There’s a moment right before I make a bad decision. A split second where I hear it—that quiet voice. The one that says, “Don’t do this.” But then, like clockwork, the noise arrives. A barrage of justifications, doubts, second-guessing. And just like that, the signal is lost in the static.
This has happened more times than I’d like to admit. Like the time I said yes to a project that felt off from day one. The client was vague, the timelines made no sense, and something in my gut clenched when I read their email. But my mind jumped in with its usual noise: Don’t be difficult. You’re overthinking. It’ll be fine. Spoiler: It was not fine. It was a disaster wrapped in a nightmare, gift-wrapped with regret.
Or that time I met someone new, and within five minutes, my body tensed. Nothing overtly wrong, but something wasn’t right. Again, the noise: Be nice. Don’t judge so quickly. You’re just being weird. Six months later, I wished I had listened to that first whisper instead of rationalizing myself into chaos.
The mind is loud, persuasive, and—let’s be honest—a bit of a bully. It loves to drown out intuition with logic, overanalysis, and its favorite trick: self-doubt. Intuition, on the other hand, is infuriatingly quiet. It doesn’t argue, doesn’t repeat itself, doesn’t explain. It just nudges. This way. Not that way.
And yet, when I have listened—when I’ve bypassed the noise and gone straight for the signal—things have gone absurdly well. The opportunities that felt right in my bones? The friendships that had an instant sense of ease? The decisions that made zero sense on paper but felt undeniably correct? Every single time, that was intuition winning.
I’m learning—slowly—to recognize the difference. If it’s urgent, frantic, or trying to convince me, it’s noise. If it’s calm, firm, and gone before I can grab onto it? That’s the signal.
The trick isn’t to make intuition louder. It’s to turn the mind’s volume down.
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