Making decisions based on a “gut feeling” is something we become more proficient at with experience, and through previously utilising “deliberate decision-making” processes.

Otherwise, “going with your gut” should only be reserved for deciding minor, or inconsequential, matters.

Making a gut decision is a perfectly respectable way to, say, choose your lunch. There are other decisions, however, that feel like gut decisions – ones we make quickly and without much apparent conscious thought – that may involve more higher-order thinking, or experience, than we realize. Newell offers the example of a doctor he knows, who insists he can make patients’ diagnoses based on gut decisions. “But that doctor has 20 to 30 years of experience, and has in the past employed deliberate decision-making. So maybe over time, these decisions become automated,” says Newell. “Going with your ‘gut’ may be right when you’re an expert. For example, maybe choosing lunch every day is easy because we do it every day.

Doesn’t the statement “making a gut decision is a perfectly respectable way to, say, choose your lunch,” seem to be just a tad too self-resolving though?

Riding Shotgun by Christine MacLean at Jugglezine.

The new year; this is the season for making changes…

Angela King, a manager in her mid-thirties, knew that her husband Kevin was restless in his white-collar job. While it was good in many regards, it hadn’t been giving him any personal satisfaction. When Kevin started riding along in the squad car with his police officer brother and asking him questions about the police academy, Angela hoped it didn’t mean what she thought it might.

A look at how the life choices of those close to us can have an impact on our own lives.

I have the same thoughts every January. The opening days of a new year can really bring the passing of time into focus.

“It’s been one year since I meet …”

“It’s been three years since I left … job.”

“It’s been five years since … arrived.”

“It’s been two years since I moved in here.”

“It’s been four years since I last saw …”

“It’s been a year since I last thought these thoughts.”

I’ve been sitting here these last few hours, while people around me resolve to change the world and wash their cars more often, wondering what I will do with this website, and myself, in 2008.

Decisions, decisions…