Doing everything more on intuition: useful or modern bullshit?

The term intuition comes from Latin and literally means "inner knowing. It is a trainable ability to assess situations and make decisions very quickly. However, this "superpower" can also be abused...

Intuition: what is it and what is it not?

You hear it more and more: "You need to trust your intuition more. Intuitively build a business, live your life, work," or whatever. Intuitive coaches and therapists are traveling the pan. All on intuition, like God-given truths. "All it takes? Opening up."

Wow, now if I knew that earlier, this would have saved me a lot of training... Why did they put me in swimming lessons anyway then? I should have just been thrown in the pool and picked it up intuitively....

So that's not how it works. Fortunately, there are no surgeons who do it that way, operating intuitively.

"Intuition you hear more and more. As if that's the way to get everything done. A thriving business, lots of clients and super sessions. Nonsense." - Edwin Selij

Trained intuition

Intuition is all about recognizing patterns. You have to train, work, learn, study, try, fail, try again and then, when you have put hours into it, you become more and more intuitive and suddenly "know" things. Trained intuition is often seen in professionals: someone who has worked in construction for twenty years can look at a window and intuitively know which frame will or will not fit. That person can sense or estimate whether something is correct or not. Similarly, firefighters can sense that at some point they have to get out of the house they are putting out. And then suddenly there is an explosion after that.... This is all trained intuition. Their senses are so attuned that they know something is wrong.

Properly intuitive coaching

Coaches and therapists can certainly work intuitively. The professionals among them are clearly not doing one thing, and that is: assuming, or filling in thoughts. Instead, with their trained intuition, they get to the root of the problem faster, mаrkе will continuously fact-check with the client. An important skill here is "calibration"; the judgment-free observation of micro-expressions and nonverbal unconscious signals. As you observe changes on the outside in a conversation partner, you can assume that changes are taking place on the inside as well.

Getting reason and intuition to work together

So your intuition is not always the pure touchstone: you weigh everything - including things that you can rationally say are not really relevant (anymore), such as old programming or negative past experiences and fears that are not realistic. We have both reason and intuition for a reason. Ideally, they keep each other in wonderful balance.

Fact-checking your own feelings?

In our Western world, the emphasis has been on rationality and logic for so long, it's definitely a good idea to use our gut feelings a little more often; after all, the body never lies. You don't always have to know why you decide something, especially when something 'just feels obvious'. With decisions from both head and heart, a very simple answer suffices: because it makes you happier!