Behaviour: acting for the future

Synopsis: [You might view the earlier post “Behaviour: the power of the hunch” before this.] Emotions make thinking more intelligent. Our ability to intuit then depends on the unique mental wiring connecting our emotions and our general intelligence. Intuition makes us streetsmart savvy, thinking future.

Intuition drives the adaptability to changing environments, with immediate knowledge.

Inhibition and distress

The rationalistic mind blocks this fearing passion. But by inhibiting the emotional livewire, issues are grasped incompletely, choices biased, failures in following through or stereotypical mistakes doing so.

Incompetence with social skills raises anxiety and fear, shrinking working memory. The gut feelings in this case, simply signal organic distress when faced with the unknown!

Thinking intelligent

Our intuition combines experiential learning of the past with the present context. It also guides decisions on the ‘right’ options in problem solving, and regulates changes in behaviour.

The intuitive signals are carried by our emotions, both positive and negative. Emotions thus make thinking more intelligent.

The context

Emotions are of special value in the social context. There are five competencies that build on one another to develop social skills -

• Knowing one’s emotions
• Managing emotions
• Motivating oneself
• Recognizing emotions in others
• Handling relationships

They influence our use of language, the way we perceive others or ourselves and especially, how we confront environmental challenges and adapt to change.

Mental wiring

Utilized at a level below consciousness, intuition combines bits of learned information into new patterns - fast.

Our long evolutionary history makes intuitive thinking a deeply buried power of the mind. It develops spatial associations and helps our adjusting to the environment’s unpredictable changes.

Studies have identified a direct neural link from the centre of emotions (the limbic system) to the centres of reason (the frontal regions) of the brain.

Our ability to intuit then depends on the unique mental wiring connecting our emotions and our general intelligence. It predisposes us to think and act in certain ways.

Streetsmart – thinking future

The value of decision-making lies in the flow of adaptive behaviour - from rapid reading and evaluation of possibilities, to unerring selection of response, and performance suited to situation and context.

Decisions relate to the future and we need educated guesses to make them effective. Intuition makes us streetsmart savvy. We can think according to context, utilizing divergent thinking and non-rational logic to back our hunches.

With the clear inputs of emotions, it also facilitates universal empathy, and the building of positive relationships. We are able to change ourselves and encourage others also to change with us.

Extending power

This innate potential cannot be taught. In times gone by intuitive skills were critically responsible for the physical survival of human life or species. We need to understand and accept our right brain’s astute promptings to guide us through life.

And extend the power of our minds to our psychological and creative planes, so individual and organizational actions in the new global reality are unencumbered by hesitation and doubt.

Comments/opinions anyone??