When to Ignore Your Inner Voice
Christiana Aguilera sings, “When there’s no one else, look inside yourself, like your oldest friend, just trust the voice within.”
Sometimes your inner voice is wrong.
Gamblers lose when their intuition says they’ll win. Perhaps you’ve been convinced you were right only to learn you were wrong?
General Custer trusted his gut instinct that his smaller force could overpower a larger Native American coalition led by Sitting Bull. He ignored advice to wait for reinforcements. Custer and all his men lost their lives because of misplaced inner confidence.
World War II started shortly after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. He believed he was right. It was one of the great blunders of his time.
Trust the voice within:
#1. Go with feelings when making decisions of preference that don’t impact others. You prefer getting up early, but some are night owls.
#2. Trust your gut to express personal values. I value a simple life in the country. You might value city life.
#3. Rely on intuition when you’re aligned with your gifts and experiences. Planning ahead feels good to you. Who cares if others love spontaneity. Planning is your thing. Go with it.
Tip: Reject knee-jerk intuitions. Give your gut time to reflect. Sleep on big decisions, for example.
Distrust the voice within:
#1. Pause when you feel confident but experienced colleagues have concerns.
#2. Evaluate gut feelings when decisions have powerful consequences.
#3. Be skeptical of intuition when emotions run high. Fear and anger cloud judgment. Reassess once emotions cool down.
#4. Doubt your inner voice when you’re stressed or fatigued. High-stress distorts perceptions. Fatigue invites generalizations like everything sucks.
#5. Distrust intuition when you deeply desire for something to be true. Wishful thinking is dangerous to objectivity.
Tip: Question your inner critic.
When should we trust our inner voice?
When should we distrust our inner voice?
Still curious:
3 Destructive Lies about Feelings
Your Gut Instinct is Usually Wrong
1. Trust your inner voice when you have significant experience regarding the issue or situation you are in.
2. Question you inner voice when you have limited experience and the data tells you to go in a different direction. Analyze the assumptions that are behind your inner voice.
Dan, I certainly agree that stress and strong emotions will cloud your judgement.
I’m finding that my “inner voice” seems to mostly be really good at informing me of what I WANT in that moment. Often, what I want in the moment, doesn’t line up with what I would claim to value most. Thank you for the reminder to distrust, pause and evaluate that inner voice!
This is another way to check yourself before ! Overconfidence has made me lose from opportunities because I never had a moment to rethink things!