The Personal Development Ezine from Gurdy.Net

UNDERSTANDING GUT INSTINCT

Many successful business people talk about the extent to which their success is based on gut instinct.   Indeed, a number of surveys over the years by authoritative researchers such as Fortune Magazine and The Financial Times consistently find that the best business decisions are the ones that feel right – and that some of the biggest disasters in business history are the result of decisions that were based on too much analysis and thought.  

By and large, human gut instinct is right and should be followed – not just in business but in life and love.  If that is the case, how come so many people make so many dreadful mistakes when they think that they’re doing the right thing?   And how come so many people repeat their mistakes time and time again?   And how come, when we listen to our heart, we often end up making fools of ourselves – whether that’s in personal relationships or awful investment decisions?   As you can see, we’ve got two very different sets of evidence here – one set says that going with your gut is the right thing to do – on the other hand, many of us have bitter personal experience that tells us that, when you go with your gut, you get it wrong.

So, what’s the answer to this conundrum?   Wouldn’t you like to be able to get your decisions right most of the time?   Wouldn’t you like to go through life doing the right thing?

The answer lies in the fact that the normal mind will rarely glimpse true gut instinct.  Psychology tells us that the normal mind uses psychological facilities such as categorization (where we shove everything and everyone into predefined mental boxes so that we never fully experience or appreciate what’s going on); habituation (where novelty value wears off so quickly that we pay no attention to even exciting people and events) and automaticity (where we do everything that’s routine automatically – but, remember, habituation makes everything routine very quickly!)   As a result, the normal mind is both susceptible to and comfortable with herd-think.  

And herd-mentality gives rise to what we call conventional wisdom.   However, based on what psychology tells us about how the normal mind works, these two words – conventional wisdom – do not go together!   Normal crazy people, who don’t use their minds as they should, cannot be wise.  And, more often than not, when we think that we are listening to our gut instinct, when we think we’re being somehow inspired, we are in fact simply be led by the nose by conventional wisdom. 

Conventional wisdom led the herd to think that property prices would go up forever and ever.  Conventional wisdom led bankers to bet the developed world’s money on an outrageous gamble.   Conventional wisdom tells you that you should buy that new car – because other lunatics will look up to you as a result.  Conventional wisdom will tell you that you need a holiday home – because other idiots already have one.    Conventional wisdom will even trick you into falling head-over-heels in love with your ‘soul mate’ because psychology tells us that we’re actually born with a mental template that predisposes us to recognise what we think of as an attractive face!

Gut instinct is something else entirely.   How can you discover it?   Well, first of all, you need to operate with a clear mind – one that is relatively free of the mental noise that bombards the normal mind both from within and from all the other normal crazies who are encourage you to think and behave like them.   You can only clear your mind through concerted committed effort.  Nothing major is required, however.   Five or ten minutes meditation – or as my clients prefer to call it ‘mental exercising’ – a couple of times a day will set you up.   Secondly, you need to detach your mind – at the moment you’re attached to all the notions that, together, make up conventional wisdom.   You need to wise up!   Meditation will sort this out for you.

But once your mental fog begins to clear, how will you recognize gut instinct?   Well, first of all, inspiration is most likely to strike when you’re doing something that doesn’t take up much mental activity.   A psychologist friend of mine says that things are most likely to dawn on him when he’s lying in bed, looking out the window of a speeding train, or sitting on the toilet!   More importantly, real gut instinct is recognized by the fact that it doesn’t feel like conventional wisdom – in fact, it often flies in the face of conventional wisdom.   Real gut instinct is something that comes from ‘outside the box’ – it’s a left field thing!    And, when you follow real gut instinct, normal people around you may well think that you’re crazy.  They’d be wrong, of course, it’s the other way round!   For example, all Bianconi’s friends thought he was crazy when he came up with the ridiculous notion that you could transmit radio waves through the air!   Where would modern society be without Bianconi?

The other thing that you must realize is that, even as you develop your ability to tap into gut instinct, you will still get it wrong from time to time – sometimes spectacularly.   Remember that your normal adult mind has an adult lifetime’s experience of being normal and crazy.   It’s easily impressed by conventional wisdom.   As part of the herd, it’s been led by it all your adult life.   So be prepared to fall on your face.   But, be prepared to learn.  Life is not lived if you’re not learning.  We should be learning all the time because, with our normal minds, we know so little.  The path towards being effortlessly happy and successful as a result of following your gut instinct is one of trial and error – but it’s a path worth taking.