How I make big life decisions.

Plus a little business and life update to share.

Mar 14, 2024

👋🏼 Hey, I’m Anna! I’m a Founder turned Startup Consultant, award winning podcaster and writer. Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share business, career and life lessons learned from years of trying hard, failing often, dusting myself off and improving until I succeed.

I’ve been in the entrepreneurial arena since 2017.

Alongside my co-founder Caitlin, I’ve been building and cultivating a community of female founders (aka. lady-brains) from all over Australia. We’ve done a lot over the last seven years; grown a podcast audience to hundreds of thousands of listeners, interviewed over a hundred inspiring founders, worked with Australian Fashion Week as the official podcast partner two years in a row, won a national podcast award, invested in a start-up from our community and supported hundreds of women through our educational programs.

It’s been one heck of a ride.

If you and I, dear reader, are connected on Instagram or LinkedIn, you may have seen me share that after years of pouring love and attention into our business baby, Caitlin and I have decided to part ways and follow our individual passions and interests.

For me personally, after pouring so much time, effort, energy and cash into the business it was a tough call to move on. I wrestled and rumbled for longer than I care to admit, but in the end something deep down said it was time to close this chapter and open another. To shake things up. To write. And to work on building something new.

As one does when they go through seismic shifts, I’ve been reflecting on how I’ve made the big decisions in my life: quitting jobs, leaving relationships, starting a business and walking away from one.

I’ve historically been guided by a rational, logical, analytical mind. I’m a sucker for a pros and cons list. Give me a situation and I’ll throw you a cost-benefit analysis. I’ve created so many decision matrixes I should probably sell a course on them. I run the numbers. I froth over a business case.

I’m a left-brain lady-brain.

But over the past few years I’ve learned that critical analysis is just one input in the decision making process. The others - more important yet most neglected - are the heart and gut.

The ‘Head, Heart, Gut’ framework for making big calls.

When it comes to making decisions there are usually three forces at play:

Our head, the place of reason.
Our heart, the place of emotion.
Our gut, the place of intuition.

Each play their own role in bringing unique insights and discoveries to the surface. But not all are created equal. So let’s break it down:

The Head

This is what you think about something. It’s how the logical, rational, analytical side of your brain assesses the various options available. Using my head has always been my default status, and for me it looks like:

Drafting a pros and cons list.
Running the numbers.
Gathering the facts.
Creating a decision matrix.
Building the business case.
Getting into the detail like a complete psycho until I realise that enough is enough and I don’t need to model out every possible situation across 1, 3, 5 and 10 years (such overkill).

All jokes aside, I don’t think being guided by judgement is inherently a bad thing. There are certain situations in life that require deep thought, like whether to perform a digital amputation and escape to a remote tropical island for the rest of your days (I’ve considered it), or indeed whether to wrap up your time in a business and move on.

But a decision is a point of view seen through a kaleidoscope of lenses, each with its own splay of colour, shape and motion. As humans, we can rationalise everything. Our head can talk ourselves into (or out of) anything. We can come up with a strong argument for yes or no, stay or go. Like long-time litigators, we can argue every side of a case. When this happens, critical analysis brings confusion, not clarity.

This is when the heart and gut come into play.

The Heart

This is how your body physically feels about something. When I think about pursuing a path that’s right, mine feels like:

A warm, exciting energy running up and down my body.
A light, bright, sizzling sensation in my fingertips.
A racing heart, but in an exciting, non-anxiety-inducing way.

On the flip side, when I think about pursuing a path that isn’t right, it feels like:

Clammy hands.
A brewing, pulsating headache.
A heaviness hanging over my shoulders.
A ramping up of my heart rate, in a panicky, anxious ridden way.

If you sit somewhere quiet and close your eyes, you’ll immediately get a read from the signals your body is sending. Because your physical body knows.

Which leads us to the gut.

The Gut

This is what you know to be true about something. It’s your mind, body, soul, spirit and energy intuitively telling you what’s right.

Until a year or two ago I didn’t understand what people meant when they said they had a strong sense of intuition. If I’m honest, I wrote it off as spiritual woo-woo nonsense. I thought the head was the be-all and end-all of decision making, the only one qualified to lead the charge down a new path.

But I was wrong. I can now safely say that after much introspection and uncovering my personal meaning, I understand what intuition is. It’s the inexplicable knowing without necessarily understanding why. It’s that which once you hear, you can’t un-hear. It’s the emerald deep in your underworld that once discovered starts sparkling brightly. It’s the dazzling insight nestled in your stomach, the one that speaks the ultimate truth.

Our minds are small, our hearts are big, but our gut is beyond measure.

The ‘Head, Heart, Gut’ in practice.

Everything feels wonderful when the head, heart and gut are in cahoots, singing in unison about which route to take. When this happens and everything aligns, life’s dandy. I know what to do with every inch of my being.

But in reality, much of the time the head, heart and gut are singing off key and out of kilter. One’s screaming, the other’s whispering. Drums are banging, cymbals are clanging, and I can’t make any sense of the all encompassing din. When this happens, I breathe. I pause. I take a mini moment and ask myself these three questions:

What do I think I should do? I allow that critical brain of mine to go wild. I write that pros and cons list. I draft that business case. I entertain the back and forth.
What do I feel I should do? I then close my eyes and feel into my body. I do a yoga class. I take notice of what comes up on the mat. I recognise the signals. I identify if my initial reaction is to lean in or lean out.
What do I know deep down is right? I journal, I meditate. I sit. I reflect. I allow the knowing to come.

When you know, you know.

If you’re struggling with a big decision then try following this framework. First allow your head to do its critical, over analytical dance. Give your heart the space to sing. Give your gut the chance to bubble its message to the surface. Then get quiet.

And once you are deep within the silence, you’ll realise that you already know the answer to the question you’ve been grappling with - the one that keeps you up at night, the one that’s been causing you anguish.

You already know.