Trust Your Gut: Science Explains How to Cultivate Everyday Intuition

Entrepreneurs often advise to trust your gut. However, this advice can be impractical, as intuition varies for everyone. Intuition, or "trusting your gut," is a tool we can all learn to use. Intuition is often dismissed, yet relied upon in crucial moments. When faced with equally appealing choices, we often go with our gut. Cultivating everyday intuition is essential. Intuition can feel like a "vibe," a knowing without knowing why. It's a direction, guiding us toward or away from something. Doubts arise when we can't trace the steps to our conclusions. However, intuition is actually data, explored through neuroscience, psychology, and more. Neuroscientists see intuition as rapid pattern recognition and memory retrieval. This happens below conscious awareness, resulting in biofeedback. Our brains process data and manifest it as feelings. Our minds interpret these feelings, linking body and mind. Intuition is an ensemble of brain processes like memory activation and prediction. Intuition is an innate ability, not a mystical phenomenon. It's drawing upon past experiences to make quick decisions. Since intuitive hits can feel random, they may seem otherworldly. People experience intuition differently, both physically and intellectually. Some feel physical sensations, while others receive complete sentences. Differentiating intuition from anxiety is crucial. Becoming experts in ourselves is key to understanding our intuition. Identifying how and when we receive intuitive information is helpful. The "clairs" can be useful learning styles. Clairs include clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairaudience (clear hearing), and claircognizance (clear knowing). These clairs are useful shorthand for how you know what you know. Noticing visual signs in your life can also be a form of clairvoyance. Spend time noting how you experience intuition. Is it a physical sensation, a sentence, or a visual flash? Understanding your personal intuitive style is key to trusting your gut.