How to trust your gut

How to trust your gut

When I began making important life decisions and people first started telling me to trust my gut I now wonder if that's because they didn't know what else to say. These were the hardest, most complex decisions: whether or not to leave a relationship, which college to attend, what vocation to enter. In the absence of concrete data, the gut was a kind of oracle that spoke in riddle, if it spoke at all.

And yes, I used my gut to make hiring choices. In seconds I'd decide if an applicant was the kind of person I could work with. I made that choice based on a complex interplay of thoughts and feelings I can't explain and probably wouldn't recommend. That's because frankly, I don't know if I can trust my gut.

As I learned more about the gut-brain relationship and mental health, I learned that gut problems can stem from cognitive issues—and vice versa, problems that originate in our heads can lead to issues with our guts. It's bidirectional. And because hundreds of millions of neural transmitters exist in our guts, we must be designed to receive information that way.

A new article offers a questionnaire the author Arthur C. Brooks uses to help advise graduate students entering the workforce. It breaks the "trust your gut" calculation into three categories: excitement (your perceived happiness), fear (the amount of danger vs. perceived dread), and "deadness" (the level of fulfillment or challenge).


Each question should be answered as a value from zero to four, where 0 = “completely disagree” and 4 = “completely agree.”

Excitement

1. This job sounds fun and interesting to me.

2. If I take the job, next year I anticipate being happier than I am today.

3. I think I will look forward to going to work most days.

Add your scores across these questions. To move forward on the opportunity, the target range to look for is 9–12.

Fear

1. There is a chance that I might not succeed in this job.

2. Success is going to take hard work, and maybe some good luck as well.

3. If I do succeed, I will be very proud of the accomplishment.

The target range for these questions is 5–8.

Deadness

1. The idea of this job does not inspire me.

2. I have trouble focusing on this job’s day-to-day tasks.

3. I might hate it, but this job is only temporary.

The target is zero, or as close to zero as possible.


Like many in the workforce, my record for decision making is mixed: some good, some bad. Deciding whether to stay in a role or leave, to pass on an offer, to switch industries—these are all complex, hard decisions.

This simple framework helped me reflect on which decisions led to my best (or worst) job moves, and I hope it will help you too.


要查看或添加评论,请登录

Bill Pearse的更多文章

  • In the end, love wins

    In the end, love wins

    Starbucks used to have a slogan "Love what you do." I have a picture frame with those words and a photo of myself just…

    2 条评论
  • The Starbucks Experience, or the Starbucks Transaction?

    The Starbucks Experience, or the Starbucks Transaction?

    The first time I heard someone refer to their relationship with their employer as "transactional" was when I worked at…

    14 条评论
  • Life is the job interview you didn't know was an interview

    Life is the job interview you didn't know was an interview

    In 1994 my resume was so thin I had to increase the font size to fill out the page. Bumping up the font was no…

    4 条评论
  • The new normal isn't really normal

    The new normal isn't really normal

    Consulting and contracting aren't the same thing. They can be, but like hiking and mountaineering I used to conflate…

    20 条评论
  • The outside of the inside

    The outside of the inside

    I remember the first time I saw Satya Nadella in person—it was in Washington, D.C.

    8 条评论
  • Finding the grace in less

    Finding the grace in less

    In 2018 NVIDIA announced a breakthrough in graphics rendering that brought more realism to video games than ever…

    2 条评论
  • The culture is what you reward

    The culture is what you reward

    In late 2007, Starbucks U.S.

    4 条评论
  • The real meaning of ambiguity

    The real meaning of ambiguity

    No one likes ambiguity. It carries uncertainty, the bane of financial markets.

    5 条评论
  • The productivity trap

    The productivity trap

    In 2001 Seattle got its biggest earthquake since the 1960s while I was working in Starbucks headquarters on the eighth…

    4 条评论
  • It's not the job, it's your work that matters more

    It's not the job, it's your work that matters more

    Work hasn't always meant so much as it seems to now, since we've started expecting more meaning from work. Derek…

    11 条评论

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了