In the film Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella (Kevin
Costner) is just an ordinary farmer who happens to
also love the game of baseball when he hears a
message from his corn field saying "if you build it, he
will come". Strangely enough his corn field doesn't
stipulate what he should build or who will come as a
result, although he does have a vision of a baseball
field. I guess it's lucky that he didn't see a football
pitch because I have my doubts as to whether he
would have dug up his field to build a football pitch,
which wouldn't have made for much of a film.
So can you see where I might be going with this
one? Well, actually this month's tip is really about
intuition. Intuition is one of the core skills of the Co-
Active model of coaching that I trained in. The fact
that the Co-Active model majors on intuition is one
of the key reasons that I selected to study this
particular coaching approach. My interpretation is
that it was Ray's intuition that gave him the message
and also showed him his vision.
So what is intuition? If you look at dictionary
definitions, it is "instinctive knowing" or "the act or
faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of
rational processes", and it's "knowledge gained by
the use of the faculty". Intuition is derived from the
Latin word "intueri", which means to see
within. It is also what a lot of us know as our gut
instinct.
We all have intuition. We were born with it and used
our instinct and gut feel as young children. But as
we grew older our rational thinking processes
developed and were encouraged through our formal
and informal education. Gradually our intuition and
gut feel were pushed further and further back into
areas of our brain that received little use and we
started to forget how to use them. I would exclude
those artists, writers and other creatives among you
who resisted the stagnation of their intuition.
My launch into my coaching career was a Field of
Dreams moment for me. I had a sense that I still had
a creative, intuitive side that had lain dormant for
many years and I wanted to test my theory.
However I can assure you that I had a number of
conversations with friends and family (similar to the
conversations Ray Kinsella had) about the rationality
of my thinking process, where my clients would come
from and how I thought I could possibly make a living
doing this weird coaching thing.
Like Ray, I didn't actually know how things would
unfold, but for the first time in many years I allowed
myself to listen to my intuition and trust that I had
the answers somewhere. After all, coaching is
founded on the premise that clients always have the
answers. We coaches are purely experts in posing
challenging and stimulating questions that allow
clients to look inside in different ways from normal,
and allow them to uncover hidden truths and/or
solutions for themselves.
Now I realise that a number of people (coaches are
possibly among some of the worst culprits I have
met) have taken the "Build it and they will come"
philosophy, created something (such as coaching
skills through training) and sat back and waited for
clients to come. The film Field of Dreams delivered
Ray with two other messages - "Ease his pain"
and "Go the distance". Without these additional
philosophies, I believe that you only have a third of
the formula and you are likely to fail. But the other
messages are a subject for a future coaching tip.
I firmly believe that our intuition is one of our most
underused, yet powerful skills and it's another flavour
of listening, which most of us are so poor at. But it's
not really surprising that intuition has been
discouraged in a society where proof and logic are
kings. As I said earlier we were all born with
intuition, and I also believe that intuition has the
potential to lead us towards the life to which we
really aspire.
It has certainly been the case for me. Without
intuition, I wouldn't be where I am today (apologies
to Reggie Perrin fans) and I can honestly say
that I feel grateful almost every day when I wake
up. That's not something I could have said hand on
heart just over three years ago. And the beauty of
it for me is that I have chosen a life that encourages
me to regularly exercise this muscle of intuition, and
the more I use it, the stronger it gets.
So, my challenge for you this month to stimulate
your intuition is to sit down with a pen and a blank
sheet of paper and write down something that you're
wrestling with at the moment in terms of a decision
that could influence the direction you are taking with
your life. Having written the question or dilemma,
keep writing until you have filled the paper. No
pauses, stopping for thought or breaks. Just keep
going, no matter what comes from your pen. It
doesn't have to make sense to anyone else after all.
Alternatively, find someone else to bounce ideas off
and agree to remove all restrictions in terms of
reality checking your ideas. Then both blurt
whatever comes up, no matter how non-sensical it
might at first seem. Then review the ideas and see
where your gut feel leads you.
Have fun and see what you want to build from your
ideas. Thanks for reading and forward this to a
friend if you think it could be of interest. Next issue
on February 22nd.
Until next time,