Trusting Your Gut on Big Decisions
I reflect on the value of trusting genuine gut instinct, especially when facing major life or career decisions. The discussion distinguishes between deep intuition and random ideas, highlighting how self-trust often comes from recognising signals we already understand.
Key Takeaways
- Strong gut instincts can be a valuable guide when making significant decisions.
- There is an important difference between true intuition and every passing idea.
- Self-trust often means recognising that you know more than you think.
Topics
- Leadership
- Cognition
- Decision-Making
Transcript
What's the one piece of advice I would give my younger self? I think I keep coming back to trusting my gut. Generally speaking, when I've had very, very strong gut instincts, I've been right. Unfortunately, I can't always turn on that instinct. I have had gravitational pull from something inside of me on really big decisions in my life, and I've regretted zero of them. So there's obviously something that's happening, some signals that my brain and my body are feeling that have taken me in that direction. And sometimes I have doubted them for too long, and I really shouldn't have done that. Occasionally, I've been persuaded to go against very strong gut instincts, and again, most of the times that has turned out to be wrong. So trust the gut, but it has to be a true gut instinct, not just every single random idea I've ever had, because there's been plenty of those that have been rubbish. But I would still go back and mentor my younger self to say, Don't worry, you actually know more than you think.