Here's how you can sharpen your intuition and gut instincts for more confident career decisions.

Intuitive decision making in a professional or business context is developed through expertise and extensive experience. It is a high level form of making decisions whereby an individual has the ability to ‘join the dots’, and to recognise patterns and applicable principles in a situation. Intuitive decision making can be invaluable in situations where there is incomplete data and a decision needs to be made quickly. In cases where more data is available, intuition can be used to make sure that a decision makes intuitive sense consistent with previous experience and acquired knowledge. Therefore it is not a ‘best guess’ as it is sometimes described, but rather intuition is a calculated judgment.

To sharpen your intuition, first you need to start listening to it. Whenever you are trying to take a decision, take a step back and try to feel it, does it feel good? Wait for 1-2 days for initial mind excitement to settle down and see, is the feeling changing from good to not so good or the feeling is staying same or changing for better? Follow your feeling, do not try to reason yourself through mind, keep the mind out of it for some time, we will bring it back later. Once We have figured out what we want through felling/intuition/gut feeling, now we are ready to take the decision, bring the mind back and now evaluate the decision through reasoning because its important to satisfy our mind too for a successful outcome of our decision.

In order to trust your intuitions, you must first trust your ability to repeat your excellence in using your skills, followed by reviewing your trust in the resources that would come into play in executing the decision you're going to take. Your intuition guides you based sheerly on your past learnings and logic apparent in the prevailing situation sans any data. Your intuition trusts you to trust it in reciprocity as it's your baby, your creation, your slave; not your master.

Decision making is a result of intuitive and rational cognitive processes. While data is important in making informed decision, we also need to trust our intuitions. It's important to strike a balance between rationale thinking and instincts or gut feeling as we call it commonly. You can only look back and connect the dots on intuitive decision making. Ex. When you are hiring someone, everything seems fine, but you feel something is not right, you still go ahead and hire the candidate but realize later that your intuition was correct, and this is a wrong hire.

It's like a superhero cape woven from your experiences, knowledge, and instincts. Recognize its power by reflecting on past victories guided by your gut. Trusting yourself isn't about ditching logic, it's about using your intuition as another voice in the decision-making choir.

This practice of reflection is valuable not just for career decisions, but for navigating any aspect of life with greater self-awareness and trust in your intuition.

In my experience of dealing with intuitional decision making, I feel periodical reflections play a minimal role vis-à-vis spontaneous reflection. The algorithm of your gut processes very differently from your mind and machine. The amount of situations you have engaged in, which are recognised as "similar" to the one facing you, is what matters to your gut. The more reflections you carry with you may make room for more hypothetical apprehensions than essential in taking intuitional decisions. Each situation would have been different and your intuition could get misled by too many dots to connect from the past. Don't use your gut like a panel of advisors that confuse more, convince less!

This emphasizes the subtle nature of intuition and the importance of creating a calm environment to perceive it effectively. Intuition whispers, not shouts. Silence the external noise to embrace its gentle guidance.

Here's a recommendation from me: if you decide to switch to airplane mode, first inform your loved ones and colleagues that you'll be out of reach. Make sure they have what they need and know what to do during your absence.

This advice applies to more than just careers. By considering multiple perspectives, we can make more informed decisions in all aspects of life

This statement emphasizes the positive aspects of uncertainty. It encourages embracing the unknown as a chance to develop trust in your intuition, leading to more fulfilling choices.

Uncertainty, is thy name destiny??? It is the uncertainty of how each factor involved with your situation is going to play out that adds thrill to your decision-making prowess. And, it is not the first time that uncertainly stares at you in the face when decison making is at hand. While it is essential to weigh all pros and cons in the scales of skepticism and optimism, what matters most is the record of your intuitions, how your gut-feel has fared in the past. If you've been good at embracing uncertainty and calculating your steps forward with all the proven tactics in your toolkit, then don't hesitate to use them again, 'cos everytime you use a tactic, you hone it for better efficacy next time which means you're better equipped this time.

Like charity, decision-making starts at home. Practice at home, the chances of you being thrown out of your house are low vis-à-vis you being thrown out of your job, if your intuitional decisions make things go south, deep south!