The role of intuition in a PRO Sports Trader activity

The success of a Sports Trader depends significantly on the ability to make correct decisions.
For a Sport Trader, making the right decision is not very different from an athlete executing a perfect technical move.
I believe that the bicycle kick is one of the most thrilling technical moves for a striker. It’s a blend of courage, coordination, and timing.
Indeed, it requires technical competence, as all athletic actions, presuppose knowledge of the motor skill necessary to execute it.
A skill and competence acquired through repetitions in training.

However, competence alone is not enough. A striker performing a bicycle kick has undergone a genuine decision-making process, much like what we all do in our daily lives.

First, the athlete decides whether to execute the bicycle kick or hit the ball differently.

Then, they must choose the right moment for execution, coordinate the athletic movement, determine where to direct the kick, and consider how to land.

The Competence Without Comprehension

We usually think that rationality guides decision-making processes.

Certainly, thoughts, as the “dialogue” with our mind, plays a significant role in any decision-making path.

But it’s equally true that often the final decision, the most important and effective, occurs through intuition.

Intuition is that faculty that goes beyond rational thought, and it’s what’s called Competence Without Comprehension.

Have you ever made correct decisions without exactly understanding why you did it, but with the certainty of being right?

That’s the intangible competence; knowledge that you can’t quite explain yet.

There are extremely rational people who don’t rely on intuition, while others, more creative, overemphasise it in the opposite direction. The truth, as always, lies in between.

How to activate Competence Without Comprehension

Intangible Competence is a faculty that activates only under certain conditions, particularly when one is at their peak potential (flow state). Self-confidence and psychophysical well-being enhance this kind of capability.

After all, which player would think of a risky move like a bicycle kick in a moment of low psychophysical well-being?

Personally, I tend to make decisions through a process of elimination, selecting from the starting situation a range of possibilities. Then I gradually exclude the worst options following purely rational logic.

However, when it comes down to choosing among a limited number of options (two, maximum three), at that moment, I step away from data analysis, pros and cons, and rely on other more subjective criteria, more closely linked to the intuition process.
The better I feel at that moment, the more reliability I assign to my intangible competence.

How can you nurture this crucial faculty?

Firstly, by acknowledging its existence.
Then, by learning occasion after occasion, mistake after mistake, when it works well and when it doesn’t.
In my case, there are three fundamental factors that contribute to enhancing this faculty:

1. Physical Condition

My intuitive process, my Intangible Competence, works only when I’m in good physical shape.
In this sense, the role of nutrition (mostly protein in my case) and movement (walking at least 10km a day) is crucial for me.

2. Routine

My intuition works mainly only when I also respect my rational path.
Therefore, I can’t use it to speed up the process; it only works at the end.

3. Waiting

Intuition, when it comes, is fast, lightning-fast. No rush or impatience; it comes when it wants to.
So, it works less when you have little time to decide and works more when you allow it time to arrive, at the right moment, in the right place.

In conclusion, as highlighted in other articles, to succeed in this profession, one must combine rationality with other purely mental faculties. EXPLORE FURTHER

Intuition is crucial. It needs to be trained, valued, protected. Over time, it will become an increasingly precious ally of rationality in decision-making processes.