How many times have you heard someone say, “I knew I should have done this,” or “I had a bad feeling all along; I wish I had listened to it”?
Every so often you hear a story about how someone’s bad feeling got them out of a precarious situation or even saved a life.
Remember the crash in New York between a tourist helicopter and a private plane over the Hudson River this month? Apparently a woman named Paola Casali and her 13-year-old son had already purchased tickets to be on that helicopter. What stopped them? The 13-year-old had a bad feeling. Casali told the media that her son was jittery all morning and was scared to get in the helicopter. He even procrastinated in a Starbucks that day, causing them to be late and miss the fateful flight.
This story demonstrates to me intuition in action. Intuition isn’t dramatic where you see a burning bush or hear a voice shout down from the sky. It’s a bad feeling, a case of the jitters, a desire to procrastinate or put something off especially when you have no logical reason for doing so.
In less dramatic instances, I’ve had experiences when someone has wanted to hire me for a writing assignment or work on an editing project and even though the money might have been good, I’d get this sinking feeling or just not want to do the job. Once when I ignored this feeling, the client later declared bankruptcy and I never got paid. Another time, the job was a nightmare because the client kept changing her mind about what she wanted and the project dragged on for months.
Intuitive Action Item: Think back to a time when something didn’t go right and you knew beforehand that you should have taken a different action (we all have these experiences). By keeping your mistakes in mind, you’ll be more likely to make a different choice the next time your intuition sends out an SOS.
