Do you ever feel something is wrong but can’t quite put your finger on it? This is your intuition speaking to you. The question is, are you listening?
When making decisions, listening to your intuition and trusting your gut instinct is essential.
This is especially true for learning and innovation leaders, who need to make quick decisions to move their projects forward.
In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of listening to our intuition and offer some tips for learning how to trust your gut instinct.
What is intuition?
Intuition is our inner guidance system and is often more accurate when making quick decision than our rational mind.
Take a moment to reflect on the following definition of intuition:
affectively charged judgments that arise through rapid, nonconscious, and holistic associations.
In their paper for the Academic Management Review, Erik Dane and Michael Pratt distinguish between insightful, rational and intuitive decision-making.
- Insightful decision-making uses a deep understanding of the problem.
- Rational decision-making depends on logical analysis and conscious reasoning.
Unfortunately, many of us have been taught to ignore our intuition in favour of logical and rational thinking. We’ve been told to base our decisions on facts and figures, and those gut feelings are irrational.
However, the fact is that our intuition is often more accurate than our rational mind for quick decisions.
In one study, Stanford psychology researchers found that people who followed their intuition were more likely to make correct decisions than those who relied on logic alone.
Intuition led to the best choice 68 percent of the time, compared to a 26 percent success rate for more head-focused strategies.
Before we get into how to develop your intuition and listen to your instincts, let’s clear something up.
Why do we refer to a ‘gut’ reaction or instinct?
You probably experience this too. You meet someone for the first time and don’t feel good about them. Or, you’re in a meeting and have a sudden urge to leave the room.
These are called “gut reactions” because they originate in the enteric nervous system located in the gut. The gut has been nicknamed the “second brain”.
The enteric nervous system comprises millions of neurons that communicate with each other and our brains. The gut-brain connection is so strong that scientists have found that gut health can affect our mood and vice versa.
So, when we refer to “trusting your gut”, we’re talking about trusting your intuition or inner guidance system.
Anxiety Makes it Harder to Listen to Your Intuition
Ten minutes before the bell went, you would typically find me in a cubicle.
I needed to breathe my way through some heavy nausea and anxiety. Every morning, before teaching, would start this way.
This lasted most of my teaching career, and I still have to manage my performance anxiety.
When you are teaching a room of thirty twelve-year-olds, it helps to have multiple radars working. I see now how I was hampered.
Intuition is one of the first things to go when we are anxious. It’s as if the white noise of anxiety drowns our ability to think clearly and make good decisions.
Katie Heaney’s article helped me to understand this block better. She refers to some research from 2017.
The researchers hypothesized that anxiety’s effects on our decision-making is damaging for several reasons: Anxiety makes us risk-averse, pessimistic, and less confident — all qualities which make us likelier to choose what we perceive as the most safe, routine, and unchallenging decision.
Katie Heaney
Please spare a thought for the trainee teacher who isn’t picking up on the classroom’s subtle social cues about how the students feel and what they need from their teacher.
Or the anxious colleague presenting to a client, who isn’t aware of the body language and energy in the room, would help them make a better connection.
Anxiety makes it impossible to tune into affective, holistic and intuitive cues that inform better rapid decision-making.
How to listen to your intuition
We have explored the definition of intuition as a series of rapid affective judgements and how it is connected to the enteric nervous system or “gut brain”. We have also examined how anxiety can block our ability to make good decisions.
So, how can we listen to our intuition and our gut instinct?
Let’s start by looking at the etymology of the word. Intuition is derived from the Latin word intueri which means “to look inside”.
This is an important distinction. Intuition isn’t about looking outside of ourselves for answers. It’s about looking within.
Tips for listening to your intuition
While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for listening to your intuition, there are some things that you can do to make it easier.
Here are a few tips:
- Get in touch with your body. Our bodies are often the first place where we feel our intuition. Pay attention to what your body tells you, and don’t ignore any physical sensations or feelings.
- Listen to your emotions. Emotions can be a great indicator of what we are feeling. If you are feeling stressed or anxious, your intuition is likely trying to tell you something.
- Follow your gut instinct. Literally! The enteric nervous system, or “gut brain”, is connected to our intuition. Please pay attention to your gut feelings or instincts, and don’t ignore them.
- Take some time for yourself. To hear our intuition, we need to be able to take a step back from the noise of everyday life. Make sure you take time each day to relax and clear your mind. This will help you to better listen to your intuition.
- Trust yourself. This one can be hard, but it’s essential. We often second-guess ourselves because we don’t trust our judgement. But if you want to listen to your intuition, you must trust yourself first.
Listening to your intuition takes practice, but it is something that you can learn to do.
By getting in touch with your body, emotions and gut instinct, and by taking some time for yourself, you can start to develop this vital skill.
Listen to your instincts they know the way.
🗣💬 Your Talking Points
Lead a team dialogue with these provocations
- Anxiety can block our ability to make good decisions.
- In order to listen to our intuition, we need to get in touch with our body, emotions and gut instinct.
- Intuition is a form of rapid affective judgement that is connected to the enteric nervous system or “gut brain”