Intuition and Attention

Three facts, a quote and a question

 

One 

Intuition develops over time. You reading this, means you are consciously allowing this information into your system, no matter what you choose to do with it. On a bigger scale, how you ‘immerse’ yourself in the world, throughout the day, both consciously and unconsciously, informs your senses, perceptions, intuitions, and ultimately the decisions and actions you take.  

Two

While your attention is a key to your intuition and therefore  fundamental to your intelligence, it is an incredibly scarce resource.  That’s why Simon A. Herbert called it the ‘the bottleneck of human thought’.

This is partly because we can be consciously aware of only a fraction of all the data and sensory data coming our way every moment of every day.  

This  is also because our limited attention is highly sought after by external market and political forces. 

We pay attention with all our body and senses, not just the head and our very focused mind, which means being aware of what we pay attention to, requires an extra effort in today’s world of distraction and over-stimulation. 

Three

Fragmented attention is the opposite of sustained attention and presence. Fragmented attention confuses us, lowers our IQ, makes us more likely to disconnect from our inner compass and our ability to discern well informed intuition from fears, biases, wishful thinking and external influences. 

A quote

“The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It’s how well you synthesize.Information abundance requires pattern recognition. It’s not enough to connect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots.”

Adam Grant, Organisational Psychologist and Bestselling author

And a question

Wisdom is asking the right questions. Clarity comes with presence and heightened awareness about how and to what we pay attention.

Q: What is it that you paid attention to this week, that brought you clarity in relation to a decision you need(ed) to take?

And think about, if you hadn’t paid attention to that particular thing, then how would things unfold differently?

Some of you will have noticed, that I have moved my newsletter from Substack to my refreshed website (thank you MakerChange!). I hope you like it, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions. If you don’t want to subscribe, I will be sorry to see you leave. Simply press unsubscribe at the bottom of this email. If you are enjoying reading this, are curious to find out more and think others might be, please do share!

Thanks for reading.

With love & respect,

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