Go With Your Gut Instinct

I found myself working with a client yesterday and referring to the same book for the second time in a week.

I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’ s ‘Blink’ 2 years ago on an unabridged audio book whilst driving from San Francisco to Phoenix; from the very beginning I loved his laid back style of delivery and excellent use of examples from all walks of life including the military, psychology, the emergency services and academia.  ‘Blink’ looks at how we think as humans and comes away with some startling facts and ideas.

The main premise is that the decisions we make in the blink of an eye are frequently more accurate than when we take time the to analyze and sift data. His basic conclusion in that our unconscious mind can process data so fast from so many different sources that it is easy for our conscious mind to disregard what it thinks are snap, uninformed decisions. This is in line with the knowledge that the conscious mind can only deal with 7 + or – 2 pieces of information at once whereas the unconscious mind can do far more than that and is doing so every moment of the day. 

So next time you have a ‘gut’ feeling or something that feels like intuition, maybe it is no such thing, maybe it is a decision that has been made at an unconscious level and that particular part of your mind is trying to give you a signal that it knows what the right thing to do is. You can still disregard it of course and sometimes it may be prudent to do so, but give yourself some credit and realize that even large decisions don’t necessarily need to be ruminated on for days on end once you are in possession of all of the facts.  

 

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