I trust my intuition above all else in decision-making. And you should too if you want to create a life that you feel proud to live, and that feels good to live in day in and day out.

But trusting your intuition with decisions is easier said than done, especially when the mind wants to understand why we are making the choices we are. Following your intuition means being okay with trusting your own decision, even if you don’t have logical reasoning as to why you made the choice you did. This is hard to do, but so important to live in more alignment with yourself.

Why trust your intuition? Our intuition has access to so much more information than our conscious mind does in any given moment. Whether you understand intuition to be your access to the subconscious mind or whether you conceptualize intuition as messages from your higher self, in both scenarios you are opening yourself up to answers beyond what the thinking-mind can comprehend.

Science shows that the subconscious mind processes 27,500 times more information than the conscious mind. So the intuitive pull toward a certain solution could actually be a deeper knowing based on information that you aren’t fully aware of, but that is in fact very real.

I personally use my intuition whenever I’m facing a difficult decision in my business. Just recently, I was deciding between two vendors. Both options were great and there were pros and cons to going with either group. In the end, I asked my intuition which felt right. Although my logical mind was leaning toward one company, my intuition was strongly urging me in the other direction. Since I always try to practice what I preach, I followed my gut. It was only much later down the road that it became clear why the partner I picked was the perfect one… my intuition knew way before my mind.

Tips for intuitive decision-making

1. Explore the language of your intuition – Intuition is experienced differently by different people. For some it is a “gut-feeling”, for others we may see a vision, some can almost hear the answer in their head, and others “just know”. Just as we all have love-languages, learning how your intuition communicates with you is important self-knowledge.
2. Practice when the stakes are low – The more you flex your intuitive muscle, the stronger it becomes. You can practice using your intuition in your daily life, building up your competence for when big decisions are on the line. Playing with your intuition daily could be as simple as picking two snack options and asking your body which would be most nourishing.
3. Trust, trust, and trust some more – So many clients have told me “I knew what my intuition was telling me, but I didn’t follow it.” The fastest way to strengthen your intuitive decision-making skills is to receive the intuitive hit, and to follow through! That means making the decision and standing by it. Only after we take the leap with trust and faith in our inner knowing, only then will we see the magic that unfolds when we let our intuition lead.

The more you practice intuitive decision-making, the easier it becomes. As with any skill, repetition and feedback help you learn and improve over time. The magic begins when you start feeling confident enough to handle even the biggest decisions intuitively. It is then that you will begin to chart your life’s course in perfect alignment with self, completely effortlessly. Try it out and see for yourself!

Grace Emmons, CEO Spirit Forward Healing, MA Psychology – Spirituality, Mind, Body Institute, Columbia University