Last week, InHerSight asked our audience how connected they feel to their intuition—the gut feeling kind of intuition, not necessarily the sixth sense kind. Forty-nine percent of you say you feel strongly connected, and I feel the same way.
Coming from a heavily quantitative platform like ours, this question might seem to have come out of left field. Hard data is the core of everything we do—how we assess companies, how we support women. We are numbers people, and I love it. There is certainty in measurement.
I didn’t always feel comforted by this thought. When I interviewed for this job, I remember exiting the Google Meet and saying to my partner at the time, “That was the hardest interview I’ve ever done.” As an editor from the publishing world, my background was more about understanding people and—to put it lightly—vibes. I was intimidated by this job and our founders, who approached both questions and answers from a different direction than I did.
I was most certainly underselling myself—and not because I now think my gut is always right or because I had imposter syndrome. (I fall into the Ilona Maher camp on that one.) In truth, I hadn’t yet learned to define emotion as information, even if I’d been using the former to drive my career all along.
Sure, sure, a lot of us have been to therapy and had a qualified professional say, “Feelings aren’t fact.” I won’t argue there. A gut feeling isn’t a universal fact. It’s our body telling us to pay attention.
For me, that sensation—a familiar mental tug, a light chest pressure, stiff shoulders, or (so weird) a sudden awareness of the outer rims of my ears—has always been a call to explore why, either to better understand myself and my own hesitations or to better understand the people or situations around me.
What I’ve learned from working here, among numbers people, is that you can take that emotion and clarify it by seeking out data. You can experience an “off” interview with a hiring manager and then double check the company’s ratings and comments on InHerSight. Or you can feel iffy about your work environment, then do a quick values assessment to see if it’s actually meeting your needs. But to get to that point, you do have to trust your intuition and treat it like the information that it is.
Here are a few great examples of doing just that from people who responded to our survey last week:
“I just made a huge change with employers after 12 years. I had the intuitive knowing that it was time to leave about two years before the job changed. I've used that time to explore my weaknesses and strengths in more depth, updated my resume and would periodically look for some jobs and apply if I found something that resonated. I increased these efforts even more aggressively in the second year and even through all the rejection I knew something that was perfect for me would arrive and it certainly did. A prior colleague reached out with an opportunity, and it ended checking all my boxes.”
“Primarily, it's about setting clear boundaries of what I'm okay with or not. I also have declined jobs where there were red or even yellow flags that made me feel I was unlikely to be glad I had joined the company. Very glad I made those choices, and every boundary set strengthens my ability to set the next one.”
“I used to try to put my intuition aside and focus on what is observable to determine if the feeling is truly intuition or anxiety being triggered by something else. In my most recent job experience, I felt strange about the interview, yet I was hired, then felt really out of place at work, and then later realized I was working in a toxic workplace for a toxic boss. It's taught me to trust my intuition more and not brush it aside as me just being nervous. There are times when I have felt very strongly that I don't feel safe around a person and I have always listened to that.”
“[My intuition] has guided me into being happier with myself and my personal choices, and when I have not listened to it, the 'voice' only seems to get louder.”
What to get better at trusting your gut? Try this:
A few months ago, I stumbled on a TikTok from a creator I can’t seem to find anymore (if you recognize this exercise, please tell me, and I’ll credit her in our next newsletter). Essentially, she invited folks to practice being more attuned to their intuition by doing this:
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Stay exactly where you are at this moment.
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Focus on your comfort level. Do you feel good?
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Whether your answer is yes or no, take a moment to make yourself a little more comfortable—maybe 10% more. Adjust your pillow, the way you’re seated, or your stance if you’re standing. Stretch if you need to.
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Repeat this exercise as needed.
The goal here is to start paying attention to your body and honoring your needs. Now imagine asking yourself, “How can I make myself a little more comfortable?” in a scenario that feels “off.” Suddenly, you’re not adjusting your pillows anymore, but your boundaries, your environment, and the people around you. Start small but think big picture. Trust your body, and trust your gut.
