Learn to Use Your Intuition
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“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”
-Lao Tzu
Have you ever faced a tough decision, and miraculously known what action to take without consciously thinking about it?
Somehow, your subconscious mind knows what to do, and it makes the decision for you in a matter of seconds. It’s a state of heightened consciousness, which we often describe as our “gut instinct.” You take action without thinking twice, and in retrospect you see you made the right decision. This is intuition.
While some of us are more intuitive than others, I don’t believe we inherently less intuitive beings have to limit ourselves by saying, “I’m not intuitive… I just wasn’t born with it.” Intuition is, contrary to popular belief, a developed understanding. Your mind sends you messages all the time, whether you are able to interpret them or not. Being able to interpret these messages is largely dependent on how willing you are to listen to and accept them for what they are.
Emotional Intelligence
What is emotion? I’ve come to understand emotion as a strong, internal, subconscious response to external circumstance. We don’t think happiness, or sadness. We just are. We may be able to influence our emotions with thought, but thought is not emotion. Once we accept emotion for what it is, we can begin to interpret what it’s trying to tell us.
Emotion is designed to be the feedback messenger of your subconscious mind. Think of it as the Hermes of your subconscious mind.
When you’re angry, it’s usually because you are unable to come to terms with a specific aspect of your external environment.
When you’re frustrated, you’re attempting to bend your external environment to your will with little or no success.
When you’re sad, you may be having a hard time coping with your external environment. Regardless of the emotion you are feeling, there is always a message lying subtly beneath its surface.
So, how do you go about discerning the message? The key is to separate yourself from your emotions. You are not your emotions. Often times we get lost in our emotions, and allow them to consume our consciousness. They take over our minds, influence our actions, and frequently cause us to make poor decisions. Instead of thinking with our emotions, we must learn to use our emotions to think.
I was first introduced to this concept by Robert Kiyosaki in his book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”
If I’m angry at something or someone, I see it as an opportunity to evaluate a mistake in my state of mind. I’m being ungrateful, and failing to remember how good I have it. Maybe I’m being egotistical, and upsetting everyone around me while also upsetting myself. If I’m feeling frustrated, I may be beating my head against the wall. I need to re-evaluate my approach, and choose a different path to reach my goal. If I’m feeling anxious, chances are I need to learn a new skill. When I’m feeling bored, it may be a sign I need to take on new, exciting challenges. As you get more in touch with your emotions, you’ll begin to make noticeable leaps in your awareness. You’ll begin to see yourself in a new light.
Feeling emotion is human. Yet, so many of us try and push away our emotions instead of embracing them as a part of what makes us human. No matter how far we get in our personal development, emotion will always be with us. We will never escape our humanity, so why fight it? Do you ever attempt to fight the thunderstorm outside? Accept your emotional “thunderstorms”, and use them to learn as much about yourself as possible.
Motivational Intelligence
Ever since I began 6th grade, I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to do well in school. For a while, I wrote it off as being lazy. I figured, since all the other kids seemed to be working hard, maybe something was wrong with me.
Was I destined to be a bum? Maybe school wasn’t my thing.
At the end of senior year, it hit me. “What if I’m not just being lazy? What if it’s something deeper than that,” I asked myself. There were plenty of tough subjects for me to deal with. Usually I’m the type of guy who loves a good challenge. However, the challenge of the subjects wasn’t motivating me either, and I began to wonder why.
It has taken me nearly 3 years since that point in my life to recognize why I’ve had trouble motivating myself. It took a great deal of inner-reflection and thinking to understand why. Finally, I determined that at my core, one of my most important characteristics is my desire for freedom.
I’ve found it’s hard to focus my mind on anything which doesn’t interest me, regardless of its proclaimed “importance” to my future. Thus, in an environment like high school in which we are forced to take a certain curriculum whether we like it or not, I found it difficult to motivate myself. None of the subjects interested me, and I felt as though I had no freedom to choose otherwise.
You may be saying, “Rahul, you’re just making excuses. You really are lazy!” I won’t disagree. You’re entitled to your own opinion. However, following this profound realization about my true nature, I’ve started picking up activities which do interest me; such writing articles for this blog, studying philosophy, and personal development. The results are I find myself working 100 times harder, 100 times more efficiently, and providing 100 times more value to society. All the while, I’ve retained my freedom, and feel much more motivated.
The long example above from my own life introduces us to the concept of “motivational intelligence”. Much like the quote at the beginning of this article by Lao Tzu, at the center of your being, you know who you really are.
If you’re finding it hard to motivate yourself to do something, ask yourself why. Is the task not interesting? Is it too challenging? Does it restrict your freedom? Is the task too menial? Don’t do as I did and write yourself off as being “lazy”. This will only lead to negative self-talk, and will prevent you from obtaining valuable information.
Try and understand why you’re having difficulty motivating yourself. You will soon discover, just as I have, Lao Tzu’s quote is true. Your subconscious mind knows exactly what you want to be.
If your true interest is music, but you’re forcing yourself to study medicine, you’ll have a hard time motivating yourself. If your true interest is serving the greater good, and you’re stuck in a job which provides little or no value for anyone, you’ll have a hard time motivating yourself. If you’ve been denying yourself from using your motivational intelligence for a long time, the first step is to accept you have deviated from what you should be doing with your life. Once you’ve accepted this truth, you will be prepared to make progress in the right direction.
The next time you fall asleep on your books while studying for a test, or pass out on your desk while your boss is out to lunch, ask yourself, “Is this really what I’m supposed to be doing with my life?”
Don’t “Go Through the Motions”
It’s easy to fall into the trap of “going through the motions” in life, and ending up somewhere you aren’t supposed to be. When we stop listening to what we are trying to tell ourselves, this is precisely what happens. Blindly going through the motions could surely lead you to some interesting places. However, it’s much more likely this method will lead you to a sub-optimal place in life which limits your contribution to society by barring you from your true potential.
The longer you choose to ignore your intuition, you deprive society of all the potential good you could be doing. Don’t be the reason why society is missing out. Learn to use your intuition.
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