Next Level Coaching: Awareness vs. Intuition - Navigating the Voices in Coaching Conversations

Here’s a question for you: when working with clients, how do you discern if their insights stem from a place of conscious awareness or a more intuitive sense?

Do you notice a difference in the way they articulate or process these moments?

It might help explore where the client’s reflections are coming from and how that impacts their decision-making or actions.

Awareness is like shining a flashlight in a dark room—it’s about bringing things into consciousness. It’s a deliberate process of noticing, observing, and understanding. Whether it’s self-awareness (like identifying emotions or thoughts) or external awareness (like picking up on social cues or surroundings), awareness requires a certain degree of conscious focus. In coaching, fostering awareness often involves prompting clients with questions that nudge them toward insights about their beliefs, patterns, and motivations. As Carl Jung put it, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” (Jung, 1953).

On the other hand, intuition is less about deliberate observation and more about a spontaneous sense of knowing. It’s like a sudden gust of wind that sweeps through the room and moves something in your periphery. Intuition isn’t always grounded in logical thinking; it’s often an internal, non-verbal nudge or feeling—a sense of the rightness of something, or the pull towards a particular decision. From a neuroscience perspective, Daniel Kahneman talks about intuition as "thinking fast"—where our brain draws from experiences and patterns we've internalized over time without actively thinking through them (Kahneman, 2011).

You could say awareness leans more toward conscious recognition and reflection, while intuition dips its toes into the subconscious waters. It’s like awareness is the voice, and intuition is the whisper that hums underneath it.

During your next coaching session, take a moment to tune into where your client's insights are coming from. Are they consciously illuminating patterns, beliefs, or emotions? Or are they catching a quiet, instinctive whisper beneath their words? Encourage them to explore both—guide them to bring clarity with awareness, and help them trust the subtler messages of intuition. Embrace both the flashlight and the whisper!