Is Your Gut Costing You the Career Growth You Want
Updated: Sep 18
Trusting your gut can feel empowering, but it is often shaped by limiting beliefs, assumptions, insecurities, interpretations, and past experiences. While intuition can guide career decisions, relying on it alone can lead to stress, burnout, and stalled career growth. This post explores how imposter syndrome, self doubt, and saboteurs influence decision making. Using real examples, it highlights the importance of validating instincts through analysis, mentorship, and testing ideas. The key takeaway is simple: your gut can spark direction, but thoughtful validation protects your progress and helps you make smarter, more confident career moves.
I’ll admit it. I trusted my gut a lot in my career.
Sometimes it felt like magic. Other times it felt like throwing darts in the dark and hoping something stuck.
We hear it all the time. Trust your gut. Follow your dreams. Just know.
Sounds empowering. It also quietly sets people up for stress, self doubt, and decisions that stall career growth.
There’s a reason your gut doesn’t always work. Your gut is not neutral. It’s shaped by your past, your fears, your wins, your losses, and yes, your saboteurs.
And if you are a hyper achiever, your gut can be very convincing.
Chasing Career Goals Using Your Gut
Early in my career, I left consulting to follow what felt like a better opportunity. I didn’t fully understand the role. I didn’t know what working at a software company really meant. I just knew it felt right. And it worked out.
That is the tricky part. When your gut works, it builds confidence. When it fails, it builds confusion.
If you are already dealing with stress or balancing motherhood and career, those swings hit harder. The cost of a wrong move is not just professional. It is personal.
That is where frustration starts to creep in. Not from effort, but from effort in the wrong direction.
Example of How Your Gut Can Lead You Astray
I worked with someone who was considering a job change. Her gut said no. Not because the role was wrong. Because she grew up believing loyalty mattered above everything. That belief shaped her decision making.
Her gut was not guiding her forward. It was keeping her safe. It disguised itself as wisdom. Loyalty in the workplace has its place - until it doesn’t. Read more about how loyalty isn’t always best in this blog post on growing your career.
Following the opportunities requires courage. It also requires awareness of the stories running underneath and challenges us to evaluate them more deeply. In this case, loyalty wasn’t serving her and hadn’t really been earned.
Why Might Your Gut Be Wrong
Let’s talk about what really drives your gut.
Limiting Beliefs - those beliefs that are handed down to us which may not be quite on target
Interpretations - our view of the world which may be distorted by our life experiences
Assumptions - believing that what happened in the past might happen again even though circumstances may have changed
Insecurities - our lack of belief in ourself such as imposter syndrome that stop us from making forward progress due to fears
What is the impact you ask?
If your insecurities are loud, your gut will tell you to stay small.
If your assumptions are outdated, your gut will tell you to repeat what no longer works.
If your insecurities are triggered, your gut will push you to stay put
If your limiting beliefs are involved, your gut will stop forward action.
Further, your gut is guided by your saboteurs: those habits we develop as a child as a means of survival. They may not be serving you here. Here are a few examples:
a stickler may wait until things are perfect before making a change - which may never happen
a hyperachiever may make the change too quickly in search of a better title or more pay and recognition
a people pleaser may stick around to avoid making their current employer unhappy
an avoider just avoids unpleasant situations
The Cost of A Misguided Gut in a Business Situation
I saw this up close with a former CEO.
He made a call to chase a competitor without pausing to analyze the situation. The company started bleeding money. It took months to recover.
The issue was not lack of intelligence. It was unchecked instinct.
His gut was influenced by assumptions about what worked before and fear of doing nothing.
Be Smart About Decision Making
Here is where I agree with Bonnie Hammer. Your gut is a great starting point. It is not the final answer.
What I teach people is simple. Use your gut to form a hypothesis. Then test it like it matters.
Analyze. Wait and consider your current state. Determine what is really going on, not just what your unconscious bias may be telling you
Brainstorm. Look at all the alternatives.
Compare. Evaluate your options objectively. I have a great tool for considering options if you are considering a decision and stymied about the best choice. Reach out and I can help you.
Devil’s Advocate. Poke holes in your argument. Seek someone who can. If your plan stands after this, your gut may be giving you good advice
Expertise. Approach experts in these steps to fill the gaps in your own expertise.
Facts. Go on a fact finding mission looking for any research that supports or hurts your opinion. Talk to experts. Not because someone tells you what to do. Because they help you see what you cannot.
If this seems too complicated, use this simple model I outlined in this blog post. Ask yourself "What would have to be true to make this change a good idea"
The Real Takeaway on Following Your Gut
Your gut may be right. But a little validation can ensure a bad decision does not disrupt your career. Validation ensures your insecurities, limiting beliefs, interpretations, or assumptions do not cause you to make bad decisions.
Think of it this way. Your gut is the spark. Your process is the guardrail. You need both.
If you are seeking guidance on how to manage your career or be better at decision making, schedule a free discovery call and see how coaching can help you find your own success formula.
For the first 10 of the 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work read the following articles:
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