Intuition: Following Your Gut Feeling

in·tu·i·tion
int(y)o͞oˈiSH(ə)n/
noun

• The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
• A thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.

We have all had that feeling; the sense of immediate knowing, without a deeper reasoning to back it up. Mine occurred during my first visit to the University of Cincinnati (UC). I was a junior in high school, and UC was the first stop on my college tour. Before I began visiting schools, I talked to friends and family about how to choose the school that was right for me. Everyone that I talked to mentioned that it would just ‘feel right’- my intuition would guide me. I was initially a little skeptical of this concept because I felt like my excitement about going away to college would cloud my judgment, inhibiting my ability to trust my intuition. But when I arrived on campus, I just knew, being at UC felt so right; it felt like home.

My intuition was definitely telling me that this was where I needed to be, but I was still very cautious as I made my decision. I visited several other schools before making my official decision, always telling myself that UC felt right only because it was the first school on my tour, that another school would probably give me the same feeling, but even stronger. Soon, I realized that my intuition was right, UC was the right school for me and there was no other school that gave me the same sense of feeling at home. Soon after I officially decided on UC, I found out that I was accepted into two different honors programs, awarded a full ride in scholarships, offered the opportunity to get a 4 year degree and 2 years of work experience in 5 years, and the chance to spend 6 weeks studying abroad in Europe while having the opportunity to network with some of the top business people in the Cincinnati area. My intuition turned out to be right and I am so happy that I trusted it in the end. I cannot imagine what life would be like if I had not acted on my intuition and followed my gut feeling. “There are just certain feelings humans obligatorily follow without concrete reasoning” (Medical Daily). At the time that I made my decision, I had no reasoning to back up why UC felt right, but everything soon fell into place and it became my home.

When have you followed your intuition and experienced something similar?  Or have there been times when you did not follow your intuition, only to regret it later?