When Should We Trust Our Gut?
Why intuition can save us in one moment and mislead us in the next
When Our Gut Was Right
Fifteen years ago, my son underwent multiple heart surgeries before his first birthday.
At first, doctors told us he would be fine. They said it was only a heart murmur and that he would eventually grow out of it.
But my wife and I both felt that something was wrong. We could not prove it, but we felt it in our gut. His breathing remained labored for days, even though we had been reassured that he was going to be okay.
We sought another opinion. A cardiologist at a different hospital found the problem, ultimately leading to two successful surgeries.
Today, Zander is a healthy fifteen-year-old. This summer, you will probably find him on a baseball field or a golf course.
Looking back, trusting our gut led us to seek the second opinion our son needed.
That experience taught me not to ignore the feeling that something is wrong, even when I couldn’t explain or prove it yet. And that experience still shapes how we respond today to uncertainty.
When something seems off with one of our children, my wife trusts her instincts. Sometimes that means scheduling a doctor’s appointment. Other times, it means heading to an urgent care center or hospital.
More often than not, her concern turns out to be justified. One of the kids is sick. There is an infection. The pain we hoped was only a bruise turns out to be a fracture.
Experiences like these make it easy to believe that our intuition should always be trusted.
I have been thinking a lot about that belief lately.
What exactly is happening when we sense that something is wrong before we can explain why? And how do we distinguish genuine intuition from fear, anxiety, or the desire to protect ourselves from uncertainty?
Because while my gut has been right in some of the most consequential moments of my life, it has also been wrong. And an instinct being profoundly right once does not make every instinct that follows completely reliable.
When Intuition is Earned
I have begun to wonder why my wife tends to be right when it comes to health decisions. I do not think she possesses some sort of mythical ability. (Okay, so maybe she does!)
But she has spent 15 years observing our children, and that experience has given her an ability to observe patterns, and notice when something is just a bit off.
Researchers have observed something similar in experienced firefighters. A firefighter may enter a burning building and suddenly feel that the situation is wrong. The heat does not match the visible flames. The building is too quiet. The floor feels different beneath their feet.
They may not have time to methodically analyze every detail, but years of experience have taught them what a typical fire looks and feels like. When the present situation breaks that familiar pattern, their body raises an alarm before their conscious mind can explain it.
In one widely shared example, an experienced fire commander ordered his crew out of a house because the fire did not feel right. Shortly afterward, the floor collapsed. The fire had been burning beneath them in the basement.
What appeared to be a gut feeling was actually experience recognizing a pattern, and recognizing that something did not fit.
My wife may be doing something similar with our children.
Her instinct does not necessarily tell her whether the problem is an infection, a fracture, or something else. It tells her that the current situation is different enough from the familiar pattern to deserve closer attention. And that distinction matters.
Intuition does not always provide the answer. Sometimes it simply tells us that we need to ask another question.
But this also means intuition is not equally reliable in every part of our lives.
Someone can possess finely tuned instincts in one environment and unreliable instincts in another. My wife’s intuition about the health of children she has observed every day for fifteen years may deserve more confidence than my intuition about how readers will respond to something I have written on Substack. Because I have only been on this Substack journey for 6 months.
Perhaps we do not simply have a trustworthy or untrustworthy gut, but perhaps our intuition is only as trained as the environment in which we are using it.
When Intuition Misleads Us
While intuition can lead to sound decisions, it can also mislead us.
A few weeks ago, I had a weird gut feeling about an article I was about to publish. My gut was telling me to wait. Not to publish it just yet. Something just felt off.
I then came across a note emphasizing the importance of progress over perfection, and in that moment, I decided to publish the article anyway.
I have been trying to make sense of the situation since, and after some reflection and research, I realized that fear disguised itself as intuition in that moment. And I’m now convinced that the “something felt off” feeling really and truly meant that I was uncomfortable in that moment.
Our gut can sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between fear and vulnerability.
Past experiences can also anchor our thinking. I’m sure we have all been on the receiving end of constructive feedback at work. Not only can it sting in the moment, but it can be difficult to shake the thoughts that follow.
“Am I doing this right?”
“What if I screw up?”
Experiences such as these can convince our gut we are underperforming, even though we may be doing really well.
Earlier, I mentioned how experienced firefighters can sense when something is wrong by drawing from years of experience. Their intuition is informed by patterns they have encountered repeatedly.
But when we are new to a situation, we may not have enough patterns for our gut to draw from. What feels like intuition may simply be uncertainty filling in the blanks.
That does not mean we should ignore the feeling. It means we should investigate it before obeying it.
A Thought Process to Consider
So how can we learn how to effectively trust our gut? I don’t have a perfect solution for this. In fact, I don’t think anyone does. There are just too many factors and variables at play.
But I have found it helpful to think about intuition through a simple red, yellow, and green model.
Green Signal: Trust It
Trust your gut if it is grounded in repeated experience, familiar patterns, or clear observations. Take the feeling seriously and act when the evidence supports it.
Yellow Signal: Investigate It
Something feels off, but you are unsure whether it is intuition, fear, or discomfort. If you’re in this situation, slow down, ask questions, gather more information, and look for another perspective.
Red Signal: Don’t Let it Decide Alone
This is when emotions are high, fear is demanding certainty, or the consequences are significant. Respond by pausing when possible. Bring in evidence, time, and trusted voices before acting.
The colors are not meant to tell us whether our gut is right or wrong. They are simply reminders of how much weight we should give it in the moment.
Sometimes our intuition deserves to lead, but other times it is asking us to look closer. And sometimes it needs to take a seat beside reason, evidence, and the perspectives of others.
The goal is not to silence our gut. It is to keep it from becoming the only voice in the room.
Knowing When to Listen
Fifteen years ago, my gut didn’t tell me what was wrong with our son, but it told us that something was not quite right. This led us toward a space beyond our intuition: seeking more facts, seeking another opinion, and ultimately finding the root cause.
Perhaps that is what trusting our gut looks like at its best: Intuition having a seat at the table, but not the only voice at the table.
My gut has led me wrong many times in my life. But I will always be grateful that when our son’s life was on the line, my wife and I listened.
Both / And is about making decisions you can live with.
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Thank you for sharing your family's story, Kristian. I'm so grateful you listened to that feeling and sought another opinion. Reading this made me appreciate how important it is to stay curious instead of assuming we already have the answer.
Thank you for sharing this article. I loved it. My best wishes to your charming son 👍