In the 15th century, the word ‘intuition’ was synonymous with 'consideration' or, by its literal Latin derivation, 'to look into'. By the 17th century it became accepted as the definition of arriving at a conclusion without any conscious interference or deliberate thought.
These days there’s no point examining intuition as originally defined because it seems nobody accepts that as its contemporary meaning. Therefore, to 'know', without conscious effort today means that intuition cannot, by definition, ever be wrong.
If your intuition tells you that you weren't cast because you’re too short, then even the testimony of the casting director to the contrary will not change what you believe to be the truth. To make sense of this, you conclude that the casting director must be lying, or at least have some ulterior motive— because remember, your 'gut intuition' is never wrong.
This is a problem, not least of all because you’re most likely way off track: many lottery winners will tell you they had a feeling in advance that they were going to win, whilst millions of lottery losers experienced the same gut feeling.
The feeling, in and of itself, is really not that helpful.
To claim that one's intuition is always right is either erroneous or redundant. The solution is in understanding that intuition is an entirely different beast to a hunch, which is what you are most likely referring to in that moment when you imagined you were too short for the role.
A hunch is a feeling that your choice may provide a breakthrough, but please understand that it may also lead to a worse result if misinterpreted. A hunch that ignores or overlooks factual data in favor of feelings only is like a fueled-up, revving car without a steering wheel. Exciting ride, but it takes you where it takes you. You have zero control over anything but the extent to which you slam the pedal to the metal. Sometimes your hunch takes you to beautiful places; sometimes off a cliff. It’s not your choice.
Hunches are an opportunity to examine something further, or, conversely, to quit a particular path of action before it gets too bad (read Seth Godin’s, “The Dip” for compelling and counter-intuitive reasons why sometimes winners quit and a surprising number of quitters win). Knowing the difference between intuition and a hunch requires that we examine all the data – including our gut feelings, and not just the parts that confirm what we'd like to believe is true (see: ‘Confirmation Bias’).
Making informed choices that regularly turn out to be for the best is ultimately what I’d term intuition.Blindly following one’s gut and seeing great outcomes fifty percent of the time is what I’d call a coin toss. Highly successful people specialize in discerning the difference between the two, and ultimately weigh hunches against evidence in the choice-making process.
READ: “1 Surefire Way to Deal With Criticism”
When an actor says that his or her intuition is always right because things turned out well my first thought is: how do they know things might not have been better had they taken a different course of action? This infatuation with intuition raises two main issues:
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It blinds us to reality, which in turn:
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Keeps us from greater success
If your hunch tells you that “the casting director must have been looking for such and such,” because you didn’t book the gig, then this is only ever useful if empirically true, which honestly, you will never know. In such a case your hunch can never be proven or disproven, so ignore it. Though there’s a slim chance it may help, but there is a high likelihood that it will only fuel your insecurities and negatively affect your next audition, not to mention your relationships with the industry folk you are attempting to mind-read.
Roman poet Caecilius Statius, writing centuries before the birth of Christ, cautioned: “Impulse in everything is but a worthless servant”. To never question your impulses is like a child never questioning their love for sugar and fast food before bedtime because it feels right and good at the time. There is a difference between useful impulses and un-useful impulses. To assume that your intuition can never be wrong is a mistake that will blind you to the true exponential growth you may have by combining the powerful dual forces of factual evidence and your highly sensitive gut.
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and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Backstage or its staff.
