When you want to bring intuition to your business it can be tempting to just think you’ll wait for a feeling of what to do next and then follow it. Or just use intuition for the creativity part. But you can use it for so much more.
Intuition is a valuable tool for creativity and business decisions. You’ll want to be intentional and consciously combine the logical business decisions you make with the intuitive moves you make in order to progress towards your values.
That said, I believe that creativity, intuition, and business not only get along, but can really enhance each other. Below, I’ll discuss a few places you can be intuitive in your business.
Ritual, Intuition, & Business
Back in 2020, I spoke at a business conference (online that year) called Guided by Intuition, hosted by Being Boss. The host and I discussed the SparkTarot® deck, and the process I used to create it.
I told her that when I painted the SparkTarot® deck, I never thought about business. One reason I didn’t have to was because I already had boundaries and rituals in place, made ahead of time, to focus my energy completely in the creative zone.
And then, later in the day, when the paints were back in their cases, I could go back to thinking about the business side of things. I began the Instagram account, for example, or talked with the trademark lawyer, or worked on my business plan.
Each informs the other
Even though I see logical decisions and intuition as separate things, I know that they are informing each other and that even the logical decisions are still informed by intuition, and vice versa. But it’s a very deliberate approach.
While the first paintings in the deck were very intuitive, after making a few, I began to specifically think about about my “market”, otherwise known as my ideal customer, the one I wanted to share everything with.
Then I used intuition and logic to define my boundaries for the process going forward. I knew I wanted the deck (my product) to have mostly female-identified characters, and that I wanted it to be diverse. I also wanted it to be contemporary and incorporate the magical.
Further, I decided ahead to use watercolors, and after trying a few sizes, decided on the size the deck would be. Choices were made relating to pricing of printing and paper, etc based on intuition and logic.
These weren’t choices I randomly made while painting each day, but choices I made beforehand so I was free to create within the boundaries of my own making.
I want to say it again: once I set my own boundaries, I was free to go into creative mode.
So I knew my medium, my size, and the style and a something about how I was going to produce them, to start. But before painting a card for a deck, I decided intuitively which card wanted to be made that day.
Then when I began sketching, I listened to that energy to know when I had the sketch I was going to use. I wasn’t thinking about “the market” at all while in this space or what size the painting should be. It allowed things to flow easily from there.
Try Making Mini-Collages
One fun way to incorporate intuition if you have business questions, like: “How can I find more vendors when there aren’t gift fairs now” or “How can I increase revenue from decks this month?”, etc. is to write your questions on the back of multiple index cards, then make mini-collages on the other side without knowing which question is which.
Then look at the questions and see how the images you chose answer them. You can even pull a few cards to go with it, like I did in the above photo.
Why Develop an Intuitive Business?
The main reason to develop an intuitive business is because it has your values built in. If you still aren’t sure of your values, intuition can also help point the way to those. And having your business aligned with your values creates a feeling of ease in your decisions, like I described in my deck creaton above.
We like to rebel against boundaries. But when you intentionally create the boundaries yourself, they align with your values, and they naturally manifest ease for you in both the creative and the business sides of things.