Your Gut Instinct Isn’t Always Right—Here’s How To Use It Anyway
Spiders, tarot cards, and solving for your why
For the last year, I’ve written weekly about the science of decision-making. We’ve unpacked cognitive biases—those shortcuts our brains take to save energy, even if they sometimes lead to worse choices—and explored Nobel Prize-winning decision science research. We’ve covered decision models, dissected the math behind choices, and discussed techniques to help us make more objective, rational decisions.
But.
In all this intellectual exploration, there’s one fundamental element I’ve overlooked.
And it’s time I addressed it.
For all the logic, science, and rigor behind decision-making, I can’t deny this fact:
All decisions are emotional.
As much as we like to think we’re rational, it’s simply not true. We almost always make decisions emotionally—and then justify them rationally.
In other words, our “gut instinct” rules our decisions. Our emotions, past experiences, and even trauma responses make the call, and then our brains find ways to justify it. Even when they’re not optimal.
(Side note: This is exactly why I’m so passionate about improving decision-making—not because I want to eliminate emotions, but to ensure that they don’t hijack us in ways that harm future versions of ourselves.)
When Instinctive Decision-Making Is Destructive Decision-Making
Our gut instincts aren’t always right. In fact, sometimes they’re deeply, deeply wrong.
I once worked under a boss who prided himself on being an “instinctive decision-maker.” Like, he actually used those words.
He boasted about making decisions on the fly, trusting his gut, and not the advice of others. The results were, well, disastrous, both for the company and for those of us working under him.
His instinct-driven approach led to inefficiencies, failed initiatives, and even moral missteps. It wasn’t a train wreck waiting to happen. It was just a train wreck.
It’s no wonder he got fired.
My former boss highlights an extremely important distinction in decision types. There are decisions we make for others (companies, populations, etc), and those we make for ourselves.
Decision-making at the population or organizational level should never be emotional. It should always be rational, systematic, and backed by data.
This is especially true for clinicians, leaders, and professionals whose decisions impact others. Whether you’re leading a healthcare team or deciding treatment plans for patients, the stakes are high. Decisions made in the wilderness of emotion will have consequences that ripple across systems and people.
But, things get a lot trickier for individual decisions. Depersonalization is a lot harder when it comes to our own futures—and, that’s okay.
Let’s talk about how to incorporate them.
Is Your Gut Instinct A Trauma Response?
Let me take a step back.
Intuition and gut instinct are complex things. Not all gut instincts are created equal, and for many professionals in high-stress fields—whether you’re a surgeon, nurse, therapist, clergy, lawyer, teacher—emotions are woven throughout the warp and weft of our work.
Which means we’ve got to be especially careful about the difference between being in tune with our authentic emotional responses and letting emotional triggers, often stemming from burnout or trauma, control our decision-making.
Towards the end of a long marriage, I could sense things were falling apart (I’m sure we both could. We never talked about it…)
As I struggled with the “Should I stay or should I go?” decision, I built decision models. Dozens of them, in fact.
I’d incorporate uncertain outcomes (what if we break up and I never find love again? What if we don’t break up and the relationship starts to flourish? What if it deteriorates?)
And every single model I built said that breaking up was the best decision. Every single one.
But, I kept trying to tweak them. I didn’t like what they said; I didn’t want to break up, so I kept trying to crowbar them into the answer I wanted.
In other words, I didn’t want to be responsible for making the decision myself—I wanted to abdicate my authority to a model—while at the same time guaranteeing that the model would tell me what, deep down, I wanted it to say.
After an embarrassingly long time, it finally hit me. That was the answer I needed. When all was said and done, there was something inside me, something ineffable and inchoate, that wanted me to stick that relationship out.
So I did.
The relationship eventually came to an end—the models were actually right—but also, I can look back at that relationship and know that I gave it literally everything I had in me, even if it wasn’t common sense.
(Don’t worry, I’ve gone to therapy since).
Divination Helps Us Deal With Uncertainty
There’s something in that desire for abdication that I had. Uncertainty is the plague of big decisions, the reason they’re so hard, the reason your brain avoids making them.
But uncertainty is unavoidable. All decisions are made under uncertainty. If there were no uncertainty, there would be no decision.
And that’s why we’re tempted to abdicate.
We don’t call it abdication. Instead, it looks like externalizing a decision, and it could look like anything from reading coffee grounds, to opening a Bible to a random chapter and verse to find an answer, or even consulting a spider.
(I’m not making that last one up. Here’s a fascinating article a reader sent me about Ŋgam dù, or “spider divination”)
Heteroscodra crassipes, the divining spider. Source: iNaturalist.org
And there’s something to be said for this. We are so often paralyzed by the need to make perfect decisions, and decision-making is so fraught with uncertainty, and the quest for certainty often leads to burnout—that we just throw up our hands and ask someone else to make the decision for us.
That externalization gives us permission to step back from the stress of the uncertainty—but it doesn’t always help us make good decisions.
So, how do we? How do we combine our emotion and our rational mind well?
How to Integrate Emotion into Rational Decision-Making
After working with dozens of physicians and nurses struggling with their major middle-of-life decisions, I’ve developed a framework that honors both the power and limitations of intuitive thinking. Here’s how to make your gut instinct a reliable partner in decision-making:
Step 1: Flip A Coin
I’m not kidding. Let me tell you about my friend Lauren. Lauren flips a coin for her big life decisions.
Not because she actually cares about which side it lands on. She doesn’t make big life choices based on a coin flip.
What she does do is pay attention to what happens inside her while the coin is in the air.
Where does she hope the coin will land? Because that is where her gut truly is.
Step 2: Acknowledge And Document That Feeling
When you notice an intuitive response—whether it’s during the arc of a coin flip, or otherwise— don’t dismiss it out of hand.
And don’t act on it immediately either.
Instead, write it down. Literally. Grab your phone, send yourself an email. Document what you’re feeling and why you think you might be feeling it. (Hold on to that why. It comes back later)
Step 3: Interrogate Your Domain Expertise
Now ask yourself honestly: “Is this an area where my intuition is likely to be well-calibrated?” Like, if you’re a cardiologist with 15 years of experience, your gut feelings about someone’s chest pain deserve serious weight. On the other hand, if you’re that same cardiologist trying to decide whether to invest in cryptocurrency, your intuition is no better than anyone else’s — and possibly worse, because expertise in one domain can create overconfidence in others.
Step 4: Check for Emotional Contamination
Our intuitive responses are heavily influenced by our emotional state, our traumas, and our recent experiences. Interrogate that gut feeling. What else might be influencing your reaction? Are you burned out and therefore seeing every new responsibility as a threat? Did a recent bad choice make you overly cautious? Are you sleep-deprived, stressed about finances, or dealing with relationship issues that might be coloring your perception?
I once had a surgeon tell me she was considering leaving medicine entirely because she “just knew” she wasn’t cut out for it anymore. When we dug deeper, we discovered her loss of confidence coincided exactly with a period of severe sleep deprivation during a particularly brutal rotation. In her case, her intuition wasn’t picking up on some deep truth about her suitability for surgery.
It was detecting the very real impact of chronic exhaustion on her performance and projecting that into the future.
(For the record, I’ve had other clients who’ve absolutely made the right decision to leave medicine altogether)
Step 5: Seek Disconfirming Evidence
Last week, we talked about confirmation bias. The single best way to counteract this bias is actively looking for information that contradicts your intuitive response.
Doctors know this from taking care of patients. Our guts may say a patient is fine, but we’d be bad doctors if we didn’t develop a full differential diagnosis. If you feel certain that staying in medicine despite burnout will be the “right thing to do,” deliberately examine examples of people who have left and been happy.
Step 6: Embrace Your Why
Finally, remember: your why is the anchor that will guide you back to your true path.
This is where decision science and heart-centered action come together: when you start to ask yourself, Why did I get into this profession? And Why am I still here? Is it still serving me?, you reconnect to your own deeper purpose.
And when you’re ready to accept that it’s ok for that purpose to have changed—and ok if it hasn’t—your decision-making becomes unstoppable.
These six steps reframe hard life choices into opportunities to return to your passion and purpose.
The you underneath the doubts, the fears, and the rationalizations—that person has a why.
Your why is your north star.
It’s time to live it.
Are you ready to live that north star? Here’s how to work with me:
→ Check out my courses here. They range from 4 weeks to a year, and they take you from “what the heck do I do next” all the way to clarity and a step-by-step plan that honors both your calling and your right to thrive. Click here to apply!
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