Recently I was driving through unfamiliar territory in Coventry – no I hadn’t been sent there by my family, just visiting a client! I had taken a wrong turn and got lost – the road signs just weren’t making much sense to me. I hadn’t bothered to look at the map or programme the Sat Nav, so I decided to trust my intuition, go with a hunch, follow my nose… or whatever you prefer to call it. I haven’t a clue where I went but I soon found my way back on to the beloved M6 near Birmingham.

You could say I was lucky, or clever, or psychic… but actually, I think I was just trusting my unconscious mind. If you know someone who has had lots of success in business by following hunches then you will know what I am talking about. Or if you are a devoted recipient of holistic massage therapy… you may have discovered that the best therapists are the ones who work mostly intuitively – they tune into your body and know exactly where and how to work on you. The power of intuition is often underrated.

Logic and reasoning are very important, of course, but from NLP we discover that your unconscious mind knows far more than you realise. Everything you have ever learned or decided or experienced is in there somewhere, even if you ‘think’ you can’t recall it. So it can make sense to trust your unconscious mind, follow your intuition and see what happens. The more you trust in this way and have positive experiences as a result, the more you will learn to use it well and gain benefit. It’s like building a muscle and it takes practice.

I know from many years of coaching using NLP that I usually get the best results for my client when I go with my intuition. Try it. Each day ask yourself “what is my intuition telling me, what feels like the right thing to do now?” Tune into it, grow the muscle… and reap the rewards.

With thanks to this week's guest writer, Brilliant Minds Associate Partner, Peter Jefford