I Knew Before I Knew I Knew

Was there ever a moment your intuition kicked in, clearly, quietly, early, and you ignored it anyway?

Not because you didn't feel it. You did. You just had a reason that seemed to matter more at the time, money, timing, what you'd already told people, how good the whole thing looked on paper.

I have one of those stories too.

There was a client I said yes to for the money. And, oh boy, did I come to regret it.

The offer looked good on paper, good enough that it was easy to talk myself past the small, quiet "no" that showed up almost immediately. I felt it early, before I'd even agreed to work with them. Not a loud alarm, just a low, steady resistance that I chose to override because the number attached to the engagement was hard to walk away from.

That engagement lasted a year and a half and it was hard to get out of, and the regret didn't take long to show up. Within the first month, I already knew. Not a vague uneasy feeling anymore, but a clear, settled certainty that I'd made the wrong call. I just didn't let myself act on it yet, because unwinding something you've just committed to feels harder than riding it out, even when riding it out is the worse option.

The client didn't respect my personal time. They didn't respect the depth of what I actually knew, the expertise they'd hired me for in the first place. They were argumentative, almost as a default setting, and the relationship took up so much of my energy that I had less and less left over for the clients who did respect my coaching and my boundaries around it.

The clearest example of that disrespect happened on an anniversary trip with my husband. I'd told this client in advance that I'd be out of pocket for the weekend, no calls, no availability, a boundary I'd stated plainly and expected to be honored the way I'd honor it for anyone else. They called anyway. Not once, but repeatedly, over the course of the trip, as though the boundary I'd named simply didn't apply to them. I remember sitting there, half present with my husband and half braced for the phone to ring again, and feeling something harden in me that hadn't been there before.

Looking back, none of that would have surprised the version of me who felt that first no. She already knew. I just wasn't ready to listen to her yet, not with a number that big sitting on the table.

That's the strange thing about gut instinct. It rarely waits for enough evidence to make its case. It comes in fast and absolute. It just knows. Early, quietly, and often before you'd be able to explain it to anyone else if they asked you to.

What I’ve come to understand since is that inner voice is almost always more on our side than we are on our own side. It doesn't care about the number on the page, or what you've already told people, or how it'll look to change your mind. It only cares about what's actually true for you. And when we override it anyway, when we talk ourselves past a clear no because the upside looks good, that's a quiet form of self-sabotage. The kind that looks responsible from the outside, taking the good opportunity, honoring your commitments, being practical, while it slowly costs you the very peace those things were supposed to protect.

Here's what I want you to sit with. If you've ever overridden an early no because the offer, the person, or the opportunity looked too good on paper, you're not alone, and you weren't wrong to want the good thing it seemed to promise. The problem was never wanting more. The problem is that we've been taught to trust spreadsheets and offers over the quieter knowing that usually turns out to be right.

Your gut isn't asking you to ignore practical considerations forever. It's asking you to weigh them honestly, alongside what you already sense, instead of letting the number on the page override the noise your body's making. A good offer that requires you to talk over your own instinct to accept it usually isn't as good as it looks.

Can you recall a time you felt an early no before you had any real evidence to justify it? (What did you tell yourself instead? What made it hard to walk away from?)

Is there a decision you're weighing right now where a quiet resistance keeps showing up, even though everything on paper looks fine? (What would it take to actually listen to it before committing, instead of after?)

Looking back at a time your gut turned out to be right, how long was the gap between the first knowing and the moment you finally admitted it to yourself? (What finally closed that gap?)

Is there an area of your life where being "responsible" or "practical" might actually be a quieter form of overriding what you already know? (What would it look like to let your inner voice carry as much weight as the practical argument?)