Trust your Gut. Always.

Everyone has heard about going with your gut, trust your gut feeling. That’s as little as most people know. I’m going to share with you a bit more about your gut feeling and how to follow it.

A gut feeling is a physical response to your subconscious weighing up all known factors to a decision and arriving at a result. Your gut is signaling to you the best option. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink discusses how using thin slicing and gut feeling you can make just a good a decision as with all the information you need.

This is why you should follow your gut feeling. It is very quickly summing up the best decision with everything you know. Your gut is also taking into account subtleties like body language and feelings or other information you may have consciously decided to push aside.

Not too long ago a friend asked me to do some Web Development for him. The project was small, wouldn’t take much time and I’d be doing him a favour. My gut said no don’t do it. However I went ahead. Two weeks in I realised why i stopped doing that line of work; having to jump to the clients every request and comprimising my high work standards. Gut Feeling 1, Ben 0.

Recently I faced the problem (or opportunity) of receiving two job offers at once. I then had to pick and choose. It was simple my gut feeling was one job. I wasn’t sure why if i put the jobs side by side they were the same. I went with my gut. After having lunch before ringing to confirm I realised that this job would be more fun. Two months later I have not regretted that choice Gut Feeling 1, Ben 1.

In the first instance I was clouding my conscious with the fact it was a friend. My gut told me immediately no. That was the right decision and again with my job it was the best decision. I have made many other important decisions this way following my gut such as entrepreneurial ventures, moving from one end of the country to another, changing universities and many risks. I haven’t regretted one yet!

Lesson: Trust your gut. Always. You will be more decisive and make better decisions consistently.

About Ben Young
Ben Young is an Internet Marketing Manager in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a challenge junkie always looking for the next big challenge. His interests include start ups, technology, leadership and is a huge fan of found|read.

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