I'm still implementing lessons learned in 2018.

The biggest lesson learned: LISTEN TO MY INTUITION, not to brush it aside as a silly notion but to take heed to its voice and follow with action. Here's a quick definition of intuition, because I love definitions, intuition is the ability to understand or know something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning or concrete evidence. For me it's like a small tug to go in a particular direction or follow an instruction. You may call it your inner voice, gut instinct, your heart or your spirit. Whatever you call it, I can speak from experience and say that it's REAL and has made a lasting impact on my life.

Tapping into it has been a saving grace in my personal and business life. Yes, business. Listening to your inner voice may be contrary to what you may have been taught. The business world drills us to plan, to do our research and make decisions based on concrete evidence. A bunch of acronyms are thrown as us like SWOT & PEST analysis and SMART goals. We're told to have a plan no matter what.

I'm not knocking these tools. As a matter fact they have great value. As a natural planner and #goalgetter I use them often. Yet, as I experience life with its ups and downs, sideways slants, crooked paths, and zigzag patterns, I find myself unable to perfectly plan every moment. It's impossible! One moment I think I have the perfect plan and I'm in the flow then, out of nowhere, BAM! A Hades fireball is hurling at me from oblivion and shatters those plans into pieces. Like, really? It's happened more than once. When plans are broken intuition kicks into high gear and keeps me on the right path.

I will never forget the day when I began to really listen to my intuition. On a bright and sunny afternoon, I arrived early for a lunch date with a friend and needed to kill some time. I decided to park and take a leisurely stroll down the quaint street near the restaurant. As I walked, a very clear voice simply said, "Go, check your car." I immediately knew what it meant by check my car, as in make sure it was locked. Funny how I knew that. I ignored it several times because one, I was pretty sure I had locked it and two, I had already walked a few blocks and really didn't want to go back. The voice repeated this several times and after its constant "nagging," I trekked back to my car feeling sorely inconvenienced. When I peeped into the window, I saw that not one but ALL of my car doors had been unlocked while my laptop bag lay on the back floor! And FYI: my car windows are not tinted.

Until that moment, I hadn't given intuition the attention it deserved, only to be blindsided later. Since then I've been more mindful of tapping into it and listening to my inner voice. Life is, well life. Sometimes, it's sweet, sometimes is sour but that still small voice is perfectly seasoned. It never waivers. Time and time again it has saved my butt (to say it nicely) from some pretty messed up stuff.

So, here's to listening to intuition, a force that guides you in the right direction even when you think you have it all figured out. Create a plan, do what you know to do at that moment and listen to your intuition every step of the way because we can't predict every moment and honestly, I wouldn't want to. Namaste.