And You, How Do You Make Your Decisions, With Your Head Or With Your Heart?

Decision making based on intuitions is a very recurring theme today. Therefore, below we will delve a little about it. The best decision is one that is made trusting your own intuition. Because, although we may not believe it, that is where our own identity resides and that wise and correct “north” that will not take us too far from our true roots.

Books like Educate in intuition, the development of the sixth sense by Robin M. Hogarth undoubtedly explain to us the secrets of why we should give more value to this dimension. In fact, and if we think about it, we will realize something. And it is that, in our day to day, what we do at all times is to be guided by our instinct, by that inner voice that with greater or lesser success guides us at every moment.

Now, it is clear that sometimes we are wrong. Life, in reality, does not have two paths: one good and the other bad, but it has multiple paths. We will choose one or the other, according to our personality, our previous experiences and that intuition that guides us at every moment. Let’s go a little further this time.

Make decisions with the “head”

Let’s delve into decision-making to find out if, in your case, you are one of those people who uses the head and logical reasoning more, or you let yourself be carried away by that intense and emotional voice that comes from our heart.

Making decisions with your head is little more than a cliché. We all decide based on the same neural mechanisms. However, when making a determination, the most thoughtful and logical person will make use of a type of structure.

The prefrontal cortex: the architect of our decisions

When planning and making a choice of several alternatives, the brain always makes use of the prefrontal cortex. However, there is, in turn, a relationship with yet another structure: with the dorsolateral cortex. This is where an interaction occurs with two types of working neurons.

• The former are directly linked to our emotional memory. They are the ones that make us remember previous experiences, those that, in some way, are more linked to intuitions.
• On the other hand, there are also a type of neurons that aim to put aside the emotional to process new information in a more meticulous way.
• People with a more logical and more reasoned personality will make more use of the latter type of structure.

Characteristics of the most “meticulous” people when making decisions

First of all, the fact that a person is not so carried away by emotion or intuition when making a decision does not imply that they are indecisive.

• It’s just that you need more time, you are prudent, analytical, and you want to weigh each option in detail.
• This implies more energy doses, more investment. Hence, sometimes they end up more tired, suffer episodes of insomnia or even bad mood.

However, when a concrete decision is finally made, the more rational person will feel motivated, convinced and will strongly defend their choice.

Decide with the “heart”

Before describing the characteristics of people who decide according to more emotional motivations, it is important to clarify one aspect.

At any given moment, most of us can decide something more impulsively or more analytically, always depending on the initial problem.

However, during these kinds of vital crossroads, our social and emotional brain will already know in advance what it wants, and intuition is the first to come to light.

Now, after that first “sensation” or that first “response”, it is common for many people to want to proceed to meditate or to break down more options in a more logical, slower way.

Characteristics of those who decide with the heart

Whoever decides with the heart does not do so hastily. In reality, they are people accustomed to practicing that emotional intelligence where they always know how to draw conclusions from their own experience, attend to self-esteem and properly cultivate self-knowledge.

When someone knows himself well, he knows very well what he wants and what he does not want in his life. They have full confidence in their intuition. However, they are aware that sometimes it fails. Even so, they understand that life is taking risks, and that it is worse to be left with the desire to have tried.

They are people who are not afraid of being wrong, who know that living is: learning, making mistakes and drawing conclusions from them.

In turn, they practice that experiential openness where they receive multiple stimuli, where they always try to learn from everything and everyone to be a little wiser every day.

Instantly they are impulsive, but that impulsiveness is always guided by full confidence in themselves. However, this is something that the people around them sometimes do not understand.

To conclude we will say that you do not have to be afraid to listen to intuition. It is a way of connecting with our essence, with our own heart.

It never hurts to listen to it as it deserves and, later, to pass that decision through the filter of logic if we wish. At the end of the day it is not about being successful in all the decisions we make, it is about making the decision that makes us happiest.