The best advice for those seeking to resolve whether you should stick with an idea is to trust your gut. That’s it. There are strong scientific reasons for doing this and just as much research to show why it’s heavily flawed. That’s why it’s (probably) a good idea**.
(**read on)
Gut Check
You could spend the entire day reading the research showing a mass contradiction between trusting your gut and ignoring it. You probably don’t have time for that. Here’s the crux of what the literature says:
“Gut” decisions often involve subconscious information gleaned from our different senses and experiences. This wisdom* (read on) is often encoded in our nervous system in ways that transcend words and the usual rational, logistical systems we rely on for decision-making. It’s an extra bit of information we can draw on to make decisions, yet this comes without clear ‘markers’ of quality we can evaluate. It’s often described as a feeling, a sensation, a ‘sense’ of what to do that lacks the clear language to communicate yet is summoned when we need to make a decision that lacks an obvious pathway forward.
Emotions influence these ‘gut’ feelings, which can heavily distort our ability to reason and evaluate situations. Emotions aren’t good or bad for decision-making but aren’t neutral either. We’ve all had moments when we’ve overreacted or made rash decisions based on an emotional response. It makes sense that this emotional power will also influence our gut reactions. What can pass for wisdom can be poorly integrated psychological reactions that can distort our decisions as much as help them.
Gut-based decision-making is not just symbolic but literal. The evidence of receptors in our guts and their influence on our nervous system and cognition is constantly growing. The links between gut health and mental health have also been well-established. On a superficial level, think of the term hangry, and you have a very crude example of how we can be influenced by what is (or isn’t) in our gut.
The charged environment in our gut creates another dilemma: what to trust?
Go With Our Gut
So why go with our gut? One reason is that we live with our gut every day. We bring our history and baggage everywhere, providing us with something to interrogate and learn to trust.
We also influence the sources and volume of information we are exposed to. That means we can titrate the inputs somewhat and critically evaluate the sources that affect our ‘gut’ based decisions. This is not easy. Our experiences (and trauma history), age, and sensory sensitivity affect these inputs. However, with mindfulness, reflection, therapy, and self-awareness, we can learn where our biases, strengths, and limitations lay.
That isn’t the case with the external informational environment. We'll find a never-ending surge of contradictions if we attune to the external environment as our primary source of wisdom. As AI-generated content adds to the volume of information, including the amount of misinformation, disinformation, and distortions, it is simply impractical to expect to be able to filter it all.
I don’t see a reason to expect we ever will get on top of what’s coming at us again.
This is not an either-or proposition. The role of good, quality (i.e., trustworthy) evidence and sense-making has never been more significant, but the limits facing evidence assessment have never been more significant, either. Where the gut comes in is when we need to make a choice in the face of complexity.
Our gut might be the best call to make when things are evolving, moving, uncertain, volatile, and mysterious. That is, if we engage in the reflective practice and self-awareness generation work necessary to extract the gut's wisdom.
Practice Notes
I’ve been working on this in earnest over the past few months. It’s challenged me. It’s been a form of therapy of sorts, and it’s got me to confront many of my beliefs about how I work and how I see the world working. This isn’t always enjoyable, but it is useful. The result is that the quality of my decisions and the counsel I can provide to others has risen.
Daily reflective practice (journalling) and reducing the volume of media I consume are widely argued to promote brain health and reduce the stimulus pressure on our nervous system. It’s a daily struggle, but the effort is worth it.
We’d all do well to get in touch with ourselves. Our guts and brains will thank us.
This is better living and decision-making by design.
Thanks for reading.