Should You Trust Your Gut Instinct? | The Mel Robbins Podcast
- Guest
- Oakley Robbins
- Read time
- ~5 min
- Uploaded
- 8 May 2023
- Duration
- 1:08:56
- Views
- 60.4K
KEYPOINTS
- 01
The issue isn't trusting your gut; it's having the courage to follow it
Mel argues your instincts are almost always right. What stops you is fear of acting on them, because nine times out of ten the right decision will disappoint someone, force a change, make you learn something new, or pull you away from the pack. So she wants listeners to stop saying 'trust your gut' and start saying 'I need the courage to make decisions that are right for me'.
- 02
Asking 'what do you think?' is where you give away your power
Partway through a campus tour, Mel's son Oakley turned and asked his parents what they thought. Mel says this is everyone's reflex with big decisions, from jobs to breakups: instead of asking 'can I see myself here?', we check other people's reactions. Her reply to Oakley was 'it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what you think', because you're the one who lives with the decision.
- 03
A 'no' and a 'yes' feel different in the body
Oakley, then a high-school junior, described a no as 'uninterested, unenthused, closed off… I feel out of place'. It starts in his mind and then 'my whole body starts to agree'. A yes is 'super open… lots of possibilities… you feel like you're in the right place', and you can easily picture yourself there. Mel sums them up as expansive versus constricted and draining.
- 04
Reading your gut gets faster with practice
The first school was a no within about 30 minutes, and a later one within about five. By the end of the week Oakley was deciding almost instantly. Mel credits a week of paying attention to his body during each decision. It's a skill you build by tuning in, not a fixed trait.
- 05
Imagine everyone else on a separate tour
One school split parents and students into separate tours. Oakley explained why that matters: on a tour, parents act as guides, and kids look to them for praise or disapproval and like or dislike a school accordingly. Mel turns it into a visualization for any decision: picture friends, family and partners on another tour, so you're alone with your own reactions.
- 06
Research cited: decisions start in the body
Mel cites neuroscientist Antonio Damasio's widely cited work as showing that we decide with our bodies and the brain interprets those signals. Her everyday example is ordering from a menu: even if you wait to hear everyone else's order, you end up asking 'what do I feel like eating?' She adds that higher-self choices, like going to a party you're too tired for, sometimes mean pushing past present feelings for the sake of your future self.
- 07
Let your future self be your tour guide
Fast-forward and ask whether you can picture yourself in this life a year from now. You'll often hear the no louder than the yes, and Mel says that's enough to act on. You don't need to know where you're headed. 'Anything but this' gives you a problem to solve, and she says people are great problem solvers once they have one.
- 08
Leaving the pack connects you with new people
Mel and her colleague Amy note that when you break from a group that holds you back and go with your future self, you 'catch up to a tour' of people on the same path. Amy says those people became some of her best friends. What's meant for you won't pass you by, Mel says, but ignoring your gut can cost you years or decades.
EXAMPLES
- 01
Mel turned into the over-involved alum
Mel was relaxed during her daughters' college searches, but when Oakley wanted to see Dartmouth, her alma mater, she says she 'became a sociopath'. She imagined reliving it through him, nudged him toward the tour guide who played ultimate frisbee, asked about the old swim-test requirement, and talked about his application until he asked how she even knew he'd apply. Chris eventually pulled her back by the shoulders.
- 02
Mel's own college decision
In 1985, from a western Michigan high school with 73 graduates where no one went out of state, Mel fell for Dartmouth on sight. When she said she'd apply early decision, her math teacher told her 'you better not get your hopes up'. She got in anyway and says one discouraging voice could easily have changed her path.
- 03
Following the crowd into law
After graduation Mel followed her boyfriend to DC and temped at a Georgetown law firm, Bates-stamping documents for months in a windowless room for the free $30 dinner. She applied to law school only because everyone around her did, had panic attacks, ghosted a Michigan Attorney General research project, and ended up back in a firm. Only after a breakdown on maternity leave with Sawyer could she say 'I can't do this anymore'. She networked into a $55,000 job in four weeks.
- 04
Amy's month-for-a-year challenge
Amy, who ran a copywriting agency, told her mastermind group she'd earn last year's income in one month. The group fell silent and then questioned her. One member, Richelli Wright, told everyone to back off. Two weeks in, a client called while Amy was on Route 684 offering 10 e-books in a month at a price she could name. She later subcontracted work to Richelli.
- 05
Jesse leaves pharmacy
Jesse, the team's video producer, chose pharmacy because she'd worked in one. After failing Organic Chemistry II and being asked by a professor whether she really wanted it, she switched to broadcast journalism. That meant an extra semester and a path no one she knew had taken. She felt it 'in my heart', found an internship with the football program on her own, and now has a 14-year broadcasting career.
OTHER RELEVANT
- 01
Notice when you're the loud voice
Sometimes the voices are your own. Cameron on Mel's team knew Indiana University was too big and too far away, but stayed because she thought people would judge her for transferring, even after her dad said she could. If you're the parent or friend, check whether your enthusiasm is crowding out someone else's clarity, as Mel's did at Dartmouth.
- 02
A quick check before a big decision
Find quiet and drop into your body. Ask whether the option opens possibility and makes you feel like you're growing, even if it's scary, or whether it makes part of you shrink, as in 'I'm a doctor because everyone in my family is'. Listen to the no first, then find the courage to follow the opening.
- 03
Find or be a Richelli
A listener in Mel's Vermont walking group went back to nursing school after her divorce because a neighbor said 'just go back to school'. When someone says 'just do it', they're inviting you to imagine the life for a moment. If no one does that for you, Mel says, you have to say 'watch me' to yourself.