There are lots of reasons why following your intuition is hard.

Just being able to hear your intuition is a challenge in and of itself.

But once you start to open to your intuitive side – and are willing to act on its nudgings – your still small voice gets louder and louder.

Then comes the fun part:

Following those nudgings.

And by “fun,” I mean: Possibly the most challenging thing you will ever do in your life.

Here’s why:

Intuition, by definition, is something that comes from a place outside material reality.

But our day-to-day life is rooted in material reality.

It can be really, really easy to let material reality – our current physical experience – dictate our path.

And by “really, really easy,” I mean: It seems like the easiest thing to follow what we currently see/hear/taste/touch, but using current material circumstances as our only guide often leads to things that suck less-than-desirable circumstances.

Material reality in and of itself is limited because it doesn’t include the intuitive realm.

The intuitive realm gives us all kinds of awesome information that leads us into all kinds of awesome experiences that we can’t currently see/hear/taste/touch.

In other words, following our intuition requires a leap of faith.

Actually, a leap of faith is mostly required when you first start following your intuition. The more you follow your inner promptings, the more you trust them.

Except when you don’t.

I have a little story that illustrates this process.

In my cartooning, I start out by sketching in pencil. This allows me flexibility.

I can try stuff out, make mistakes, and erase whatever doesn’t work.

After lots of mistakes and lots of erasing, I finally get it just right.

At this point, it’s time to bring out the markers and trace over what I’ve done.

This is a key moment.

This is the point where I need to trust the lines that are on the page.

I need to put aside my judging and evaluating mind, and simply trace the lines in front of me.

Except sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I want to jump in and change things at the last minute.

Not because I got an inner prompting to do so.

But just because I want to.

This rarely works.

See where I’m going here?

Getting “creative” and straying from the outline is like straying from the path set by my intuitive guidance.

One of the groovy – and sometimes maddening – things about being human is that we have free will.

We are free to stray all we want.

The outcome looks like this…

… but we are free to pursue it.

Bottom line, the hardest part of following your intuition is following your intuition.

Our minds want to jump in. Our minds want to change things at the last minute.

That said, there are times when our intuition jumps in at the last minute and changes course.

(In my cartooning analogy, this would be the equivalent of starting to trace my outline, realizing that I need to change something in my pencil sketch, and then changing it in pencil before tracing it in pen. In other words, the outline/my intuition still rules.)

And how do we know the difference between intuitive suggestions and those from our bossy/crafty minds?

Experience.

We follow each path and evaluate the outcome.

Does the final picture look like this?

Or this?

Actually, maybe your intuition led you to draw the wacky cat face. And if it did, that’s the right one for you. The wacky cat face would be your penciled outline.

So another question is not how does the outcome look, but how does it make you feel?

Like this?

Or like this?

Learning to follow your intuition is one of the most powerful things you will ever do.

And you can’t mess it up.

The “mistakes” are part of the process. Your “mistakes” are taking you closer to an intimate relationship with the best guide ever.

A guide that has your back. And your front. And your inside and outside.

How cool is that?!

How have you learned to follow your intuition? Share your comments below!