Intuition vs. Logic……
I know as a high achiever, you are full steam ahead, peddle to the medal, go go go!
And I know you live in your head. You are constantly thinking and over-thinking and ruminating on your actions and decisions. Even second guessing yourself (although you won’t let anyone know that one).
You are analytical and logical. You are always trying to evaluate all the plays and the ROI. You live most of your life in the left side of your brain.
Chances are you are not slowing down long enough to even listen to your gut? You may even devalue it.
Here’s why you shouldn’t.
We are all born with an inner guidance system that allows us to analyze things very quickly on a subconscious level based on our experiences, our education and our intuition. This exists in the right side of our brain. It’s the house of creativity, innovation and intuition. What we experience as a gut feeling is really a complicated process that happens in a nano second to help guide us in making decisions quickly, easily, and correctly.
What often happens with high-achievers, especially in the STEM fields, is that we either never slow down enough to tap into it or when we do hear it we over-ride it with logic, (over)thinking and the fear of making the “wrong” choice. We don’t understand or trust this side of our brain because we have relied so heavily on the left side and frankly it’s worked out well for us. We’ve been able to succeed doing this. But perhaps at a cost to our innovation and our stamina.
So when we do hear our gut response and it doesn’t seem to make logical sense, it’s easy for us to dismiss it. But what we don’t realize is that it may not seem logical to our conscious brain because our brain is analyzing things so quickly and taking in information that your conscious brain isn’t aware of yet. It’s not necessarily illogical. It is just illogical to us in that moment.
What’s the cost of this?
……missed opportunities, lost income and visibility, loss of innovation, lack of fulfillment, stress, and burnout. (Heck even the greats like Einstein, Edison and Tesla relied on intuition or inner guidance).
We were given this guidance system to make our lives easier. Not using it is like throwing away the keys to your office because you think you have a better way to get in. We were born with the right tools for the job and that means using both our right and left-sides of our brain. Too often we choose the hard way instead; partly because we refuse to slow down and partly because we fear trusting anything but logic.
Imagine that you could be even more successful than you are now with less effort by learning how to slow down, tune in and trust your gut. In fact, if you want to create sustainable peak performance so that you can be the best at what you do without burning out, you’re going to have to.
Comment below on where you have over-relied on your logic and what it would be like to tap into your gut more often.
And, if you would like to explore how I can help you recover from burn out and create sustainable peak performance, please contact me for an application for a complimentary consultation.