I'm Not Brave. I Just Blindly Trust My Gut...

I am a gut person. Always have been. I am the first to admit I am not a details person - I can do it, but it takes energy and isn’t my zone of preference - I am the “does this feel right?” person in the room. Right to my core.

I have followed my instincts on probably all my key decision in life and (most of the time) it sees me right…

I literally felt something as we pulled up and stepped over the threshold to the house we now own for the first viewing. I couldn’t accurately describe the feeling but I just knew we had to have that house and the search could stop. I don’t think I knew it properly when I started my own business alongside my 9-5 years ago but something in me knew enough to start building & experimenting, to pave the way for what was around the corner so I just went with it. Nursery choices for the kids? They were a gut feel in the end based on the people I met, not the fancy facilities on offer. I’d like to think I am a pretty good judge of character too. I don’t have a long list of friendships all over the place but the few I do have are strong and deep and meaningful. I’m drawn to a varied mix of wonderful people and it’s mostly just because I get a wicked vibe off them when we’ve met.

I’ve always thought I just can’t take in the level of detail that some others love and need, and because of this, I just end up going for it because it feels right. Most of the time, this serves me perfectly well, but then there are the hinges.

It must be said that, this missing layer of detail has backfired from time to time and I've almost been banned at home for buying certain items for the house because they've arrived as miniatures (it obviously felt like an amazing deal at the time!), ended up being crap quality or just completely not what I was expecting at all. Once I bought hinges for a huge painting I had created to hang on the wall in our bathroom as a cover for a hidden shelf and they arrived and were these tiny micro hinges for doll houses! I will say this for myself though - each time my gut has led me wrong has been an internet based purchase! I wonder if there is something in the read of a room in ‘real life’ as opposed to the onslaught of information you receive online these days? Maybe gut feel needs a room to read. Online, we are just navigating information architecture and we all know how hit and miss that can be. Although it is less about my gut being wrong in these situations, I do think that the details I skipped actually mattered more than I gave pause for. (Something I have made a note to delve into on another post soon I think!)

The woo-woo in me wants to believe that my intuition is some mystical thing I can’t explain and just guides me to where I need to be. I still partly think this is true but recently I have been pondering another alternative.

What if it is actually some sort of pattern recognition? Almost like previous experiences that have settled into us so deeply they aren’t consciously recalled anymore but still provide you with a level of understanding of the situation you are in and what is required. I wonder, could intuition be the result of just knowing better, reading the situation for what it is and making a judgement call based on what you know to be true? And maybe this all just happens ‘under the radar’ as such for some people (like me) and it reads as intuition?I have always felt drawn toward things that are right for me at that time, and spent a large amount of my life genuinely not knowing why that was. I don’t think I have really ever vocalised it either. Maybe because I can’t explain it? I tend to just make the call internally and trot on.

I was in the pub the other day and a friend said she thought I was brave which really took me by surprise- I actually don’t think I am. She said I just go for things if I want to do them (referencing the career shift I am amidst and that she was/is contemplating too) but that she couldn’t because of X, Y and Z. She'd done what I think a lot of us sometimes do; looked at the whole mountain at once and decided she couldn't climb it, before checking whether there was actually a path. The fears were totally valid (leaving a profession and wondering if you could go back if you needed to, whether the grass is genuinely greener or just looks it from where you're standing etc). But she'd skipped straight to the enormous scary decision without sitting with the opportunities for a minute. We talked about what the smallest possible step might look like. It could be an evening with the laptop just looking at what is out there of interest, having a chat with someone who has a job she likes the sound of or even maybe taking a day of annual leave to shadow someone and try it out. I realised in this conversation that not everyone understands that ‘Gut Feel’ and baby steps are not mutually exclusive. From the outside lit can come across like I just go for things without overthinking. Most of the time, I am convinced it will work out actually. But often, the decision is only followed by small changes or shifts or experiments, not life altering decisions points of no return. You can trust a feeling and still move toward it carefully. In fact, I'd argue that's the smarter version of brave.

When I make a decision or step forward based on something I feel to be the right thing in that moment, it also still comes with the same level of nerves and trepidation and “OMG what have I got myself into” has been uttered more times than I care to admit. I guess my thinking is, it feels right for a reason so let’s trust the process. Writing this out, it feels a bit arrogant. Or is that just the English sensibilities knocking at the door? I don’t know. If I shelf that for a moment though, I think it’s actually hard won self trust.

What do you think? Either way, I’ve decided to stop apologising for it. Maybe not apologising - but I often would not vocalise what was going on for me and quietly just get on doing my own thing. The older I get the more my opinions and feelings feel valid and worthy of being heard and I am leaning into this. Conversations like these with my friends have also made me realise that maybe sharing my small steps that set up the big moves are helpful in order to give others the permission to take their own baby steps. We are surrounded by a world of big promises, over night successes and the relentless message/pressure to be so totally optimised that anything less feels like failure. The reality though, is that it’s often the small actions towards a life that feels ‘right’ for us is the real goal that would give us a little more peace and it’s just not heard above the flashy claims in the same way.

This course I have just finished has enabled a huge amount of self reflection along the journey. I realised that actually, this ‘intuition’ (or maybe clarity is a better word for it?) is a bit of a super power I have been sitting on and not leveraging.

Until now, it has always worked by default in me… but what if I really dialled in on it?

What could I do with it?

Where could it take me?