a whirl. If you have another system that works for you, I’d like to learn it and hear how you feel about the results.
The decision making strategy using hunches
This strategy works for all decisions: business; finances; job/career; major purchases; what to eat, wear, drink; departure times; what to say; how to treat self or others; etc. It works for all decisions however it takes a few moments to complete.
With major decisions, some people invest a lot of thought, research, and number crunching – doing your due diligence. Continue to do that if you wish, as a way to appease the logical part of your brain.
When it comes to the actual decision point, set due diligence aside and do the following.
1. Stop, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and relax. Roll your eyes up as if you were looking at the top of the inside of your eyelids. Your eyes may move to the left or right and that’s fine. Let them do as they will. It’s a subconscious searching or constructing process that is occurring.
2. Make a picture in your mind, or visualize yourself after making the decision for one alternative. Example: see yourself in that new job after accepting it, as if it is, right now.
3. Be totally immersed in the experience, in your own body, doing what you do, and notice everything around you. See what you see (location, building, work-team, furniture), hear what you hear (voices of others or internal voices, equipment), taste what you taste (water, snacks, coffee), smell what you smell (upholstery, flowers). Notice everything as if you are doing that job right now.
4. Become consciously aware of your hunches – your feelings. It could be a sensation in your stomach, chest, shoulders, or head. It could be a voice or another picture flashing in your mind.
5. Evaluate the feeling. Is it a good feeling, or is it not quite right? Does it improve your relationship with yourself and others, or make it worse? Make a mental note of how it feels for you. Calibrate the feelings on a scale in your mind so you have something to which you can compare.
6. Clear your mind, as if it were a movie screen, and go back to step 2. Repeat steps 2 to 5 with another alternative. Example: see yourself doing your current job as it is, right now.
7. Go through these steps for each alternative and then make your decision based on your comparison of the feelings.
My challenge for you, should you choose to accept it, is to trust your hunches in all of your decisions. The decision may be in opposition to the rational thought however, if you trust it and go with it, you’ll find it is always right.
As you begin to consciously listen to your hunches, you won’t need this process. You’ll sense the right decision quickly, without any rational convincing, questioning, and debating with yourself or others.
You know you have this guidance system within you, so why not use it now, consciously, consistently, and persistently?
My hunches are telling me this is enough. So it is!
