Tune into your instincts
Learning to recognise intuition can boost confidence and self-esteem.
Tuning into your intuition can help you understand yourself better and discover what you’re good at.
What is intuition?
Intuition is a quiet voice inside your head that tells you when something is right or wrong. It’s also known as a “gut feeling” – for example when you know you’ll be friends with someone before you’ve even spoken to them. Author Beatrice Moise describes intuition as “an awareness of your senses, the feeling of butterflies in your stomach or suddenly being aware of your heartbeat or breathing”. Scientists say intuition happens when your brain compares what’s going on around you with experiences stored in your memories. It creates a feeling so fast you often don’t even notice it. It is why you sometimes make speedy decisions that appear from nowhere.
How do your instincts help you?
Listening to your instincts and gut feelings involves trusting your judgement, says Moise. This helps you by building confidence and boosting self-esteem (how you feel about yourself). Good self-esteem makes it easier to face challenges and discover what you’re good at. Moise explains that trusting your gut feelings means you can recognise when people or places make you uncomfortable and helps keep you safe. However, like with any decision, your intuition won’t always be right.
Study your feelings
“Listening to your intuition means paying attention to what your head thinks and what your body feels,” says nurse and author Dianne Maroney.
Try noticing how your body behaves when you imagine something happy, like going on holiday or seeing friends. This can help guide you in making decisions. Similarly if you think about when you’ve made a bad choice, did you have any feelings that things weren’t going your way? If something makes you feel tense or uncomfortable don’t do it, or wait until you have time to think it through properly, says Maroney.