In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word Intuition is defined as a “quick and ready insight”, “immediate apprehension or cognition” or “the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference”. Incredible stuff when you imagine the ramifications. Imagine if we could develop our intuition like a muscle, to do most of the cognitive heavy lifting in our lives. How much time and mental energy we could save.
Personally, I’ve been leveraging the power of intuition with surprising success. I’ve noticed my test scores are the same whether I study for hours beforehand, or merely crack open the textbook to skim read and get that new book smell. When tested on multiple choice questions, I’m done in a fraction of the time when I rely solely on intuition. I’ll read and comprehend the question but not consciously think about the answer. I select whatever option I feel immediately is correct. I won’t even finish reading the rest of the options, it’s on to the next question. And my marks remain consistent (in the late 70’s to mid 80 range). How can this be? It would seem the very surfacing of subconscious thought to the conscious mind distorts the truth. I’ll explain. When we recall a fact from memory, the information is extracted from the pristine and sterile environment of the subconscious mind, to a consciousness polluted with opinion, assumption, bias and experience where the facts are immediately adulterated. The conversion of these conscious thoughts to the clumsy words in a our very limited vocabularies only distorts the truth further.
Ever play the telephone game as a kid, when one person would whisper instructions in your ear, and you were to transmit the exact instructions you received to a different person, and so on? Remember how out-of-whack the instructions ended up being? That’s what happens to information as it travels from the sub conscious mind to the conscious mind to the mouth or written word, every single day. Listening to your intuition cuts out the middle man, and the increased intellectual broadband increases the speed and reliability of the information transmitted. It’s that simple. Full disclosure: I’ve only applied this intuition strategy to subjects I’m intuitively good at (to which I have some inherent, innate ability). I won’t gamble with my statistics and probability class - I’d rather roll up the sleeves and apply ye olde intellectual elbow grease.
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