Choices, choices, choices. One of the primary reasons why intuition is so useful and imperative in today’s world is because of the volume of choices we are confronted with. From telephone plans to groceries to people, there are a lot of choices and decisions. Never before in human history have we had this plethora of possibility!

How do we make choices? Nobody has the time to figure it all out, and by the time you’ve tried to logically analyze it all, things have changed. And besides, it just seems so complex. Plus I can’t read the small print, unless I have my 300plus reading glasses, and even then, what am I reading? Put choice, change and complexity together and the only way you can decide anything is to go with your gut.

Now, because of this “challenge of choice,” we have quite a few studies and books that explain this modern phenomenon. Let’s take a quick look at them and how they can help our own decision-making process.

Soon to come out is a book by a professor of business at my alma mater, Columbia University, Sheena Iyengar – “The Art of Choosing.” She conducted the so-called “jam study.” In a California gourmet market, she set up a booth of different jams. Every few hours, they switched from offering a selection of 24 jams to a group of six jams. Sixty percent of customers were drawn to the large assortment and 40% to the smaller sampling. But this is the really interesting part, 30% of those who tasted the smaller group, decided to buy some jam, whereas, only 3% of those who sampled the large group bought.

Iyengar’s conclusion is that “people find more and more choice to actually be debilitating.” So, while we crave choice and variety, it can paralyze us. The lesson is “keep it simple and it will sell.”

Why is this? Because people do not trust their intuition that actually does favor one jam over another. We get so mental, thinking about which one is best that we go into “paralysis through analysis.” So, scan, sense, sniff and use your “wisdom nose’” (Rumi). Trust the feeling, choose, and move on. Buy with your gut, or rather, with your taste.