Five questions, about three minutes, and a quick read on how you actually make decisions versus how you think you make them. For each question, pick the answer that is closest to your honest first reaction rather than the one that sounds best.

1. When you are facing a decision with real stakes, what happens first?

A. I notice a physical reaction, tightness, unease, or a pull toward one option, before I have consciously thought it through.

B. I start listing out facts, options, and trade-offs before I notice any physical reaction at all.

C. It depends heavily on the situation, and I could not say which comes first as a rule.

2. Think of a time your gut told you something was wrong before you could explain why. How often does that happen?

A. Often. It has happened enough times that I have learned to take it seriously.

B. Rarely. I usually need the facts laid out before I trust a conclusion.

C. Occasionally, and I am honestly not sure how much to trust it when it happens.

3. When your analysis and your gut disagree, what usually wins?

A. My gut usually wins, even when I cannot fully justify it on paper.

B. My analysis usually wins, and I treat the gut reaction as noise to set aside.

C. I try to sit with both before deciding, and it genuinely varies by situation.

4. How much real-world experience do you have in the specific area of your current decision?

A. A lot. I have made calls like this many times before and have a strong track record to draw on.

B. Some, but this particular kind of decision still feels fairly new to me.

C. Very little. This is largely unfamiliar territory.

5. After you make a big decision, how do you usually feel in your body?

A. Physically settled, even before I have fully reasoned through whether it was the right call.

B. Physically neutral. My confidence comes from the logic holding up, not from how I feel.

C. It varies, and sometimes I feel uneasy even after a decision I am confident is correct.

Scoring

Count up your answers.

Mostly A’s: Instinct-led. You lean heavily on gut signals, and the research suggests that instinct tends to be genuinely reliable in areas where you have real repeated experience, much like the veteran clinicians and negotiators in this week’s newsletter.

Your risk is trusting the gut equally in unfamiliar territory, where it has less pattern history to draw from. Before your next big call in an area that is new to you, deliberately slow down and run the analytical check even when your gut feels certain.

Mostly B’s: Analysis-led. You lean on deliberate, step-by-step reasoning, which tends to serve you well in rule-based, data-heavy situations. Your risk is discounting a physical signal simply because you cannot yet justify it on paper.

Next time you notice unease or resistance during a decision, pause and name it in one sentence before moving on, rather than reasoning past it entirely. It may be catching something your analysis has not gotten to yet.

Mostly C’s: Balanced, but possibly under-trusting both. You are not locked into one mode, which is actually where the strongest decision makers tend to land, but your answers suggest some uncertainty about which signal to trust and when.

A simple fix is the two-step habit from the newsletter: notice the gut reaction first and write it down in one sentence, then separately check it against the facts. Making that split explicit, rather than blending instinct and analysis in your head all at once, usually resolves the uncertainty.

A mix with no clear majority: That is common, and it usually means your style shifts depending on the domain, which is healthy. Pay attention to which answers you picked A on versus B on.

Those are likely the areas where you already have real experience to trust your gut, and the B areas are where leaning on analysis is still the safer bet for now.

Exercises to build balance

Whatever your score, these are simple, research-backed ways to strengthen the side of the gut-brain connection you use less, without abandoning the side that already works for you.

1. The heartbeat check. This is the same basic task researchers use to measure interoceptive accuracy. Sit quietly for two minutes with your eyes closed and try to count your own heartbeats without checking your pulse. Then check your pulse for the same window and compare the two numbers.

Do this daily for a couple of weeks. Most people get noticeably more accurate with practice, and that accuracy is the same skill studies have linked to better intuitive decision-making. This exercise is especially useful if you scored mostly B’s, since it builds the raw sensitivity your analytical style tends to talk over.

1. The body scan before the decision. Before you weigh in on anything that matters, whether that is a hire, a deal, or a strategy call, take thirty seconds to physically scan your body from head to stomach and note any tension, ease, or pull before you say a word. Write the sensation down in a few words.

Only after that do you let yourself start the analysis. This exercise is most useful for mostly A scorers who tend to skip straight to the physical reaction and act on it, since separating the noticing from the deciding slows down the leap.

1. The evidence log. Keep a running note, even a simple one in your phone, every time your gut flags something and you later find out whether it was right. Over a few months this becomes a personal track record rather than a vague sense of “I’m usually right about this.”

It also tells you exactly which domains your gut has earned trust in and which ones it has not, which is the single biggest factor the research points to for how much weight a gut reaction deserves.

1. The devil’s advocate pass. Whenever you have a strong gut pull toward an option, deliberately spend five minutes building the best possible case for the opposite choice before you commit. This does not mean overriding your instinct.

It means pressure testing it, which is exactly the pattern researchers observe in the most reliable decision makers, the ones who let instinct narrow the field and then let analysis stress test what is left.

5. The full-stomach rule. Since gut serotonin production and overall gut health are tied to mood regulation, notice how often your stalled or anxious decisions line up with being hungry, under-slept, or run down. For one month, before any decision you would rate as moderately important, check in on those three basics first. If any are off, handle that before you decide, or at minimum flag that your gut-brain system may not be reporting at full accuracy right now.

Pick one exercise, not all five, and run it consistently for two to three weeks before adding another. The goal is not to overhaul how you decide overnight. It is to close the gap between your gut and your head just enough that they start pointing the same direction more often than not.

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