Instincts

Every profession has its maestros, and every maestro is great because of their instincts, their ability to hit the right note, paint the right shade, know what the missing element is going to look like, or clinch the argument before the jury.

Instincts lie somewhere in the murk between muscle memory and intellectual understanding. When you ask them why they did something or knew what to do, most people will tell you, “I just know”. Instincts are related to, but stronger than, hunches. Hunches are suspicions. Instincts are certainties which, even if you can’t articulate the reasoning, you know the answer or direction is correct, and you proceed with confidence.

When I was teaching high school math, there was invariably at least one student in each class who simply “knew” the answer to every question or problem as soon as it was presented. “How did you get that?” I’d ask. “I don’t know, it just seems obvious,” would be the response. And then we’d work backwards through the “formal” solution so that they would get the whole picture, and the rest of the class could catch up.

I have friends who can be presented with an odd musical instrument, unlike any other, and after half an hour messing around with it will begin to produce fine music indeed. Because “they just know”. Some people can attend a meeting with a dozen strangers around the table and after an hour can tell you with stunning accuracy who is trustworthy and who is not, who “got it” and who didn’t, and who can be relied upon to get to the next stage. Because “they just know”.

I couldn’t sell a chocolate bar to a hungry rich kid, but my wife’s family all have a knack for wheeling and dealing. I’ll never forget one negotiation for a new car where the salesman and Karen haggled to the last twenty-five cents, both of them clearly having great fun, their eyes sparkling, while I hid under the desk, mortified. Each had the instinct for the deal, and for each it was the game, not the twenty-five cents.

If you can profile your natural instincts, you’re well on your way to knowing your Giftings. It’s easier to identify your personal singularities one by one than to process the whole complicated bundle that is you. The difficulty for all of us is that we are “houseblind” to our own uniqueness, our own knacks. “Heck, anybody can do that!” Well, no, actually not everybody can.

In coaching professionals, I like to find out those things which just seem ever so natural, ever so simple, ever so obvious, and then we talk about whether everyone around them finds them so easy. At that point comes the realization that here is something unique and valuable, a pointer to the larger Gifting.

And when you know your Giftings, you no longer have any excuse not to be successful and happy in your calling.