Is your ‘gut feeling’ always reliable?

IT has been said, even encouraged, that people should believe totally in their ‘gut feeling’ or intuition as it can never be wrong. And yes, your ‘gut feeling’ can be absolutely correct about someone or a situation, but you should be aware that other factors can affect how you feel too.

So note that:

1. You cannot always trust in what you believe as what you believe can contradict the reality of life. Fear can definitely affect how you feel about life and this can result in you making wrong decisions. You could possibly ruin a relationship by believing that your partner is unfaithful when the reality is the opposite and your gut feeling is based totally on your insecurities and fears.

2. Gut feelings are emotion-driven. Emotions are like earthquakes — hard to study. Can you really trust your gut feeling 100 per cent? Emotions can be capricious and if your gut feelings are dependent on these, it is best to gather facts over feelings.

3. Your gut feeling can be a product of past memories. You can believe that your gut feeling is warning you about something when the truth is, it is based on something that happened before.

4. Your gut feelings can be influenced by external factors. You can have several conversations surrounding a person or something that influences your thoughts, which can result in you acting on impulse and making bad or wrong decisions.

Know that your gut feelings can sometimes be right, but you should really question your gut feelings when they are impacted by other emotional factors.