04/18/2022
“Going with your gut” isn’t as simple as it sounds. Deciphering whether your gut feeling is signaling to you via instinct or via intuition is a subtle and powerful skill. To master this distinction is to become invincible in maximizing your impact.
These two faculties often get confused. And I often notice people using these words interchangeably, but they mean very different things.
“INSTINCT” is meant to protect you - it’s related to your animal body. Fight or flight is an instinct that keeps you fearing change, for example.
“INTUITION” is a subtle energy, guiding you towards what will give you the most fulfillment.
Intuition is ALWAYS CORRECT.
Have you ever experienced something that made you think “I knew this would turn out this way” in retrospect? —That was your intuition.
Sometimes instinct and intuition may point you in the same direction. But more often, they point you in different directions because instinct will try to keep you safe, and intuition is trying to fulfill you.
INSTINCT helps you avoid fearful situations. INTUITION helps you avoid danger, but it will also push you into fearful situations if there is a fulfilling reward for you on the other side of it.
Most people struggle to follow their INTUITION because INSTINCT gets in the way. It takes work for most of us to hone in on the differences - but when highly trained introspective leaders learn to master this distinction, it can become a super-power, a cloak of invincibility, and something to be awed.
