Intuition
your choice to use the tools.

A friend once asked how he would know if his intuition was a reliable guide. He knew so many people found success following "gut instinct", but he had doubts about his own powers. While walking across the hard-wiring of his brain, we learned about the nature of intuition and bypassed the familiar mental reservoir of doubt and distrust. How would he know if it was okay to listen and follow his instincts?

How indeed. If you have ever doubted the power or voice of your own intuition, then this article is for you.

Three things you must know to recognize and empower your intuition:

1. you definitely have intuition

2. intuition defies reason

3. trust is the way to access the unreasonable

Intuition is a guidance tool and your mind an evaluation tool. Intuition is meant to be used prior to action, and our analytical mind after. Following this natural order allows us to make big leaps in our lives. Many of us have reversed the order of the guidance/evaluation cycle and have found ourselves making a future based on the past. This often means feeling familiar feelings repeatedly and familiar experiences. If these are great feelings- then enjoy the loop...more power to you. If you want something different, then you must step outside of the recreation (and reaction) cycle and create straight up. Your intuition will guide you in this process.

There are an infinite variety of ways to access your intuition. And now that you are considering giving your intuition a chance to inform you, infinity plus one. There is no mystery in intuition, there is no mental box to put around it or absolute method to its utilization. You need not be special or educated, you need not read one more book or seek one more teacher. You are a human and humans have intuition-- humans also have choice. So how do you want to experience the power of your intuition?

Would you prefer a voice, a sign, a symbol, a story or a feeling- a festival of coincidence or the classic gut feeling? Would you like a variety in your experience of intuition? Which "voice" of intuition will you trust? What will you feel when you know you own your inner guidance? How will your intuition inform you today? What will you make happen?

Not as much as you may think. What does that brain of yours tell you about making decisions, anyway?

This morning when I started to write this idea of the week about destiny, I realized that talking about destiny without illuminating the power of decision, was similar to hanging a fuzzy veil around my brain. An academic study of destiny is neither coherent or interesting. Living Destiny is a fascinating and fast ride. Decisions are Destiny in action.

So here I am now, awake and pumped up, writing to you about decision- the innate power we all wield a thousand times a day in a thousand ways. Decision is power. It is also clarity, creativity, and motivation. Decision can be used to choose between two evils or to meet Evil Kenevil. It is something we do all the time, whether we notice we do or not.

Sometimes it has been thought that reaching great decisions needs deliberation, intelligence and time. Decision making really only needs desire. Decision making is easy, and deciding to make it easy...a one time challenge. In the past, we may have felt invested in our deliberation process. In contemplation and discussion, we engaged people and energy, and we benefited indirectly from indecision. Getting our needs met this way conditioned us to think that laborious decision making was necessary. However, once we experience big, quick, and powerful decisions that really meet our needs, we cannot go back to procrastination.

What is one of the best decisions you have ever made in your life? How did you arrive at it? How has it shaped your life?

We have all experienced making powerful and bold decisions instantly. These are the decisions that help us to form our path in life, and to see clearly a direction that we find meaningful. The decision to "just do it" is often what many successful people credit as the turning point in their destiny. The decision to see things differently, another huge one...

The best and brightest among us know that decision is a creative process not a selection process. Remember, you are MAKING decisions every day, and each decision redefines the person you are. As you make a decision, you make yourself. As you consciously make yourself you make your destiny...

So, you have enough?
Yes.

And you want a coach in your life because you want more?
Yes.

So, you do not have enough...
huh
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This "huh" between two opposites is exactly the the dynamic place you want to be to make your life happen the way you want. How can you use this specifically? Let me explain.

There are two truisms, seemingly contradictory, that when reconciled will give you the fastest way to make any dream of yours come true. The first truism is "the present is perfect" and the second is "decide where you want to grow or die where you are."

Coaches know this, and focus our client's attention on these two things simultaneously. The first focus is the present moment--inner strengths, desires and resources. The second is our desired future--a crystal clear vision of what can be, what we want.

If you think of this as focusing on both the ground under your feet and a mountain castle up a bit in the distance, you've got it...

For even an exceptional pair of eyes this may have seemed physically impossible. It actually stands as a visual stretch for success. In order to see both under one's feet and miles ahead simultaneously, one must switch vantage point. Perhaps above? If so, you could indeed assess both clearly...

Even more interesting for our vista viewing "eyes," is the natural central focus that comes with such a lofty perspective. From above, neither the ground now under your feet, nor the castle in the sky can truly hold your focus for long. Instead your eyes are naturally drawn to a place where you can clearly perceive the whole scene.... Could that be the path between?!

Hey, just what I needed, a map of how to get there.

What is your map?
Wanna See?

Ever wonder what makes some people take lots of action, and others procrastinate? Would and understanding of these two qualities make your life better? Could it spur you on to take immediate action?

For many of us, we spent our childhood education thinking and listening and discussing in classrooms, all in a static sitting position, and all focused on one final result: making the grade. Usually, a final exam would make us or break us, and we spent our valuable energy preparing for that ultimate end. Taking action was not part of the curriculum or the structure of school in general. In fact, taking action was what usually got us to the principal's office!

We might have learned that taking action was a "big step" that must be done after much careful consideration and discussion. Maybe we learned that lots of thinking was necessary to accomplish a goal, and negative results would surely follow if that prep time were not sat through first. Maybe we thought that planning to act was tantamount to success. Maybe we were wrong.

All this education could have made us think that lots of preparation creates achievers of the highest order....the only problem is that lots of preparation means not achieving much. Procrastination is, by definition, more meaningless prep than meaningful action-- we also know it sucks the energy right out of our lives.

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What if instead we saw mental prep time as a symptom of procrastination, and a sign to move forward in action? What if we recognized that the greatest strategies are created following action, and not developed prior to it?

Taking action is always the first step, not the last, in the journey of achievement. Nothing educates us faster and more meaningfully than a flash of action-- whether it works perfectly or not. Tell me where you experienced more of life's lessons-- stuck in the thinking seat, or the hell fires of the principal's office?!

We know that we are no longer children, and there is no teacher's plan for our life's lessons. We also know that there is no one to flunk us out. At our final exam, it will simply be us, our conscience and a bevy of delightful memories or a reservoir of regrets. For every moment we've "thought" about taking a step, we've stalled the potent learning that comes from simply captivating action and riding it through a series of life's lessons and events.

Taking action is not a mystery, it is the natural way. It is for action that every single cell in our body has been made. Taking action is the liberation from the shackles of planning, a freedom from fear and worry, and the only force we can wield in the world. Taking action consistently is the surest way to succeed repeatedly. No amount of studying, discussing, or "figuring out" can do that!

Be memorable...your actions make the grade!

You've probably heard that television and movies put people into highly receptive states... Dark rooms with colorful flickering lights, telling stories, emoting noises.

Emotions, mystery, the beautiful, and fantasy all on a compelling box set in front of our eyes. Usually before the show or the movie, or even before the commercial is finished, we have indeed lost our self-awareness for at least a moment or two. Even while distracted with another task, the input from the TV still makes it into our psyche: what do you remember better, chopping the vegetables or Seinfeld's latest escapade?

In the case of television, we know that the receptive state viewers naturally attain is highly valuable to advertisers. But do you really want to be thinking that you might need Depends undergarments as a 50 year old? Do you really want to be able to, at the slightest provocation, sing the jingles for fast food joints and beer?

So how do you use this wonderful opportunity to program yourself? What if every moment you were being entertained you were also absorbing information and emotions, according only to YOUR agenda?