This is the Business English Podcast episode 559.
Do you tend to go with your instincts?
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Hey Michelle, how's it going?
Hey, Lindsay, I'm doing well.
How are you?
Good.
I'm excited to be with you here on the Business English Podcast.
Michelle, have you ever done something that you just knew probably wasn't the right thing, but you just wanted to try it to see what would happen?
I mean, tons of things, I'm sure.
But I mean, I'm thinking.
Just the thing that comes into my mind most recently, which is kind of a funny example, was I wanted to get my kids excited about their school lunches because they haven't been eating anything.
So I I saw online that you could do I think I told you about this like lunchables, like make your own lunchables.
And so I had it.
I sent him with pizza sauce and cheese, and i knew that it might be messy right, i knew that.
But so, against my better judgment, i sent him and the first day was okay.
And then the second day he came home and he said it splattered everywhere.
Oh no, but i wanted to try it.
So anyway, it'll be an at-home thing.
What about you anything?
Well, this is kind of life, right.
We try things and sometimes our gut is telling us maybe this is not a good idea.
I mean, when I was five, I ran away from home.
I remember we were visiting my grandmother down in Connecticut and I think I was just like mad at my parents and I was playing outside on the lawn with my friend Jimmy.
And he's like, come on, let's go run away.
And I was like, yeah, let's run away.
But in my gut, I was like, no, I probably shouldn't do that.
Even at five, I knew that was not a good thing to do.
So we ran down to the school and hid in the schoolyard.
And then like, the cops had to come and get us, because of course our parents called the cops, because when your kid runs away from home, that's scary.
Yeah.
I don't know if that even happens anymore.
Maybe like half a mile or something.
I don't remember exactly.
Yeah, that's terrifying.
It wasn't right across the street.
Yeah oh, and so our and jimmy's mom was so mad he was.
She was like oh, she was so mad she was yelling at us in the back of the cop car and so you sat in the car.
Yeah, like we, the cops like drove us back home.
Oh my gosh, did you ever hear from jimmy again?
Jimmy never.
Never got to play with jimmy again.
Oh Um yeah, I actually remember once I ran away to under the dining room table.
So you ran away in your own house?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm not sure that counts.
I don't know if it counts.
I don't think it counts.
Yeah.
Oh, so I could have used some tips from you.
But yeah, right, right.
So yeah, today we're going to teach this expression.
I used it to talk about the lunch that deals with this idea.
So it's, it's, Something you know you shouldn't do, but you're doing it.
So it's against my better judgment.
Yes, yes.
And this is looking back in hindsight on the things we've done in our lives.
A child would never say, I ran away against my better judgment.
No, no, no, no, no.
Maybe a kid as an adult, you might say that about yourself as a kid, right?
But we're talking about in the work context today.
Yes, exactly.
So yeah, it means that it's something you knew.
You probably shouldn't have done, you know, but you did it anyway.
Yep.
And we have really good like, if we can, if we listen to our gut.
I mean, I don't always listen to my gut.
That's the problem.
Like I will override my gut a lot of times and just sort of ignore it.
And I'll push through and nine times out of 10, my gut was right.
Right.
But it's tricky because we have to really trust ourselves.
And even if logic tells us this is OK, maybe something's wrong.
Right.
Right.
Tricky.
Tricky.
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That's right.
Um, so yeah, this is.
It's kind of like that fight between your head and the heart or the emotion and the logic, right?
So maybe you know logically you shouldn't do something, but your intuition is telling you something else.
Like you said about your gut, right?
And sometimes you might be wrong and sometimes you might be right.
But this against my better judgment shares that you knew there was a reason not to do something.
But Lindsay, does it necessarily mean the result was negative?
Yeah.
No.
I mean, oftentimes it does, but not necessarily.
It doesn't have to mean.
Right.
Against my better judgment, I let my kid train in figure skating and he became an Olympian.
Right.
Right.
That could happen.
You could say that.
It makes sense.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's do some more examples.
So.
Um, against my better judgment, I said yes to yet another project.
So maybe I'm a bit of a yes person.
I have a hard time saying no, I know it's going to stress me out.
So this can be a real problem though.
Sure.
Or against my, against her better judgment.
She stayed at the company party until 2am when she had a presentation the next morning.
Oh.
There are always a lot of stories after the after, like holiday parties people, especially around the holidays.
I feel like things get real a little bit crazy.
Some companies.
Yeah.
People do things against their better judgment for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Or I hired her against my better judgment after neglecting neglecting to call her references.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or against my better judgment, I crammed too many projects in for my team right at the end of the year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, how does this expression sound to you?
Yeah.
Well, I think it sounds professional.
It sounds honest, open, vulnerable.
You're being clear, but not overly vulnerable.
It's not like we're breaking out the tissue box here or anything.
Right.
Right.
Right.
You're just saying, oh, I knew I knew better.
Like I knew this wasn't a great idea, but this is what I did.
Yes.
I mean, so what are some things that someone might do against their better judgment?
Buy something that isn't needed.
I know for me I definitely like, bought some, like I bought another monitor for my office and I bought another TV.
Weird piece of equipment that I could never use right before the tariffs went into place, because I was like oh, I'm never going to be able to afford any electronics ever again.
So I'm going to buy all these things just in case I need them.
And now they're just sitting gathering dust in my garage.
Well, you never know, Lindsay.
You never know um, or just going based on your gut um, or over scheduling right, like in our example, right over scheduling meetings projects, saying yes to too many things yes, for sure, and we can feel when it's we're making a mistake right yeah yeah, there is this feeling, there's a feeling.
Yeah yeah, there's a feeling.
So I guess that's just a matter of getting smarter in life and trusting it a bit more, that intuition.
But it's not easy, right?
Because, especially sometimes at work, you know you want to show that you can do the most, that you can say yes to the most.
Yeah.
And so you have that knowledge.
You know it's too much, but you're feeling this pressure.
Especially when you're new at a workplace.
Right.
You want to make a good impression.
So tricky thing here.
Tricky thing.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
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So, Michelle, we might also say against my instincts.
So against my instincts, I ordered the most expensive Internet package for the office.
And I'm not sure why I did that.
Because now you can't downgrade, of course.
Yes.
Exactly.
Or even though I knew better, right?
Yeah.
Even though I knew better, I still went with the barbecue place to cater our conference.
There were no veggie options at all.
To know better.
Yeah.
And that's a good one.
That one is more could be more juvenile, but doesn't have to be right.
Like if your son does something like, you know, better than, you know, right.
You know, but also in a professional context, you say, I knew I should have known better.
Right.
You can also say that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, so how do we make the best decision possible?
Because, again, sometimes we want to go in against the grain.
We want to try something different.
We want to take a risk.
I think it might be just a combination of having made a lot of mistakes before.
Right.
You have to make all those mistakes.
And then, like, hopefully we take that as information.
We learn from it.
We make a better decision next time.
I think when you're just getting onto the job scene as a 22 year old, your first job, internship you're going to make those mistakes right.
Right.
Right.
And yeah, exactly.
With experience, you start to learn and also you build a sort of confidence.
Also, you know, you start to move up in the company, you feel like you have a little more leeway.
More voice.
Yeah, but then as you could still overschedule things or still, you know, it could still...
I think it happens to everyone.
So that's life, right?
That's part of life.
That's part of life.
Um, Michelle, let's do a role play.
So here we are coworkers.
All right.
All right.
Here we go.
Okay.
Oh no.
Look at how this came out.
This poster doesn't look good at all.
I mean, it's okay.
I knew it wasn't going to be good.
Against my better judgment, I tried to save too much money and now it looks cheap.
Not cheap.
I mean, you were trying to save money.
Yeah, I went against my instincts though.
I cut too many corners.
That's okay.
I've done stuff like that before.
I tried to save money on catering and, even though I knew better, i went with the place down the street.
It was horrible and people are still talking about it.
Yeah okay yep, so we all have and that's part of the connection piece of this episode too is yeah um, moments when you can empathize, like if someone's just made a big mistake And they went against their better judgment.
There's definitely a time you've done the same thing.
So you could share that, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Especially because I seem pretty bummed out about this.
Yeah.
We have to say something.
We can't just say, oh, it's too bad you made that mistake.
Yeah.
Like, oh, it's fine.
All right.
Yeah.
You know, it's nice how we connected with this.
Yeah.
Um, so I said, the poster doesn't look good at all.
And I said, I knew it wasn't going to be good.
So I'm showing this regret.
And I said, against my better judgment, I tried to save too much money and now it looks cheap.
And then I said, I mean, you were trying to save money.
I'm trying to make excuses for you or help you.
Right.
And you said, yeah, I went with my, I went against my instincts though.
So you're articulating here a bit more of exactly what happened, right?
And then you are making me feel better by sharing your experience.
And you said, I tried to save money on catering.
And even though I knew better, went with the place down the street.
It was horrible.
And people are still talking about it.
Oh, no.
Oh, geez.
What a disaster.
Exactly.
Guys, there's another episode you could check out right now if you love our vibe.
Our focus is on relationships in the workplace, connection.
You could check out Business English 536.
Get more bang for your buck when you make decisions at work.
Go on and check that one out.
Michelle, where should we leave our listeners today?
Guys, this happens to everybody.
You do things against your better judgment, against your instincts.
And you know.
You just have to keep on learning by experience and knowing what's going to be best for you, what's the good decision?
And it's okay if it doesn't always work.
Yeah.
And then hopefully gaining a bit more trust in that inner voice, so that it can be louder and clearer as we get older.
But don't expect it to be easy, especially early in your career.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a lot to learn.
There's a whole lot to learn out there for sure, Michelle.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we're off the mic for today and I'll see you next time.
All right.
Take care.
Bye, Lindsay.
Bye.
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