What is instinct? Instinct to put simply is our body's way of telling us something. I.e. it is sending us a message. Often your instinct is warning you that something isn’t quite right and you should beware. It's an innate capability that helps to protect us from harm.

Now if you're still not sure what your instinct is or even if you have it, the thing is we all have instinct within us, but if you don't use it like if you don't use your muscles they become weak so does your instinct. So the more you listen to your instinct the stronger it becomes, the louder it becomes and the harder it is for you not to listen to it.

Your instinct is a messages or little thing you say to yourself. E.g. I remember one day while I was getting ready to leave my house to go to a lunch function something said to me don't take all your keys in case you lose them!

I had a bunch of keys as you do on your key ring, house key, gym locker key, car keys, work cabinet and office key and your list can go on. So I heard this little 'voice' telling me just to take the house key. But did I listen to this?

No I reasoned and said 'I never lose my keys! Why would I lose my keys today?' And I took the lot. And yes you guessed it I lost all of my keys!

Now if you can relate to this story or one similar or you find yourself saying - I knew I shouldn't have done that!!! Then this is and was your instinct trying to tell you something.

I know this example is only a small thing but it did actually cause me a lot of trouble, time, effort and money over the next few days interrupting my life getting copies of all those keys I lost. So you can image the even bigger impacts to your life when you ignore your instinct over larger decisions that you make.

When you start to pay attention to first being aware that you have an instinct, a built in predictor of future harmful or negative events you can then look for the signs. It's up to you to then decide to follow them or not. Often at the time your head will get in the way and try and reason with you e.g. saying 'No, it will be ok that won't happen' but then what happened was you were really right in the first place that your inner instinct told you! You just refused to listen to it and thus lost out.

You can only trust your own instinct for its right for you however if someone else has a gut instinct then you have to trust that person before you agree to that person's action based on that person's instinct.

Once you start to act on your instinct you can free yourself from some unnecessary future pain and the best thing is that your instinct will then grow and strengthen. In turn helps you make much better decisions in your life and help you avoid pain both in your personal life and work situations.

It's a powerful tool that if ignored can cause negative consequences in your life or if you listen to it a very positive tool to have with you where ever you go in your life.

For more information contact Jacqueline Pigdon T: +61 (0) 404 362 379 E: jacqueline@jinalife.com