If you feel that you and your business are in a rut, if you feel that you’ve run through all possibility, or if you feel stuck at the same place in your career, it’s all about finding a new path, and more importantly the answer of how to get there.
That answer–the “message”–may come from a flash of insight or a gradual knowing, or it might be prompted by an external event. The answer may even reveal itself in your circumstances. Your job is not to make it appear, your job is to recognize it when it does. Just as you tune your radio through the static until you arrive at a clear signal, you are tuning your mind to the messages you’re receiving until you arrive at the answers you seek.
Here are three different ways of tuning into the message to help you find success:
Drawing out the meaning. One way of tuning into the message is to look for “signs” and draw out the meaning. “Drawing out the meaning” is a technique sometimes used by coaches to help people access their intuition. It means using the environment around you as if it were filled with secret messages to tell you what to do.
For example: You’re on Section Nine of the research report you’re writing. You listen to Track Nine of a CD to clear your head. Track Nine turns out to be very short. Does Section Nine also need to be short?
Ask yourself: Notice everything around you. Observe the details, the sounds, even the smells. What’s happening? What do you notice? Then wonder, if this tiny slice of life had something to tell you, what would it be?
Seek serendipity and synchronicity. Another way to tune into the message is to seek Serendipity and Synchronicity, those twin tendencies for life to deliver enchanting coincidences just when we need them. Serendipity is unexpected good fortune, or discovery by accident. Synchronicity is a timely, meaningful coincidence.
Put them together and you have those mysterious moments in which you accidentally discover exactly the right thing at just the right time.
For example, if you find yourself needing an extra hour and a meeting gets canceled.
To take advantage of these moments when the lights all seem to turn green, you need to pay attention. Whenever you’re tempted to say “it’s a sign!” follow it with the words, “Maybe that means I should…” and see what answer comes next. Then go do it.
Learn to trust your instincts. Yet another way you can tune into the message is to learn to trust your instincts. Earlier we talked about the importance of making room for your intuition; you also need to be able to recognize the messages, listen, and act in keeping with whatever’s true for you.
What does your intuition feel like? Some say it feels like a zing, a snap, or a click. You might feel it in your stomach, your chest, or your heart. For one person it’s a calm, perfectly still knowing. For another it’s a heavily weighted thunk. Another describes a sudden peace; another a taptap of the mind. When possibilities fall right into your lap, you may feel like some invisible force has granted your silent request. It’s often accompanied by a feeling of speechlessness, almost disbelief. When you feel that, the search for solutions is over.
You may be thinking, come on. These are just little mind games. Tricks. Playing with words. And you’re right. That’s just what they are. But they are tricks and games that help you open your mind to new possibilities, new ways of seeing and understanding. These are all ways of accessing information that seems to be around us all the time, but that somehow we manage to miss. To expand your awareness of what’s possible, sometimes you just have to notice.
The previous article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!