Definition of intuition – what is intuitive decision making?

With intuition we designate the

instinctive and unconscious knowing without deduction or reasoning.

Intuition is receiving input and ideas without knowing exactly how and where you got them from. You simply know it is not from yourself. Like creativity, intuitive inspiration often happens when someone virtually «fuses» in an activity, when one is highly focused on the respective activity in a state of joy and fulfilment. Intuition can be trained and in its highest level leads into a conscious contact with non-incarnated beings, a process usually called channelling.

Most of us are used to making intuitive decisions in our daily life: As soon as subjective judgement is involved, rational reasoning is very difficult to apply. Typical examples where intuition can play an important role in making decisions are: Choosing your life partner, selecting the right car to buy, evaluation of a job, decision about an education, selecting a meal when eating out, selecting the next book to read, decide how to dress for today, and so on.

Intuitive decision making is far more than using common sense because it involves additional sensors to perceive and get aware of the information from outside. Sometimes it is referred to as gut feeling, sixth sense, inner sense, instinct, inner voice, spiritual guide, etc. Many pages on this site are devoted to encourage and help people to use these sensors for decision processes . It is related to developing a higher consciousness in order to train these sensors and to make the process of receiving information intuitively a more conscious one. People who can’t accept the existence of such sensors may instead call it tapping into „collective intelligence” or „collective unconscious”.

The question cannot be whether rational reasoning or intuitive decision making is generally better. The question is rather in each individual case how both approaches can be best combined for optimal results. For this purpose, an experienced consultant from outside can often help to avoid common mistakes and to dissolve prejudices. Contact us if you are interested in our in-house consulting and coaching for intuitive decision making processes.

Let’s see what some well-known people had to say about intuition:

Albert Einstein (Theoretical physicist who is widely considered one of the greatest physicists of all time. Best known for the theory of relativity, Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect and “for his services to Theoretical Physics”.):

«The only real valuable thing is intuition.»

«There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.»

John Naisbitt (Former executive with IBM and Eastman Kodak, American writer in the area of futures studies. Author of several international best sellers like “Megatrends” and “Re-inventing the Corporation”.):

«Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.»

Alexis Carrel (French surgeon, biologist and eugenicist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine):

«All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.»

«Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.»

Henry Reed (British poet):

«Intuition is the very force or activity of the soul in its experience through whatever has been the experience of the soul itself.»

«It is as if the intuitive sense acting through the soul is what makes the raw events into food for the soul.»

Immanuel Kant (German philosopher):

«Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.»

George Crumb (American composer of modern and avant garde music):

«In general, I feel that the more rationalistic approaches to pitch-organization, including specifically serial technique, have given way, largely, to a more intuitive approach.»

Robert Graves (English poet, scholar, and novelist):

«Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.»

Lao Tzu (ancient Chinese philosopher):

«The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.»

Anne Wilson Schaef (writer and lecturer):

«Trusting our intuition often saves us from disaster.»

Andie MacDowell (American screen actress):

«I think women have an innate ability to be intuitive with people that they truly love, but they have to trust that inner voice, and I think it is there. I think we are more intuitive than men.»