It can’t be that easy…
…goes the inner dialogue when it suggests something brilliant. Let’s call this a ‘gut feeling’.
It is the job of our nerve cells to rapidly store and retrieve information. So when it comes to a decision, a bundle of neurons eliminate irrelevant choices and generates a probable outcome. Meaning this gut feeling is really the combined wisdom of everything we’ve learned and experienced. In other words, it’s our wisest self!
It’s quite beautiful and enables our brain to suggest clearly focused decisions. Decisions not so influenced by the distorted perspective our emotional ‘in the moment’ selves are. As all professional poker players would suggest, leave your emotions at the door, be rational, and trust your gut!
Trust yourself, you’re wiser than you think.
When we second guess our gut, we’re telling our inner wisdom to hush up. Time is then spent building confidence or justifying wheater to follow through with this genius insight that has too easily arrived. As a result, following opportunities are hidden by wanting to process what’s already been actualized.
Fear turns to suffering when it oversteps it bounds.
When faced with a repeated fear that leaves us helpless, and is unable to get processed or released.
Fear – your cell’s worst enemy.
Allowing decisions and actions to be directed by fear is a natural instinct designed to keep us safe and protect ourselves from the unknown. But if never challenged, this natural instinct can overstep its bounds and lead to settling for much less than we’re capable of. Or even worse, we might fall in a hollow pursuit of working towards achieving something that’s already been achieved. Now that is something worthy of being scared about.
However when some unplanned good idea effortlessly appears, it’s scary to run with it without a chance to examine and justify it. So how can we learn to trust those trillions of hard working cells? Because I have a hunch they’re on our side.
Looking to those I admire, I see a common quirk in their dome that allows them to trust their gut. This is something I’m personally committed to changing, so to challenge this natural fear-driven instinct of second guessing a gut feeling, I’m going to be doing the following (feel free to join):
‘Trust the Gut’ Week-Long Challenge
- Log every encounter (that I notice) that the gut suggests something.
- If action is taken on the gut feeling record the outcome.
- If not, record why what stopped me from taking action.
For accountability sake, you can see a live document of my ‘Gut Feeling Log’ here: http://bit.ly/trust-the-gut
In case you decide to join me, let’s recap:
- Take confidence in that gut feeling knowing it is the culmination of trillions of cells (give or take) working to save you time.
- Recognize how you feel after an intuitive gut feeling. Replace any feelings of caution with eagerness and guilt with gratefulness.
- Take action! My last hunch on the matter is that the more we recognize, embrace and act on gut feelings, the more developed our gutly senses become.
