Oftentimes, whenever taking an important or life changing decision, people prefer to go through all the hardcore material facts—all the information available on the internet and in books, thinking it would help them make up their minds—but all they do is end up feeling even more confused than before.

Relatable? 

On the top of it all, they have to choose between what looks like the right choice (backed up by all of their hard-and-fast rules and facts) and what, on the other hand, feels right to them. So if you find yourself suffering from personhood too, sooner or later you’ll have to learn to know when to trust your instincts.

 

All of us face this dilemma at least once in our lives, and as we grow older, many times more. Choosing which is the better job, the better city, the better life partner, choosing which person to trust, or let in. 

And these are just the major decisions. There are also some small decisions we come across in everyday life, which end up becoming big and important too, as they all might impact us or our lives in some way or the other. 

Now this question arises—we can’t always stop the track of our day and open up books and documents and go through information to aid our decision-making. Sometimes we have to just trust our guts and move on with life. 

We have to change our mentality to this— “We’re trusting our instincts, and our instincts are telling us the right thing. They always do so only the best is going to happen.”

You need to learn how to trust your gut and you also have to train your “gut” on making the right choices. 

Just like you train your mind, your body, yourself for all the life ahead, you train your gut for all the hard, on-the-spot decisions that are going to be thrown your way all your life.

 

9 people out of 10 DON’T trust their guts

People often don’t listen to their guts because they have no explanations for all the information their “gut” is telling them. They just tell themselves that ‘This feels right’ or ‘I think this is right’. For once, they might believe themselves because that’s what they gotta do. 

But it’s especially hard to explain these “gut feelings” to other people. They won’t understand it because it’s your gut and no one else’s. Your gut will only come handy to you. 

That’s why—because the gut has a capacity to help only one person (that’s you)—gut feelings are widely underestimated. 

You can just go to a business conference and say to all the people sitting there —‘I don’t have any material facts to back up to deal with, but I think this is the right thing to do.’

Not a single person would be convinced, of course. And when they would ask you for a proof you would have none because you can’t really explain this...feeling to anyone. 

You just can’t find the perfect words to say that would make them understand why you feel this. So you would just be left staring at their faces dumbly, with nothing to bring you out of this humiliating situation. 

That situation teaches you a lesson—never to trust your gut again. 

No, no, no, this is not what is the goal of this post. 

It’s to convince you to trust your gut. The times you don’t listen to what your heart says you instead get pulled into the opinions of other people—ending up trusting them instead of yourself—you see the outcome yourself and wonder what would have happened if you had instead listened to yourself first. 

I’m not saying this is some steadfast rule of the universe, having a perfect probability to happen, but I do say that many times the decisions taken in someone else’s influence do not bring in the best results we had hoped for and could’ve gotten after all. 

 

9 times out of 10 your gut is right. 

You can just see—at first glance—which option is better. 

If people do believe in love at first sight, then what is it actually that’s telling them that she/he is the one? You guessed right. Your gut knows who your soulmate is, that’s why butterflies appear in your stomach as soon as you see them. (If you believe in that cheesy drama). 

At the very beginning you can tell which job, or which city to reside in, is the best. But after that initial moment of truth, you start doubting it, and thus you start doubting yourself, and you’re convinced that there might be some better option. 

From then on you get torn between what the other people say is true and what you had initially put your finger on. 

The truth gets veiled and the decision that could have been made within a few minutes now takes days of planning and guessing and second-guessing ourselves. 

 

We humans always second guess ourselves. That’s maybe in our DNA. 

We’re always doubting, looking for a better option, a better opportunity, craving something even a tad bit better. And we are never satisfied. This option seems nice, but maybe that one would bring more benefits. 

This is precisely the thought process all of us go through while choosing between any number of things: this seems good, but that might be better. Keeping this trait intact mainly leads us to drift away from originally trusting what our heart says.

And after that, things are simply too blurry for us to read into anything again.

I am not telling you to simply trust your gut and walk over the edge of the cliff. God, no. That would be a disaster. That would simply be suicide. Self-destruction. 

I am not telling you to close your eyes (that’s you putting all your trust in your gut) and then walk into darkness (that’s all the scary opportunities that come across your life). I am not telling you to do that. A monster of the darkness could probably just kill and then eat you. What I am instead saying is for you to remove the blinds. 

Trust your gut, surely, but keep your eyes open. 

Your heart should prompt you to take the chance, but your mind should be working at the same time to process everything that is happening. 

And, yeah, don’t walk into a dark pit without any safety gear. Always keep a torch in one hand, a book in another so that when need arises, you can point the torch at the book and consult the one source of information that would help you no matter what.

(Note: I advised you to keep a book with you because books come with aesthetic values and effects, you know, but I personally think that Google is far more vast and definitely more helpful. So you can just have a phone on you, obviously.)

 

 

 

Read all the facts but trust your gut in the end 

9 times out of 10 the gut is right, but given that one condition when your gut fails you, you should make sure that the rational side of your brain doesn’t fail you too. You should have confidence while trusting your gut but you should also let that one flicker of doubt emerge in your mind because you are never too sure of anything. 

At least you shouldn’t be. 

Even after deciding to trust your gut decision, you should walk into the darkness armed with safety gear, to protect yourself from a downfall. 

And I think that you should read all the facts. Like, don’t just be clueless about what you are doing. Read all the information. All scientific data. Go through the pros and cons—but throughout all that, don’t change what you were feeling in your gut earlier. 

Don’t let all the infinite lines of plain black text on the Internet sites change your end decision. 

Just consume it anyway, (knowing it would do nothing to change your mind) but it will come useful if things go south. 

You will at least have scientific data to back you up. 

You will still end up trusting your gut at last, but at least after reading all the facts your gut would also tell you the right thing. 

Of course. It’s loyal. Give it credit. 

That Feeling

No matter what happens—that feeling that comes from within you, that you can’t figure out originated from what, that you can explain to others, that feeling is never wrong. 

Trust that feeling. 

Now, think back to that business conference. Suppose you had gone there with all the information and all the facts ready to spill out of your mouth. And so when others would’ve asked you, ‘But why should we do this? Tell us some statistics,’ you would have the information ready with you. 

 

 

And the deal would have worked out in your favor and everyone would’ve been impressed and maybe you could have gotten a promotion. 

How great is that? 

Your gut instinct told you this should happen, you looked into the matter, and maybe it turns out that everyone on the Internet was magically saying the same thing. (Though not without some deviations and exceptions).

Now that’s something. 

Gut feelings mixed with facts and information. 

You’re golden.

Things work out. 

You don’t regret anything. 

All because you trusted your gut.