What’s a time you ignored your gut — and paid for it?
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In the past, I’ve ignored my gut more times than I can remember—and I paid for it. Over the years, I’ve learned that my gut rarely lets me down. If something feels off, it usually is. If something feels right, it probably is.
As a teacher, I see the academic version of this play out all the time. When it comes to test-taking strategies, we tell students that on a multiple-choice question, your first instinct is statistically your best bet. That first choice is built on your immediate recognition of the material—before you start second-guessing yourself, overthinking the wording, and building arguments for the wrong answers.
Life works much the same way, except the stakes are higher and the proof isn’t printed on a page. Going with your gut, especially when you have no hard evidence to back it up, is basically the definition of faith. And I don’t mean faith in a religious sense. I mean choosing to trust an instinct—or a person—when you don’t have all the facts in front of you yet.
Does that faith backfire sometimes? Sure. Too often, we want to give people the benefit of the doubt: our kids, our significant others, people who look us in the eye and claim they’re telling the truth because they haven’t given us a concrete reason not to believe them. Just like a student staring too long at a test question, my bigger problem isn’t that my gut fails me—it’s that I over-analyze things until I talk myself right out of what I already knew.
For me, though, extending that benefit of the doubt usually comes down to knowing myself. I know how I’m wired to show up in a situation, even when I suspect I might end up getting burned. I’m one of those people who has to act in a way that lets me sleep at night, regardless of how things turn out.
I go back to my divorce, for instance. I know I keep revisiting something from 14 years ago, but it’s the clearest example I have. If you were to dig way back into the archives of this blog, all the way to the beginning, the red flags were there early on—even going back to the first Thanksgiving X1 and I spent together. My gut was telling me things then. I had instincts about that relationship not working, and I chose to ignore them.
I didn’t ignore them because I was blind to them. I ignored them because I wanted to try and make things work. As my marriage eventually ended, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had done everything I could to save it. Because of that, I don’t have any regrets about how it ended. I never had to walk away torturing myself with, “What if I had just tried harder?”
So when you get burned, what is the alternative? Do you swing the pendulum all the way to the other side and walk around constantly cynical about everything and everyone?
As for me, I can’t live like that. I refuse to move through the world treating everyone like a suspect until proven otherwise. I have to believe in people. I have to believe in things—at least until they give me a real reason not to.
At the end of the day, trusting your gut and trusting people both require a little faith without a guarantee. On a test, ignoring your first instinct just costs you points. In life, ignoring the warning signs is sometimes the price you pay to protect your own peace of mind. I’d rather risk getting burned occasionally—knowing I gave it everything I had—than live my life guarded, cynical, and wondering what if.
Rebuilding a life takes grit, consistency, and a lot of ‘Option C’ thinking. Having crossed the 1,000-day milestone, I’m now charting the territory beyond. The mission remains the same: No glitz. Just the work. New to the blog? Start your journey here to see the blueprint and the ‘Tricorder’ perspective behind the rebuild.
Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like 👍, comment and subscribe below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media and check out my recent posts:
- Faith Over Cynicism: What Happens When You Ignore Your Gut
- Learning to Forgive Myself
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- Plan B for the Heart: The Power of Personal Options
- “A Friend in Need is a Pest”: How Age Reshapes Loyalty
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The article “Faith Over Cynicism: What Happens When You Ignore Your Gut” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob
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