When is the last time you got a “hunch” and you followed it? Even more important, what happened the last time you got a hunch and you DIDN’T follow it?

According to www.thefreedictionary.com, a hunch is defined as:

1. An intuitive feeling or a premonition.
2. A hump.
3. A lump or chunk.
4. A push or shove.

Isn’t that interesting? A push or a shove from some unseen force… and, as a verb, the dictionary defines hunching as “to thrust oneself forward”. Sometimes we don’t recognize that feeling or experience, the hunch, until after the fact – like a thump on the head, or an “a-ha” moment afterward.

Or it might even feel like you’re making it up, like there’s no way “the hunch” could be real – like the psychic “tickle” that says to leave your house right now to visit a friend unexpectedly, only to discover that friend needed you in that moment.

In working with my clients to create personal success from the inside out, I have seen time and time again that their “hunch” factor is very much alive and talking to them about what they need. But they either don’t recognize it, or can’t quite get the message (usually because we humans like to complicate things in our linear minds), or don’t believe that it’s a valuable tool that is actually serving them to have their best life.

So, following a hunch is what got one of my clients into a new swank office (not to mention a new celebrity market), another met Jack Canfield personally, and another to develop her passion into a viable new digital product line. Where can your hunch take you today?

Three Things You Can Do Today:

1. Pay attention to spontaneous, unsolicited “messages”. These can be anything from a particular but different feeling to an unusual hankering to do something to hearing something that strikes a nerve somehow to an opportunity that comes in out of the blue. Hunches aren’t always “feel good” actions, but they usually will lead to outcomes that get you or the situation to a better place.

2. Look for the “counter-intuitive” in a given situation. If where you are isn’t where you want to be, go looking for a hunch by considering what is counter-intuitive to where you are now. For example, if you know your business is not growing the way you want, look for exactly where and in what ways it is not growing, where the customers are not coming from or where you are not providing services to open up the possibilities that might be there all along. One of my clients did this and discovered that she needed to create her own distinct program, based on her life principles for success (by her own definition, incidentally), as opposed to working with, modeling and selling other people’s products / programs.

3. Consider the unrelated but important things. That is, the things that are seemingly unrelated but significant vs. what’s actually urgently in your face screaming to get your attention will usually wait or go unnoticed. For example, let’s say you have client issues that have deadlines and need immediate resolution but, out of nowhere, you get an invitation to join a week-long retreat that has no agenda but you will be with your peers. This actually happened for one of my clients – and when she decided to take that time off, her business was handled by an assistant for the short-term and she was rejuvenated with new information and new connections to take her business to a completely new level.

Hunches are bits of information from a deeper source that don’t make sense to your rational, conscious mind. Remember that the next time you get a hunch – following it might lead you around a corner that takes you to new places that you could never have predicted. If you stay with the hunch and follow it willingly just for the experience, you’ll be in the flow of universal messages. And your life will be filled with events custom-made just for you and your next best steps!

My Face Reading for Facebook videos inspired Peggie Arvidson, a hand analyst and coach at www.intuitiveevolution.com, to start her own video series to read Facebook hands – not only am I her muse, but I am one of her first subjects! And WOW – check it out! She had a lot to say and I found it really interesting. It’s always good to meet fellow “lightworkers”! And I consider this validation for the vacation I just booked… my hand says I need to take some time off! See what you think… :+)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCpOxfNJJng]

There are three things that a soul-based business owner needs to have to be successful in business (and in life, really): knowingness, trust and traction. And the first one is a whopper… so how do you know what you know?

Let’s look at what happens when you don’t know what you know…sometimes it’s easier to learn something by what it isn’t than what it IS. So, you will likely find yourself in messy situations or relationships that could have been avoided, you have “loose ends” that seem unimportant but threaten to “take you down” when they come up, you want to kick yourself for not thinking your decisions through, or you put off making a decision to the point that THAT is what becomes the decision. Any one of these can become complicated to resolve, so you lose time, energy and resources to address them. And this is just the SHORT list!

Now that you understand the consequences of not knowing what you know, let’s look at what happens when your linear mind is engaged. Your linear, or left-brain, mind is all about sorting out conflicting information, protecting you from danger based on past experience, and tossing out anything that doesn’t make sense in a direct and practical way. If your linear mind cannot make the jump from A to G, for example, it invalidates G as a viable solution. And, in actuality, that is it’s job – to get rid of things that don’t make sense.

The problem with that is that your intuitive, or right-brain, mind doesn’t work in a systematic process that makes sense to your linear mind. That results in internal conflict that is sometimes powerful enough to literally kick you out of your body to get away from the experience (which is a completely different topic).

Anyway, your intuition will come up with a solution that your linear mind invalidates, eliminates or tries to reconfigure into something it can understand. That shows up as self-sabotage, thinking that you “just made something up” or other negative self-talk, or analysis paralysis in taking action. Essentially, the linear mind will block messages from your intuition that it doesn’t understand, which means that you aren’t accessing the deeper part of your non-linear wisdom – your knowingness.

Some messages will come in as “Trojan horses” from your linear mind. In this case, the message will have some quality of creating a win-lose or no-win scenario, where someone has to “lose” or get hurt intentionally to create a specific outcome. These pseudo-messages can also come across as old patterns playing out as a “re-tread”, relating to what you want vs. what is actually real in the present moment, or assigning qualities to a person or situation that aren’t the highest truth but are projections of your linear mind.

A true message is one that is supportive, feels good, comes from abundance, takes into consideration the best and highest good for everyone concerned and “flows” from where you are to where you need to go with it. Most recently for me was my message to move, deciding to rent again (vs. buying, since I don’t have time that I want to devote to a house right now), finding and touring a walk-through of an apartment within two hours of that decision (which wasn’t the one), which led me to a complex that I had no idea existed five minutes from my current place, which never has openings because it’s so amazing and that had an opening for exactly what I wanted – the net result was that I had secured an amazing new living space within 36 hours of receiving my message! Beyond that, I have a friend who needed a living space – turns out that my current one is now waiting for her! It all flowed easily and effortlessly once I got the message, trusted it and took immediate action on it. (And now I get to make the big move – yay!!!!)

Three Things You Can Do Today:

Pay attention to your attention. That is, follow your attention and observe what is pulling you because that is a clue to a message that is trying to come in to you. Consider what is showing up in the media, who you meet and who is calling to connect with you, and what you want to learn more about in the moment. This is NOT about paralyzing you with analysis – this about taking 5 minutes at the end of the day to consider what new interests you have or where you have or would like to focus more time or energy. Keep it simple…

Pay attention to synchronicities and/or coincidences. I believe that we are continuously creating that which we need to get to our next level. One way that we can know that is to pay attention to the confluence of events; that is, what seemingly unrelated thing that we were just thinking about suddenly shows up somehow? What billboard do we see? What chance encounter do we have that has the message about changing our future?

Ask for information and listen. As simple as this one is, it is often overlooked because it seems too easy. Ask for guidance, a sign, a directive to come to you – you can even ask for it to be specific, such as validation of a message by seeing an angel (then watch for the greeting card / commercial / store window for your angel) or through your dreams. Once you ask the question, be sure you’re ready to receive the answer – and trust it when you get it. Remember that we can’t make the message be something other than it is, so if you really don’t want to hear it somewhere in your being, you’ll either block it, sabotage it or try to make it into something else. Again, KISS it… (keep it simple, sweetie!).

When you know what you know by receiving and trusting your messages, you will discover a natural rhythm to your life and business that was right below the surface of your previous way of being. May your messages bring you much joy and abundance.

You are here for a unique, distinct reason – it is your calling, your purpose and it is something that ONLY you can do. No one else has the make-up of your gifts, talents, experiences, skills and world view – only you. No one else can make your contribution for you. Your greatness waits for you to claim it, because you are the only one with the secret combination to unlock and actualize your potential.

There are reasons for this, and while they may not make sense to you as you fumble around in life trying to figure it out, there is a universal rhythm to discovering, understanding and manifesting your life purpose. The simplest reason is this: the universe dreams through you.

Through our connection with universal source energy, and as a physical representation of it on this plane, it is up to us to live out the dreams of the universe. It is truly a miracle that the universe can contain a piece of itself in each of us – that includes you. By doing so, the universe is “seeding” itself to have exponential experiences to gain more for its / our collective consciousness.

Think about it this way… as you sleep, you often dream, right? As you dream, you find yourself in interesting places, having journeys and adventures and meeting new people. Sometimes you find that those things actually play out in your life. The universe is the same way – we had to get this from somewhere, right?

The universe dreams about interesting adventures, journeys and connections… it explores the very edge of what we consider the cosmos while actually containing all of the cosmos. It sets up the creational conditions for limitless possibilities. But the universe needs physical matter to carry out its dreams… through you, the universe lives.

By seeking your higher purpose, you are seeking to reconnect with source energy. By understanding your calling, you are taking responsibility for your part in life’s universal rhythm. By expressing your life purpose, you are validating the dreams of the universe and fulfilling your agreement for being here.

It really is up to you to make the most of everything you’ve got right here, right now. If you don’t yet see what you’re supposed to be doing, look for your signs – messages from the universe. If you don’t know how to translate those messages, work with a mentor to help you, just like you would if you needed to learn a new language.

One more thing: even though you living out your highest purpose is significant, meaningful and makes a difference, it doesn’t have to be “big”. There is only one Mother Theresa, only one Bill Gates… you are here to be YOU. Maybe you will be the next household name… and maybe your name will make the biggest difference in your own household.

Whatever it is, you’re the living manifestation of the universe’s dream… with that kind of power behind / in you, you CAN do what you’re here to do. So live your calling, your purpose, your dreams… starting right now.