Warning: Ignoring Your Gut Feelings Could Ruin Your Life!

During a recent conversation with my daughter, she told me about a friend of hers who cancelled her wedding just shy of 3 weeks before it was supposed to take place. Drama and lost deposits aside, her decision to cancel impressed me. It had all come down to her deciding not to ignore her gut feelings. Something about the relationship just hadn’t felt right.

Early on in my sales career I accepted a job my gut tried me to warn me about. "Don't do it! There are red flags all over the place!” I didn’t listen. Instead, I ignored my own inner intuition in favor of the logical parts of my brain where all the reasons justifying why I should take the job resided. Needless to say, it wasn’t too long after I started the job that I realized I should have listened to what my gut – instincts, intuition, or whatever you want to call it – had been trying to tell me.

We have gut reactions for a reason. When we get them, our job is to take some time to consider what our gut reaction is trying to get us to pay attention to. Granted, there are times in life when you will make choices that go against your gut. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you take the time to try and figure out what and/or why you’re reacting. Below are a few insights meant to remind you of how truly valuable your own internal guidance can be.

Everyone has gut reactions, but they tend to pop up when we’re facing a decision. Our gut could be saying “Yes!” or “No!” because we have gut feelings in both directions. Either way, this reaction to a situation is reason enough to consider what it is that does or doesn’t feel right. If you can identify the cause/source of your reaction, you’ll be in a much better position to make a better decision.

Ignore your gut reactions at your own risk. Your gut instincts, feelings, reactions, and intuitions have one goal – to keep you safe and happy. The problem is that all your gut can do is let you know when your safety and/or happiness might be affected. Your gut can’t tell you what to do. That’s why it pays dividends to pay attention to what it’s trying to tell you. When you do, again, you’re more likely to make better decisions about how to proceed.

Your gut will remind you what’s important to you—even when you aren’t sure what’s important to you. Do you find yourself getting stuck in the same situations over and over again? I’m willing to bet your gut instincts have been working overtime trying to get your attention each time the same less-than-ideal situation comes around. From now on, if you begin to recognize a pattern that isn’t doing you any favors, stop! Is it possible your gut has been trying to inspire you to make a different decision all along?

Most successful people think of their gut instincts and intuition as a gift, and have learned to pay attention to them. That doesn’t mean they make their decisions based solely on those feelings. They use them as an invitation to look deeper into a situation and make sure that the course of action they choose is more likely to be beneficial, meaningful, and possibly even more profitable for them in the long-run.

What have your gut instincts and reactions been trying to tell you lately?

Alan Luoma: I am a Sales Coach with extensive experience in industrial sales, sales management, new

product development, sales and product training. I work with a great national sustainable packaging company and their exceptional distributors to increase sales. My success has been and is in utilizing the Pareto 80/20 principal in business and life. I have become an expert in seeking out and eliminating behaviors that prevent business people from being successful. I am a member of The National Speakers Association and New England Speakers Association. You can view my profile on LinkedIn, or contact me at Luoma@snet.net 

Got Healthcare Questions? Use Your BRAIN!

Michal Klau-Stevens is a professional speaker and healthcare consumer advocate. She is a maternity consultant, pregnancy coach, and expert on consumer healthcare care issues, Past President of BirthNetwork National, a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, and mother.  Her website is TheBirthLady.INFO. Find her on LinkedIn and on Facebook at The Birth Lady page!

Shake off X-Y-Z, To Find Your Own L-M-N-O-P!

Diversity is one of the most delightful aspects of life.

So why the (seemingly) increase of the “Everyone must do x-y-z! X-y-z is the best and only way, to obtain the desired results you want.” Hmmm…is it? I doubt x-y-z is the only way - not even sure it is the best way … maybe for someone else, but not me. I have different values, target market, goals, past experiences, etc.

The more I understand my personal thoughts and my physical and emotional feelings; the more I find myself stepping back from what “everyone else” is doing. Everyone else is doing x-y-z while I am involved with l-m-n-o-p; it is sometimes lonely in l-m-n-o-p land, pretty vulnerable and scary at times too! I am thankful to have found l-m-n-o-p land and would not have it any other way.

As you know from last month, I re-started my exercise regime. With exercise back in my life, eating habits naturally change. However, eating the x-y-z healthy way does not work optimally for me. Yes, it is better than eating processed and junk foods, but I do not feel “Amazing!” My intuition said dig deeper to find my l-m-n-o-p of healthy-eating. I did!

I found it in the book Eat Right For Your Blood Type by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo. The story is truly fascinating. In a nutshell different blood types came to be as “man” explored and moved into different regions of the Earth; changing the way “man” eats and interacts with nature and other human-kind. This is on a cellular / genetic level that started with our Cro-Magnon ancestors back in 40,000 B.C. The Cro-Magnon people were the first blood type-O individuals. They were hunters with very demanding physical activities to perform for survival. Note that Blood type-A did not show up until between 25,000 and 15,000 B.C. some 15,000 years later!

I am a blood type-O. I am to eat meat, fruit and veggies, with small amounts of dairy and carbs. My exercise is to be intense: weight training / running / martial arts / contact sports and such. These exercises allow my body to relieve stress that naturally builds in my muscles due to my hunting ancestors. Genetically I am setup to covert stress into a positive experience through intense physical exercise.

Now this stuff works wonders for me – it is my l-m-n-o-p. I would never tie it in a bow and sell it as the “Everyone must do x-y-z ! It will transform your life.” It may, if you are a blood type-O … but not if you are an A or B or AB.

It is the results and feelings that I experience that keep me following the eating and exercise guidelines, not the (x-y-z) guidelines themselves.

The same principal applies to marketing.

There are numerous marketing-ways to obtain your desired results / goals but that does not mean you should, or have to, follow a specific x-y-z model to do so.

Examples: You must be on Twitter and Facebook everyone is there. To get clients you should have a Wordpress or Squarespace website. How can you use anything but Constant Contact?  

Look a bit deeper – what drives you at the cellular level? What does your business truly need? It may differ from your own. What marketing techniques and platforms benefit the business AND truly excite you to the point where you enjoy the marketing process?

Your answer is where you will find your own l-m-n-o-p…and you will be so happy you separated yourself from the flock of x-y-z. Be careful…this potentially can dramatically increase business visibility and your happiness!

If you would like a consultation on finding what your marketing l-m-n-o-p is, I am a phone call 860-379-2794 or an email grow@greenhousegraphicsllc.com away!  

Until next time, happy marketing!

Chana Monahan

Greenhouse Graphics, llc. Where Ideas Grow

860-379-2974

grow@greenhousegraphicsllc.com

www.greenhousegraphicsllc.com