If you make career decisions using your brain, I have important advice.

Don't.

In a difficult world full of impossible challenges, even a good brain is simply not sufficient. You need something more. You need your gut.

Or so I learned from "How to Stop Overthinking and Start Trusting Your Gut," a recent article by Melody Wilding in the Harvard Business Review.

While acknowledging that making decisions based on intuition is "frequently dismissed as mystical or unreliable," Wilding cites studies that show "pairing gut feelings with analytical thinking helps you make better, faster, and more accurate decisions and gives you more confidence in your choices than relying on intellect alone."

If you doubt it, just look at where your intellect has gotten you so far. How much worse could it be if you added a helping of gut-think to the mix?

And your gut does think — make no mistake about it.

"Scientists call the stomach the 'second brain' for a reason," Wilding reveals. "There's a vast neural network of 100 million neurons lining your entire digestive tract." Of course, 90% of these neurons are thinking about whether it makes any sense at all to add jalapenos and sour cream to your third Chalupa Supreme, but that still leaves a lot of unused processing power, which could help on your journey up the org chart.

Or could it?

The idea of a positive outcome from thinking with your gut may be new to you. Consider that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when your manager sticks their head in your workspace, "just to say hi." But it does make sense. And it works both ways.

In the situation described above, your gut is telling you that any managerial drop-in is a "Danger, Will Robinson" moment. Your manager, on the other hand, may feel that "getting a 'read' on their direct reports allows them to sense when they're demotivated and to take steps to engage them."

Or, to fire them. Whichever is easier.

If your gut tells you that you need to get better at using your gut, here are a few gut-wrenching exercises that help.

No. 1: Discern gut feeling from fear.

Fear makes you feel "tense, panicky and desperate." Like when you get a phone call from the Human Resources Department. Intuition, on the other hand, is "usually accompanied by feelings of excitement and anticipation or ease and contentment." Like when you realize that the HR nerd who called will soon forget who they called and why they called and will go back to playing "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" until it's time to go home.

No. 2: Start by making minor decisions.

"Taking quick, decisive actions with small consequences gets you comfortable using your intuition." Go ahead! Pick a candy bar from the snack machine without worrying whether a Clark Bar is a better value than an Abba-Zaba (note to gut, it ain't.) Or, grab the nearest SVP and tell them you've decided to quit. Explain you don't have another job and don't really care. Go home, sell all your possessions, and book a flight to Toad Suck, Arkansas, where you will start a new life as a furniture upholsterer named Betty. (If you already live in Toad Suck, stay right where you are. There's no place better.)

No. 3: Test-drive your choices.

Does your brain say no-no-no when your gut says yes-yes-yes? Role-play the two outcomes and see how you feel. Or flip a coin. "If heads means declining a big deal, do you feel joy and relief? Or worry and dread?" Or, are you so broke that you don't have a coin? In that case, ask your gallbladder. It always knows what to do.

No. 4: Try the snap judgement test.

On a piece of paper, write down your question. List "yes" or "no" below. Go away for a few hours, come back and immediately circle your answer. If you come back and the paper has disappeared, ask yourself if you actually wrote it down in the first place, or if you're living in a computer simulation and the Matrix is making all the decisions for you. If so, congrats. You have nothing to decide, ever, and you can use your gut for what it's meant to do: digesting Chalupa Supremes.

No. 5: Fall back on your values.

When struggling to choose a course of action, ask yourself, "which decision brings me closer to my core values?" Don't have any core values? Congratulations. On this question your brain and your gut agree. You're management material!

Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at [email protected]. To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: 4772818 at Pixabay