I was playing a simple game where the objective was to guess which dot would win the race: the white, the blue, or the red. My first instinct was BLUE. But the logic kicked in - RED is a more powerful color and made a bolder statement. My friends and I watched that screen, and WHITE had the lead most of the time, until BLUE gained in at the last minute and won. There I was, shaking my head, because I had ignored my original impulse.
How often has that happened to us? Why do we trust the mind more than the heart? Malcolm Gladwell immediately came to mind. In his book
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, he teaches us that decisions made very quickly are just as good as the ones we give lots of thought to. But when do we follow our hunches and when do we not? It's a skill just like any other, according to Gladwell, that we can all cultivate within ourselves.
It takes practice, but also a high degree of trust in ourselves. We must be balanced and centered, and maintain a sense of well being.
Feeling good about yourself is number one. It's a sum of what you eat, how you live, the quality of rest, leisure activities, and, of course, what you think. This all translates into greater confidence, and that is a place where trust comes from.
Start documenting those "blink" moments and see how often you not only follow them, but also how many times you are right. That way, the next time your gut hints you in one direction, perhaps you'd be more inclined to following it.
Here's to developing our natural guiding system and becoming better decision-makers! One more great tool under your belt...
+Erika
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Erika Matos is a transformational agent, a certified health and nutrition educator, intuitive healer, and life coach helping people shift in the right direction by critically rethinking everything assumed to be true about what it means to be a happy, healthy, prosperous being. To learn more about her work visit http://www.realitymanifest.com
