Can your intuition be wrong? And how do you prevent that?

Can your intuition be wrong? It sounds like a simple question, but the answer is not straightforward.

If we accept that intuition is a form of pure knowing, then real intuition is, in itself, always right. The problem is that nothing carries meaning in and of itself – we assign meaning to everything we experience, hear, see and feel.

That’s something we learn in the course of ordinary life. Hopefully we grow up and learn to filter and interpret our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. With varying degrees of success.

Which means that on the receiving end of intuition, things can go wrong in all sorts of ways. People can conjure up all kinds of conclusions driven by emotion, prejudice and wishful thinking – and then mistake that for intuition. “I just know for certain that he/she….” That phrase: “I just know for certain” often reveals, in itself, that what you’re experiencing may not be pure intuition at all, and that some honest self-examination is in order. That certainty also tends to betray a certain investment in being right.

So the main red flags are: being absolutely certain and having a stake in the outcome. Which is really no different from how you keep your rational thinking clear. People are often not very aware of how they ensure their reasoning stays objective – perhaps they don’t make much of an effort. But with intuition, it’s no different.

Experience matters enormously, as does staying alert, questioning yourself honestly and testing your intuition against reality.

It comes down to this: people who know their own intuitive capacities well, and know they can trust them, are usually right. Perhaps always. Which is what makes this such complex territory. Learning to recognise your intuition is a process that often begins at a very young age.

I’m not saying your intuition is wrong by definition when you feel certain – I’m simply pointing to what the red flags can be.

Keeping your intuition clear is therefore an important discipline. You do that by becoming ever more aware of how your intuition works, when it works well and when it doesn’t. Personal development helps too. Clearing away trauma and other sources of interference brings clarity to your whole life – and to your intuition along with it.

Many of the natural born leaders in the book have simply never known it to be otherwise – their intuition is always right. For others, it’s a learning process. It’s a bit like music: great natural talents play seemingly effortlessly and faultlessly. Others have to work harder to keep their playing in tune. Practice helps, but not everyone can reach every level.

And equally, it’s certainly not the case that feeling absolutely sure about something intuitively always means you’re wrong.

I think this needs to be the first of several pieces on this subject. In a next post I’ll give some examples. And in the book there’s a whole section on how to develop your intuition further.