Learn to Trust Your Instincts

It's easy to look at someone who is successful and chalk it up to their good instincts. By definition, instinct is an innate ability you are born with. It is easy to envy someone else’s natural talent and wish you could trust your own instincts like they can. The truth is your instincts are a skill which you must practice and hone if you want to improve. You must test your instincts in order to learn what works and what falls short. Like any good product development process, you need to make testable predictions and learn from the outcomes.

Recently I found myself complaining that something at work wasn't being done. Instinctually I thought I knew what should be done, but I felt it wasn't my job and I wasn't completely confident that I had the right solution to the problem. I worried I was being shortsighted or trying to follow process too rigidly, but I knew what my instincts were telling me. Could I trust my instincts?

Eventually someone else saw the same gap and took action. I observed the result that followed and realized my instincts had been correct. I had made a prediction, but I hadn’t taken action to test it. Without the outcome, the initial prediction held no value.

A few weeks later I found myself in a nearly identical situation on a different issue, again seeing an instinctual solution. After some doubt, I took action to test my instincts. There was a risk of being wrong, but I took little steps and asked for feedback along the way. This approach allowed me to change course or back out altogether if I was wrong and keep going if it seemed I was right.

The work I did has proved useful to the team, which makes me proud. More than that, I can celebrate taking a risk and learning from the outcome. One victory doesn't make me an expert, but I have learned to extend myself in order to evaluate my instincts. By learning from my successes and my failures, I can improve my instincts over time and feel more confident when quick decisions are appropriate. There will also be times when it makes more sense to observe the actions of others, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make predictions of my own ahead of time.

It's okay to take a risk and be wrong, so long as you can admit your mistakes and commit to a plan to change. In the long run, making predictions and carefully observing the result will help you be right more often and improve your instincts.