Do You Have The Sheer Guts To Follow Your Intuition?

Guts, get it? See what I did there? Actually, I didn't do anything because I didn't realise the correlation between guts and intuition until just now.

I feel like there is this perception that listening to your intuition is somehow all flimsy, fluffy and feminine.

God, can we just stop with the coding of things as feminine and therefore not worthy of serious attention?

Anyway, it takes serious guts to follow your intuition and I'm going to tell you why.

It's super easy to ignore your inner voice and just go with the social conditioning and expectations that you are used to.

There is nothing easier in the world than staying a job that makes you depressed because other people see it as a good look.

When I used to work in a bank I can't tell you the number of people that told me 'That's a good job, well done you,' I was dying inside. Including my mum by the way, so you know, that's a strong message of social approval right there. Our hungry for acceptance monkey brains love that shit.

The truth is there is no real effort required to filling the status quo, it's actually the option that is most ready-made for us. The only thing we have to do is keep our heads down and don't cause too much of a stink for any reason.

There's a lot of hype about how hard the well trodden path of school and career climbing is that make it seem challenging. But in actual fact, the wheels of that carriage are well greased, you need only buy into it and you're on your way.

Now I'm not saying that climbing the corporate ladder isn't hard. There are a lot of hidden factors that count for far more than you'd think, and these are mostly social.

This isn't what we're told at school, we're told if you work hard you'll go places. However, if you've been in the adult world for almost any amount of time you'll know that popularity and conformity count for a hell of a lot more than they should. Quality of work notwithstanding.

If you've not thought of it in this way before, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you.

The point is that it's the familiar routes that require the least input from ourselves. There are examples to follow, codes of behaviour to adopt, a million prescribed ways of 'getting ahead.' Which we're supposed to want to do.

Following your intuition is very likely going to get you to do something that falls wildly outside of these accepted norms.

That's why it takes guts.

We aren't all that far from our ape ancestors when it comes to social inclusion needs. Exclusion in evolutionary terms means death, and our brains are still operating largely in that way.

We can find ourselves fantasising about the life we'd like to live, we can even rationalise how it's not as big a risk as it feels. But I can bet you you've felt that fear and completely not done it anyway. I know I have.

It takes a few rounds of trying and falling further and further out of love with the way we were taught to view the world.

This requires an unbelievable amount of self reflection and increasingly fearless experimentation with the things you are curious about.

There's a very real possibility that people are going to look at you like you are crazy for wanting to try something that's new and unfamiliar to them.

So an element of protecting your privacy is key here, especially when you are in the newborn phase of exploring or rediscovering your creativity.

But please do it, you owe yourself that. You've always owed yourself that. Some people love the well trodden path, but if you're reading stuff about intuition you probably don't so you need to start following your own path and see where it leads.

It's true there are no guarantees, but that does at least keep it interesting. Your life is you're own and there is no one that has the right to tell you how to live it.

If you're feeling an internal pull towards something, follow it and see where it goes. Even if it's something small like trying a new film genre that you've always written off as 'not for you' but feel insanely curious about.

Find the things you want and start practising giving them to yourself.

You do have the guts. I completely believe in you.