Gut instinct

Gut instinct is a fuzzy term. Some people use the term to avoid the heavy lifting of detailed analysis and careful consideration. Rather than gather the facts, they merely make a decision. That practice is not the subject of this article; that is merely allowing one's self to be ruled by one's beliefs, attitudes, and habits. 

This article refers to something deeper and more reliable. It refers to a strong feeling of certainty whose origins you cannot explain. One possible explanation is because the subconscious brain, which can process far more information than the conscious mind, has processed relevant information that the conscious mind missed. 

Gut instinct is best used as step in the process of careful analysis, rather than as a replacement. For example, a person going down a river on a boat might be tempted to use gut instinct when he comes to a fork in the river. But if one of the forks leads to a waterfall, use of a map would prove to be much more appropriate than mere gut instinct. 

However, in many cases when the facts are in, the path ahead is still not clear. In such cases, gut instinct can be a valuable tool. Many business executives use gut instinct as the final hurdle before signing a new deal. They ask, "Do I really want to be in business with this person?" This is a valuable use of gut instinct, since a negative perception can outweigh the immediate pull of the possibility to make more profits. 

Gut instinct can be a valuable tool for programmers, technicians, architects and artists – among others – who rely on their instincts to make many tactical decisions in the process of pursuing a major project. For example, a programmer might "guess" at the best tactic for finding an error in many lines of programming code; in fact, such a guess can be guided by vast amounts of experience and information the programmer has gathered, both consciously and unconsciously. 

In the use of gut instinct for tactical decisions, it is possible to limit the cost of a misguided instinct. In the example above, using gut instinct to find a programming error does not expose the programmer to much risk; if the instinct was wrong, she tries another path. Likewise, if she lacked hard evidence to begin with regarding the location of the error, a more reliable path did not exist. 

In the author's personal experience, there have been two notable occasions – both involving an automobile – in which gut instinct prevented a major accident. In both cases, the author had an overwhelming sense of danger accompanied by intense concentration right before other cars careened towards the author's. Neither time was there any obvious warning, yet the author's "gut" triggered an alert. In both these situations, the cost of heeding gut instinct was zero, yet the value of paying attention was immeasurable. This is an ideal use of gut instinct. 

The Achilles heel of gut instinct is that it can be used to justify any number of fears and personality quirks. An anxious person can cite gut instinct or intuition as justification for avoiding risk or even normal human interactions. A stubborn person can cite gut instinct to support his desire to be stubborn. Gut instinct can be used to justify prejudice, bullying behavior, and unfair treatment. 

In the face of such conflicting information, how does one adopt a strategy for using gut instinct? Here are a few suggestions: 

Let gut instinct power your curiosity – Use your gut to guide your questions, rather than as a tool to provide your answers. If your gut instinct tells you a person can't be trusted, gather additional information about the person to see if your fears are warranted. If your gut suggests a new line of research might be productive, conduct some exploratory tests to see if they support your instinct. 

The less time you have – and the greater the risk - the more you should trust your gut – In warfare, many soldiers owe their lives to a gut instinct that told them to freeze or to duck. There are pivotal moments in which you simply do not have time for careful analysis; you just have to act. In such cases, trust your gut. Your conscious brain will merely slow you down; let your subconscious protect you. 

Use gut instinct to trigger spot checks – If your gut says be cautious and yet your careful analysis suggests you should proceed, check your analysis one more time. You probably missed something. 

Discard false alarms – Once you come to appreciate the value of gut instinct, you can be increasingly motivated to use it more often. This can trigger false alarms. Most people do not have a strong gut instinct in every situation. There is a huge difference between being a nervous flier and actually having a gut instinct your plane is going to crash. In the former case, it can be helpful to review the statistics. For example, in the entire history of the route you are about to fly, how many times has the plane crashed? The answer is almost certainly never.