Trust Your Gut Instinct | Is This Mic On?

In this Is This Mic On?, we tackle the question of, “Should I trust my gut instinct with my career?” Read on to see what SNP had to say about ownership, data sets, and lateral moves.

Trusting your gut instinct

Dear SNP, 

I thought I knew what I wanted out of my “career,” but it turns out…not so much. I’ve been doing good work, making the “right” moves, progressing, advancing, growing, learning. I have a great relationship with my manager and director, who have both expressed to me (on a few occasions) the “leadership potential” they see in me. Everyone says the next step should be a management role, but I can’t shake this gut feeling that something’s amiss. Am I actually where I’m supposed to be? How do you even know if you are or you aren’t? How much can I trust an organ that digests food and doesn’t actually have anything to do with logic?

Best, 

Gut instinct


Dear Gut Instinct…

This one, I can’t answer for you. I can only give you musings, advice, and perspective, all with varying degrees of applicability. Or I could share my experience (though a wise leader recently reminded me that experience is not wisdom…it’s simply experience). So I won’t share my experience or try to give you blasé advice. Instead, I’ll give you a lens through which you can view your own context. Here’s the deal:

  • You—and only you—own your career.
  • Gut instinct—intuition—is your unique data set.
  • Ladders are boring.

You own your career

Not your manager, your HRBP, or your mentor. Not your parents, your partner, your best friend. Not the person on TikTok/LinkedIn/Instagram whom you’ve never met but seems to give solid financial/career/life hacks. You. You’ve been identified as a future manager, an emerging leader. It’s a testament to your functional knowledge, cultural fit, and your relationships, and that move from individual contributor to people manager is a pivotal one. Fantastic and congratulations! Also, you own your career. So ask yourself:

  • What do you really want?
  • Where do you want to be (actually, where do you want to be, geographically, on the planet)?
  • What do you want your day to look like?
  • Do you want experience in another industry or a different experience in your current one?
  • Is there a functional change that you’d find interesting?

No one else can possibly look at your career with all of those dimensions, and it’s frankly not fair or reasonable to expect someone else to do so. Because you own your career. It’s your responsibility to constantly reflect, check in, ask, articulate. Once you allow that to be a freeing statement (rather than an overwhelming one), it may just get you one step closer to answering your original question. 

Gut instinct—intuition—is your unique data set

Gut instinct has something to do with neurons in the gastrointestinal system that signal physical manifestations to help make (what seems like) quick decisions, even in complex situations. (Don’t mind me: I’m just over here spewing some science.) The thing is, your gut instinct has been evolving and iterating based on your own unique set of experiences—what you’ve gone through over the course of however many minutes you’ve been on this earth. Every day, we add more experiences to the proverbial data pool. A decision that seems rash, or quick, is often, in fact, a decision made by this repository of data you’ve been curating for years that we call gut instinct. You just might not trust it yet…and that’s ok! So first: check in with it. If your intuition is telling you to question something, then question it. If your stomach drops ever so slightly anytime someone says “management track,” dig into what gives you that reaction. You can’t make a fully informed decision on what’s next unless you start reading your own data first. So perhaps I’ll refine my original statement: your experience is (part of) your wisdom. 

Ladders are boring

It’s a visual as old as Clipart. That two-dimensional stick figure gets on the ladder at the base, and just keeps climbing. And climbing. Straight up. Rung by rung. Climbing. Boring! That’s not a movie you’d want to watch, much less live. Careers are stories! They have conflict, and inflection points, and characters that come in and out. Wise mentors and challenging customers. They are sometimes messy, and unexpected. Sometimes celebratory, and scary. The setting can be familiar and stable, or it can change at a regular cadence. I say all of this to remind you that in order to more confidently own your career, you have to collect experiences that build your gut instinct. And to do that, you might have to drop this idea of “linearity.” Move laterally. Take on an unexpected title. Move from vice president of a function to manager of a region. Build breadth versus depth. The point is: there may be a logical next step, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only step. Thank goodness. So look around. Create your story.  

There you have it—a lens, not an answer. You own your career, gut instinct—intuition—is your unique data set, and ladders are boring. Take this recognition that you’re ready for the next step and humbly say “thank you” because, congratulations, you’re a high performer. Then learn more, ask questions, reflect. And you’ll be able to answer for you.


Looking for a third-party perspective while you chart your career path? SNP can help. Learn more about how our 1-on-1 coaching service can help you navigate your next step.

Like this article?

Share on Linkedin
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Pinterest
OH SN*P



GMU Live

Hyatt tapped SNP to create a video promoting GMU Live — the onsite portion of General Manager University onboarding program. SNP traveled to Chicago for the shoot to coach the speakers on camera and capture compelling b-roll that highlighted the new general managers’ emotional, and educational journey into Hyatt.

Hyatt Glasswing Overview

SNP produced an internal marketing video to help raise awareness and adoption of Hyatt’s new Glasswing application, which tracks real-time financial data, KPIs, and other core metrics for owners and operators. From conducting the interviews, to coaching the speakers on camera and editing the video, SNP owned the content creation at each step of production.

Back in 2013, Asana was still a young company and some of their managers were experiencing leadership roles for the first time. So they needed to learn how to be, well, leaders. Like how to be more influential, directive, confident, and how to deal with conflict. Because if they could flourish then Asana could start to scale even faster (and without so many growing pains).

Enter SNP.

We started with just one 1:1 coaching relationship. But the good word spread fast. Soon enough more people from Asana’s management team were seeking our unique third party perspective, skill-based approach, and communications expertise to build their personal brand, strengthen their careers, and achieve more. (And did we mention the coaching program was a perk that attracted new talent? We didn’t? Well…) Eight years later and Asana is still scaling. And we’re still by their side helping them do it.

By clicking on "Submit", you agree to the SNP Privacy Policy and communication from SNP Communications through the contact information listed.

Trainings

By clicking on “Submit”, you agree to the SNP Privacy Policy and communication from SNP Communications through the contact information listed.