Are gut feelings important?

[Editor]

There has always been a dilemma of sorts about the importance of gut feelings or intuition vis-à-vis logical decision-making. I firmly believe that along with logic, gut feelings also play a major role in a person’s life. It was this belief that was one of the major reasons for the inception of this site.

Since this site is all about expressing your gut feelings, hence in this article I will discuss my personal views about gut feelings and would like you to express what do you feel about gut feel.

Though everyone has gut feelings, you will agree that some of us are more intuitive than others. In my opinion the difference lies in the awareness about your own feelings. The people who use their sixth sense are imaginative, fore-sighted and think more deeply on issues as opposed to the practical and realistic approach followed by less intuitive people. Thus, less intuitive people might not give enough importance to their somewhat subconscious feelings and use their logic to arrive at decisions.

However, in daily life your feelings do play an important role.

In general, the ability to take swift decisions or decisiveness differentiates leaders from other people. The leaders often combine gut feel with intelligence along with the knowledge available to arrive at the most desirable option. Though it is not all intuition, I would say that leaders take calculated risks. On the other hand, some people may not give enough weightage to gut feel, as they base their decision on logical analysis using facts and figures. Though it seems quite rational, however there might be circumstances where too much unfocussed analysis might lead to analysis paralysis, which hampers decision-making. In addition, people who fear uncertainty and wait till all relevant info becomes available are often left behind.

That is why in today’s competitive business environment, emotional intelligence (EI)—which takes into account one’s gut feelings—is the current buzzword when it comes to strategic decision-making. Along with the required technical skills, EI aids a person to take apt decisions and have a proactive approach.

The gut feel works not only in the corporate world but it works in everyone’s daily life too. So whether it is relationships or battlefield, trading, stock markets, or diagnosing a patient, gut feel plays an important role.

However, as I said earlier, the balance of head and gut is required and gut feelings cannot and should not be totally ignored. In order to derive maximum advantage out of them, you need to be thoughtful and aware of your own perception and with practice you can slowly acquire a skillful perception. Once you become aware then expression is very important. And I believe that positive expression always helps and creates way for fresh positive thoughts and feelings. In a nutshell, this is the raison d'être of GutFeel.com and I hope expression of your feelings will help you in one-way or the other.

What is your gut feel?

[navin]

We often confuse intuition with plain guess work. If we are trying to guess the answer of a complex equation without calculationg or we are trying to guess the next number of a roulete, it is gueswork but if we are trying to decide whether to take up the new job or continue with the old one, we are relying on our intuition or gutfeel.

Gutfeel is, more often than not, more reliable than facts. When we are trying to form a decision based on facts we include some irrelevent and exclude some relevent information. This is basically because of the established way and the fear of failure. We don't want to make a wrong decision and if we do make one, we want to be in a position where we can say "But I did as I wa supposed to."
On the other hand, the gutfeel or intution takes care of all the relevent facts and ignore the unnecassary. There is still a lot of analysis happening but at a subconcious level. Intuition is not just intuition in most cases.

[Urbanangel]

[Aditi77_k]

Hi!

Gut feelings are sometimes more reliable than logic. Though the importance of practical logic cannot be underestimated. But one should not ignore the gut feelings

[webs]

Aha

Great discussion, my gutfeel says that its important to have intution, but too much of it may not be good.

Likewise too much of Logic is also very bad. In this era logic seems to rule the roost.

So balance it out I will say GF is very much needed.

But again how you use is important.

[Editor]

[Matt]

my gutfeel is that gutfeelings play an important role in one's life. One cannot completely ignore them and work with pure logic...this is what has attracted me to this site...it offeres me to express my gutfeelings on various issues without any prejudices...great concept!

[Editor]

[RebelliousOne]

Editor:

Intuition and logic are not synonymous; they are antonymous to one another; indeed, to say someone was "intuitively logical," or logically intuitive" would be oxymornic.

RO

[Dan]

I have experienced that the way you use your logic or intuition depends a lot on the situation at hand. There may be situations like opting for a job or getting married when everything logically seems perfect but somewhere deep down in your heart you feel that something is wrong and you aren't able to pinpoint it. And often when you ignore your instincts, you have to regret it later.