The Importance of Saying No When Your Gut Tells You That It’s Not Right

NO! NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

My god you here that a lot do you?

You’re told no, you hear no, you say no, you, well, get accustomed to the word no.

However, has the thought ever come across to you that sometimes it is really important to say and listen to the word no when it’s necessary?

Specifically, when your gut is telling you something and you must answer the question “What do I do” to yourself?

When you are in that stressful situation on your way to work at 8:30 am on Tuesday morning and you need to answer the question “Do I get on the expressway or not?! It seems so crowded, but I might get to work faster! What do I do?”

And whoops, you just spilled your coffee!

Adding more stress to the day!

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

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After that crazy story, reflect on the first and second question for a moment and jot down your answer on a sheet of paper and come back to the article.

Are you back?

Great.

Keep that answer with you because it could change your life at the end of the article. Mark my words on that one or a $100 Amazon gift card sent to your doorstep.

Well I’m here to tell you that it is actually important to say no at the correct time. And in this article, you’ll learn about the importance of saying no, specifically, as it relates to your gut feeling before getting on that highway to work.

So read on to find out the secrets to winning your way with instantaneous decision, saving time and money in the process!

1. Your Gut is Usually Right Or Wrong; the Ultimate Coin Flip

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Your gut is usually the result of your past experiences combining to form an informed opinion, whether that opinion is correct or incorrect, about what to do in a certain situation.

In a lot of cases, your gut operates in something called a validity environment, which is an environment where with enough practice, you could associate a result with an outcome that gives you an indication of a certain result. You can read more about it here.

Let’s take an example here to illustrate this.

Suppose that you are preparing to take a test and the professor gives certain homework problems. You take the first test and you see some of the homework questions make up the entire test.

So your scheme could go something like this:

Using the general scheme below,

Circumstance = Outcome = Necessary Action,

you would write this example scheme shown below.

Professor = Tests Come from the Homework = Only Study out of the homework and nowhere else

So what this means is that if you have a certain professor, based off the historical record of events, you could expect the tests to come straight from the homework, so that means the only thing that you have to do in order to do well on the test is to study the homework and understand all of the homework.

That’s a gut feeling in a high validity environment.

Now in something called a low validity environment, circumstances can trigger a certain event, but not in a predictable manner in which you automatically know what action to take.

So let’s take this for instance:

Suppose that you are playing on a golf course for the very first time in your life and your ball lands in a fairway bunker and you are wondering in your mind what you need to do to get your ball out of the bunker.

You definitely know the circumstance, but what you are missing in this situation is the experience necessary to know the outcome that is required to get out of the sand. And hence, without the outcome, you can’t perform the necessary action to get out of there.

So if you listen to your gut here when it says “Let me just grab a 5 iron and just get out of here,” you are sorely mistaken.

In fact, in this situation, this could be a high validity scenario in that the circumstance is that you don’t know something.

The outcome is that you need to get an answer on what to do from someone who knows how to correctly get a ball out of a fairway bunker. And the necessary action here would be to invest in a Class A PGA approved professional golf coach.

And then from there, with practice, you can turn that low validity environment into a high validity environment.

All with a few questions being answered.

Now onto the next reason for saying no (or yes) when your gut tells you to trust it.

Gut says: “Oh (your name), could you please trust me? I’d be so delighted if you do! It’ll make my day!”

2. You Don’t Want the “What-Ifs?”

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Let me ask you a question. How many “What-Ifs” have you asked yourself in your life?

A bunch right?

Do yourself a favor and drink some water for each “What-if” moment that you bring up.

You’ll be glad that you did.​

“What if I just asked for help? What if I just emailed that person back? What if I just went outside for fresh air? What if I just bought that thing that I knew could’ve saved my day today? What if I didn’t do that? What could’ve happened?”

And the list goes on and on and on right?

Because the moment you introduce the what-ifs, you immediately start to feel regret.

Or at the minimum, a sense of it.

Do you want to feel regretful for the rest of the day?

I certainly don’t!

And that’s when not listening to your gut when it is time to do so can backfire against you and shoot right through your foot.

And when you feel regretful, you get distracted for the rest of the day, which in turn worsens the quality of work that you produce throughout the day.

And perhaps weeks, months, years, etc.

So the morale of the story for this reason is when you are in a high validity scenario and you’ve had enough experience to know the necessary action required in that circumstance, it’s time to take action and go with your gut.

And doing so will prevent the next reason coming up that could REALLY harm your life if you let this percolate for too long.

And now onto reason 3.

But a commercial break from the Gut Corporation:

“Hey you, do you want to have the easy way of making decisions? Do you want to just sit back and take it easy and just let me do all of the deciding? It’ll be to your benefit! Then buy our products now called The Easy Gutsy, where you can trust me, your beloved gut, to make all of the decisions for you and let you be at peace of mind! So what are you waiting for? Call now to pick up your dose of The Easy Gutsy, and we’ll make your decisions ‘The Easy Way.’​”

3. You Don’t Want to Be Indecisive

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So let me ask you a question here. Have you ever wanted to go out to eat one night with your friends?

You guys (or gals) all decide that you want to go eat somewhere in the city.

But then you guys don’t know where you want to go so you all debate on the best place to go while driving around in circles.

Man, or woman, that must’ve been quite the episode I’d imagine!

So then you guys keep debating and you come up with the idea of going to the XYZ restaurant because you knew that it was so good and that it was a group friendly environment where you could all lounge and talk and just have a fun time that night.

You know in your heart that this is the place to be that night.

But then everybody else in the car says “No no, let’s go to Chipotle; the guac is god! YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”

So then you are left in a dilemma. Do I

A) Go with the group and agree to go with Chipotle

OR

B) Advocate for XYZ because my gut tells me to and it’s what I know is the place?

And hence, in that moment, you studder.

You freeze in like “Oh no, what should I do? Should I take it easy or should I make a risk free proposition to them?”

And when you don’t act on your gut, this is what happens.

You “freeze to death.”

And this leads to a fear of taking action, which makes you literally lose your conscious mind.

And instead of going to XYZ restaurant, you have to go to Chipotle and crave into the “guac god.”

¡Ay que rico!

At least from my perspective because Chipotle’s guacamole with those chips and carnita tacos are really good; I mean, REALLY good.

I bet that you’re cravin’ Chipotle right now aren’t you?

That’s great!

Go on and have your delicious Chipotle, but don’t make it too long or else you’ll miss the most important reason for listening to your gut when it’s time! And if you don’t listen, you will pay this:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Now after you finished Chipotle, you might say to yourself “Hmm, I want to write that story of mine. How do I do it?”

Well, it’s actually inside you.

To harness it, read on to know.

A lot of times, writers usually get stuck in what’s called “analysis paralysis” where they look at their external environment and they say “I need to be just like them or I won’t sale!”

Provided that you are true to yourself, your gut actually serves as a survival instinct where it already knows what to do based on its ability to “predict” what’s going to happen next from prior experience.

Let’s say you are writing a novel and you want to write a story that your brain and heart is telling you is so compelling and everything just flows naturally onto the paper without a doubt of thought.

All of a sudden, your brain sees some other story and says “Hold on, I have to redo this because this isn’t like the thing that’s selling.”

And then your brain stops its thought and gets “brain-fried.”

This brain-frying is known as writer’s block and analysis paralysis where it just stops based on what’s happening in the external environment and not from within.

Believe it or not, analysis paralysis is so dangerous that it’s led writers to have self-doubt, mental destruction and incredible fatigue.

Yikes!

So what is the secret power of being an outstanding writer (or any occupation for that matter)?

Listening to your gut. In particular, saying no when it tells you so.

In fact, trusting your gut is so powerful that even Oprah agrees.

Let this be a lesson for you. It is way more important to say no to a lot of things than it is to say yes to a lot of things.

Understand that and you will be extremely secure in what you are doing.

Don’t buy into everything or the world will trick you.

And what if your gut tells you not to write?

That’s the correct answer.

In fact, let me elaborate on this further so you clearly understand.

After I planned this post out, I gave myself a “mental distraction” to think of something else.

This something else can be anything that I want.

After some time, a thought came to me about Chipotle and riding in the car and gut feelings.

It was a crazy revelation, but then I said “Let me just write the story down because it sounds funny and I just want to write it.”

And because you made it this far into the post, the story got you along with the rest of the blog post (if you read the whole thing).

Or if you skimmed, it got your attention and it took you to the top to start reading the post.

Do you know why it worked?

Because I just let the words flow down onto the page.

Of course, great writing always involves editing and I didn’t edit my post so it might actually be the worst post in the world, but my gut feeling got you here and it is exactly what you should do with your own writing or with your own career.

Come up with an informed opinion about your area and let you gut guide you.

Now I did mention to you the importance of being well informed about what you are doing before going all in with you gut.

For any writer and anyone in any profession, it is extremely important for you to get your message across to people.

That’s why I am going to leave an affiliate link to a fantastic book on sales called “Advertising Secrets of the Written Word.”

Now what is this book?

If there is a big book on sales and copywriting and how to write, it’s this one.

It will tell you everything you need to do to grab the readers and secretly compel them to read your writing and to listen to everything that you have to say instead of throw it away.

If you were impressed with this post thus far, it is the book that allowed me to get you to read this post and it does explain why stepping away from your writing is absolutely the correct thing to do when you write ad the results that come from it.

It is $70.00-$75.00, but that price is small compared to the secrets you’ll learn and the massive power you will have over people you need to sell to when you read and apply what’s in the book.

It is absolutely worth it. Available here on Amazon with the link.

Please note: I am an affiliate with Amazon, so I do get a commission off of your purchase, but the price you pay will not change.

4. You Don’t Want to Be Static; you Want to Be Dynamic

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By any chance, are you an engineer or an engineering student?

If you are, great, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

But don’t worry, we’re going to flip the script this time; we won’t let dynamics make your day extremely time consuming!

If you’re not an engineer, that’s great to! You’ll understand what I mean in a second! 🙂

I’m just feeling too happy right now; aren’t you as well?!

So just so we are clear, when you are static, you are not moving. Hence, you are not taking action.

When you are dynamic, you are moving. Hence, you are taking action.

So how does this relate to the concept of listening to your gut?

Well, when you are not acting on your gut when you are supposed to, you are actually losing time as a result of the accumulation of circumstances that occur. In other words, you have less time to solve things when you are just sitting there.

On the other hand, when you are dynamic in listening to your gut, you are doing things as a result of what you intuition is telling you. So in this case, you are actively resolving things and in the worst case scenario, you are learning as you go.

Click here if you’d like to read more in-depth into the concept of being static vs. dynamic.

So when you decide and act on your gut when it’s time to, you are getting rid of that nagging voice in your head and that brain sizzle that comes when you fear something.

That alone should be a great reason to act on your gut when it’s time to.

Do you want to sit there and have the clock run out unnecessarily when you clearly have an open shot in front of the net?

Or would you want to take that shot, knowing that worst case scenario, you can learn and perfect your process as you go?

The latter one is the better one since you can have that experience engrained in your head and you’ll get knowledge that you couldn’t gain from just sitting there “thinking” about whether you should do it or not.

In short, if it is the correct time to listen to your gut, then DO IT!

If it’s the correct time to not listen to your gut, then DON’T DO IT and apply it to your current situation using this blog post as a guide so that you can use it correctly.

And it’s better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission; so you might as well do what’s correct.

End of this reason friend.

Conclusion

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So now you have it future islander.

The ultimate guide to gut feeling decision making.

So here’s what you can do now to start seeing results today from this blog post:

A) Start finding out what you don’t know in whatever way possible. This will give you an indication to know what answers that you need to look for so that you can eventually go with your gut.

B) Find out what you do know and immediately recognize it and write it down somewhere where you can see it. This way, you know exactly what to do when you are in those situations.

C) Commit to doing this: When in doubt, assume that you don’t know how to handle that situation and just let your gut guide you on looking for the necessary answers there.

There you have it.

Simple enough?

Wonderful!

Go use it and enjoy it!

Please do leave a comment below if you have any questions about this post and I’ll be more than happy to help you out.

And if this article excited you and you want to see some more jaw-dropping content sent straight to your inbox, go down to the bottom of this webpage and input your email into the subscription box below to subscribe to Join the Island, the greatest blog alive!

Au revoir compadre!

Until next time,

This is Chief Islander Evan signing off.