Unlocking Your Brainster Potential: Easy Steps to Start Trusting Your Gut

In this episode of the Gutsy Chick podcast, I’m diving deep into the world of overthinking, especially among us women who always strive for the top. 

I'll introduce you to the 'Brainster' archetype and share my own journey of shifting from a career in aerospace to trusting my gut instincts. We'll explore how overthinking can really mess with our decision-making and I'll offer some practical tips to move from analysis paralysis to relying on your intuition. 

In this Episode:   

00:00 Introduction to Overthinking and the Brainster Archetype 

03:05 Amanda's Journey from Aerospace to Intuition 

05:57 The Impact of Overthinking on Decision Making 

08:58 Understanding the Brainster Traits 

11:47 Shifting from Overthinking to Intuition 

15:04 Practical Steps to Trust Your Gut 

17:46 The Challenge to Break the Overthinking Cycle 

21:03 Conclusion and Call to Action 

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Website: Body Whisper Healing
Instagram: @Amanda.G.Smith
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Pinterest: AmandaGSmithBWH
LinkedIn: Amanda (Ritchie) Smith

Take the Gutsy Chick Quiz to find out how your athletic mindset might be holding you back from healing your chronic health issue: https://gutsychickquiz.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Overthinking and the Brainster Archetype
• 3:05 Amanda's Journey from Aerospace to Intuition
• 5:57 The Impact of Overthinking on Decision Making
• 8:58 Understanding the Brainster Traits
• 11:47 Shifting from Overthinking to Intuition
• 15:04 Practical Steps to Trust Your Gut
• 17:46 The Challenge to Break the Overthinking Cycle

Transcript

0:04

ever found yourself in the endless loop of what ifs or second guessing every decision, like what to eat for dinner, standing in front of the open refrigerator. Nobody ever told you that was gonna be the thing that you had to ask yourself every day as an adult, did they? Or analyzing things to death and ending up doing nothing. Yeah, you're not alone. In fact, you're the Brainster on the gutsy chick quiz. If you haven't taken it yet, it is a very fast, very short, very fun quiz to give you insights on what might be holding you back. That's helped you all this time. This episode is about the brainster. Welcome back to the Gutsy Chick podcast. If you're a highly driven, strong-willed, self-competitive woman, leader, athlete, or business owner who plays to win, but you can't ignore your screaming body anymore, you're in the right place. I'm your host Amanda Smith. I was an engineer on several NASA projects and programs. I used my intuition to bridge the worlds of engineering manufacturing and astronauts. When I exited aerospace, I used my intuition to help people heal their bodies. Specifically female high achievers. If you listened to the last episode, the last solo episode I shared, and you learned that I'm a bruiser. My secondary archetype is the brainster. I bet you couldn't have guessed that. Being an engineer working on NASA projects and programs. I used to live in my head. Sometimes it happens again, but I catch myself. I would analyze every angle, analyze things to the minutest detail. And I was certain that was the smart thing to do. Because you know, aerospace engineer. And then I realized all of that analysis created paralysis. I was holding myself back from making bigger, better, and bolder moves in my life. In this episode, I'll share how I shifted from overthinking to leading with intuition and how you can do it too. If you're a brainster, it's one of the four archetypes in the Gutsy Chick quiz. You'll hear exactly why your superpower of analysis is both a strength and your stumbling block. By the end of this episode, you'll know why overthinking keeps you stuck and how to break free. You'll know how to trust your intuition without feeling reckless. And you'll have practical steps to take action when your brain wants to spiral. Let's dive in. Time to jump in the way, way, back machine. We're going back to my aerospace days. I landed on NASA's Artemis program. At the time, it was called the Constellation Program in 2007. I came in as a subcontractor, which means I didn't work directly for the company that was building the thing for NASA. over the next three years, I realized that this might not be the path I should be on. I jumped into yoga teacher training in 2009. 2010, I received my first certification in yoga and the rabbit hole continued after that. But I didn't leave aerospace. My overthinking self said, there's no way you'll ever make six figures as a yoga instructor. So I stayed in aerospace and it became quite grueling. In fact, as a subcontractor and different presidents and budget cuts and, and being in aerospace, it was a roller coaster ride. was constantly being threatened to not have a job. There were moments and glimpses of the company I worked for Lockheed Martin asking me to join. Asking me to become a direct employee because they saw me as an asset, but I turned them down because their offer wasn't near what I was making as a subcontractor and I didn't want to deal with the bureaucracy. There's a lot of it in aerospace. By the time I was getting married and going on my honeymoon and finding out that I was pregnant, I was being let go. This was the first time that being let go actually happened. The rest of the time it was threats. And so I went on my honeymoon with one week's notice that I didn't have a job. and wouldn't have a job when I came back potentially. And this is when I got very, very serious about finding a different way, a different program, a different job, maybe opening my own business. When I came back from my honeymoon, I was pregnant and I was being told, you got your job back. When I landed back in the same desk. bringing all of my stuff in, the very first thing I did was call my old boss and say, hey, I'm back. He was like, that's great, who are you working for? boy. No idea. I had no idea for the first three days back on the job who I worked under. Again, one of those signs that should have told me, let's make a move. So the overthinking kicked in and the overthinking became, what am I going to do? Do I go back to school? Do I find another program to work on? Do I get another certification in yoga that might be bigger and better than what I thought I got? I got married in 2013. In 2016, I finally left NASA's Orion Artemis constellation program. three years of thinking, three years of toiling. This is a huge decision. I was contemplating leaving aerospace altogether, which eventually I did. I was contemplating opening my own business, which eventually I did. In fact, in 2015, I joined Ramis Sethi's Zero to Launch program. That was my first true training in being an entrepreneur. By 2017, I had had my first successful online business. The overthinking. made me miss all of the signs that my intuition would have seen. The signs being... the program trying to let me go multiple times, the signs being people that I didn't want in my life any longer showing up again on the program and me going, ugh, this is not a good situation. me jumping onto another program at Lockheed Martin as a subcontractor and finding that that wasn't a right fit either. Apparently, when there are no humans in the aerospace project, I'm not nearly as passionate about it. Sign after sign after sign. The universe was literally wailing me on the head at this point when I finally left aerospace and got out of my way and dropped the overthinking, overanalyzing, and just said, you know what? Let's take the leap. And I'm so unbelievably glad I did. The amount of stress that my body was under was very obvious by my fiancee husband at this point. He knew he didn't want to see me in such shambles. And as a mother, I couldn't afford to be in such shambles. So the change happened. I thought if I could think my way through this, if I could find the right quote unquote answer. that I'd be okay. Instead, I was just stuck and I was miserable. Overthinking isn't clarity. It's a cage. So why do we do this? Why do we overthink to the point of not making a move? not doing anything and going into overdrive mentally when facing big decisions, small decisions like figuring out what's for dinner tonight. Here's why we do this. Number one, we have a fear of making the wrong choice. My God, I definitely thought if I leave aerospace, my life is over. Why did I go to school for so many years and torture myself in mechanical and aerospace engineering college to exit aerospace altogether? overthinking, overanalyzing. to avoid making a mistake, which in this instance could have been the biggest mistake of my life. Number two, we have a desire for control. Have you ever been told you're a control freak? I have several times. Overthinking feels like we've got control over what's going on and we really don't. We aren't in control of anything except how we respond to what's going on. That is the only thing we ever control always. But we think we can control and we desire deeply to control. Number three, perfectionism. I am so guilty of perfectionism. So unbelievably guilty of perfectionism. Straight A student throughout my entire education, mechanical and aerospace engineer, because I'm a smarty pants, playing softball, wanting to do flight school. If you listen to the last solo episode, I had my mindset on Purdue. Mm-hmm. I was waiting for the perfect plan to fall into place so that I could make the leap out of aerospace where I knew something wasn't quite right for me there. And if I didn't feel like the universe was bludgeoning me over the head, I would probably still be in aerospace. In fact, I've been tested several times by the universe to see if I'd go back. For me, overthinking wasn't really about being smart. It was about being scared. I ran through every possible scenario. I could protect myself from failure. But all it did was keep me from moving forward. It kept me from the life I'm leading now, the people that I'm helping now. So how does this play into being a brainster? If you've taken the gutsy chick quiz and you found out that you're a brainster, here are the traits. You're analytical. You love to think things through. You're detail-oriented. You don't miss much. That was actually my job in the beginning on the Artemis program. You anticipate problems. which means you're prepared. These strengths make you a strategist. Your brain sees possibilities, others miss. You plan ahead, which can lead to smart, effective action, as long as you don't let your head get in the way. But here's the risk. Analysis paralysis. You get stuck thinking instead of doing. Yes. You're second guessing everything you struggle to trust your gut, even when it's right. I can't tell you how many times my brain stir tendencies had me sitting on an idea for months, years. I was over researching, over analyzing and convincing myself I wasn't ready. Every time I finally moved, realized the overthinking wasn't helping. It was holding me back. So how do I change? How do you change? Here are three shifts that helped me go from being stuck in my head to leading with intuition. Trust the first hit. Your first instinct is often the right one. It's often the truest one. If I get a gut feeling, I honor it without analyzing it at all. I'll think on it for a split second and move. Now I've honed and practiced and trained my intuition. That is a practice everyone can do. And it begins with noticing that first gut instinct, that first intuitive hit, that first chill bumps that you get, that, Ooh, I felt that deep down. That pay attention to that. Your body knows your brain gets in the way. Set a decision timeline. All right, in aerospace, we had three things that we paid attention to, and one of them was the schedule, and the schedule was always slipping to the right, which meant that we were constantly moving our dates out and out and out further. You don't work in the aerospace industry. Your body, your brain doesn't have to live to those things. I had to program that into myself. had to decide that I wasn't going to live like the aerospace industry and slip my schedule to the right all the time. I set hard deadlines to make decisions and I stuck to those. it stops the endless deliberation. Number three, test don't perfect. I have decided, and I did this a long time ago, that absolutely everything is just a grand experiment. Everything that we're doing is just a way of testing and finding out the data. If you're one of my softball players or one of my parents from softball, you hear me say this a lot. Everything is just data. It's neither good nor bad. It's just data. That is a hard earned quote because of my perfectionist over analyzing brainster self. Every decision is an experiment. It's not life or death. It's not good or bad. It's data. The moment I started to really trust my intuition, trust myself, trust that my body was going to lead, several things shifted for me. Shockingly, I got healthier. My brain got to take a back seat. This monkey mind got to chill the heck out. And I got healthier. My gut became the compass. and then I started to develop my intuition much farther than just a gut feeling. When I trusted myself and allowed my gut to lead, my instinct to lead, magic happened. And that's why I do what I do now in Body Whisper Healing. If you're ready to stop the spinning of your brain wheels, your monkey mind, here's how to get started. Number one, name the fear. What's the reason you're overthinking and get really, really honest? Sometimes that takes asking three levels deep. What is really going on here? What's the fear? Name it. Number two, do a gut check. What's your first instinct? Say it out loud. Don't edit it. I like to practice this when I'm doing interviews for podcasts or God forbid I ever do this again, but job interviews, the question they ask me, I let the first thing that comes to my mind flow out now because it's just easier. And I trust that that answer is going to lead them to the decision that they need to make if it was a job interview or It's going to lead the person that's doing the podcast down a rabbit hole that I'm sure both of us would enjoy or all of us would enjoy. First instinct, do the gut check. Number three, decide and move. Give yourself that deadline, 24 hours, two minutes, whatever that arbitrary deadline is, but then once you declare it, stick to it. and take action. That action might look like something as small as picking up if it's, I need to go work on a book. I'm writing a book and I need to go work on a book. Put pen to paper. The smallest action. Grab the pen, put it to paper. Or open the document that you're typing in and put your hands on the keyboard. The smallest action, those micro moments help move the needle. All right, quick exercise. I want you to think about a decision where you've been stuck. Got it? What would you do if you trusted your gut right now? the first thing that comes to your mind. I love that one. So simple, isn't it? This week I want you to break the overthinking cycle with one bold move. Here's the challenge. Pick one decision you've been overthinking, big or small, doesn't matter. Set a 24 hour timer, put it on your phone, there's some cool little apps you can add to your phone with a little timer on it, and set that deadline. Then trust your gut and take the first action. No more spiraling, just movement. It could be finally hitting send on an email that you've been sitting on or a letter that you haven't mailed off if you still do snail mail. Could be signing up for some thing that you've been debating, a retreat, a vacation, or simply trusting your first instinct without a 20 point analysis. Mm-hmm, 20 point analysis. Bet you didn't know where I got that number. When I do it, I feel so much better. Everything just flows. So if you took this challenge, send me a DM, tag me on social media, tell me what decision you made and how it felt to trust yourself. One decision, one action, less overthinking, more gut instinct. You've got this. Here's the truth. You don't need to overthink your way to a perfect life. You need to trust yourself enough to take the first step. If today's episode hit home for you, here's what to do next. Take the stinking quiz already. gutsychickquiz.com. That URL might be chunking along. Wait for it. You can also find it at quiz. dot body whisper healing dot com slash gutsy chick. Or you'll find it in the show notes or you'll find it on body whisper healing.com. It's that very first button that you can click. Take the gutsy chick quiz, go take it and find out. Are you a bruiser, a brainster, a Chilster or a stickler? Because two more episodes, I will be going over the stickler next. And then the last of these four is the Chilster, which is my husband. By the way, the bruiser and the, let's see, the bruiser and the stickler are opposites of each other. The brainster and the chillster are opposites of each other. Opposites. The other action to take share this with another woman who you've seen get in her head. She can't get out of her own damn way. Send her this episode. She'll appreciate it. And you know, you can do it on the sly. Like, Hey, I've been listening to this and my gosh, I resonated with it. And you popped into my head for some reason. help her trust her gut. Until next time, stay gutsy.