As a little girl, my mother always used to tell me to go with my first answer on a test if I was guessing. She said never change it because the first answer is usually always right.

Like most young girls, I did not take my mother's advice right away. Every time I would change my answer I would find that the original would be right. I started taking this advice a couple of years later and broadened it to learn something very important that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Trust your instinct, your gut, your conscience; whatever your instinct means to you.

You know when you meet someone and you think they seem a little full of themselves but decide to get to know them anyway? Then six months later you are cursing yourself because it turns out your first impression was right? Or how about when you get a gut feeling to take the long-way home and find out that there was an accident on the short-cut?

I'm not saying to go out and judge every book by it's cover and to not give people second chances or that everyone is always right. However, learn to trust your intuition. There's a reason we have it.

We live in a society that essentially tries to tell us we are always wrong and never good enough. Yet, think about how far the human race has come. We have went from creatures who did not understand what fire was to people who can circle the globe on an airplane in a matter of a day.

Do you think Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Clara Barton and Walt Disney had doubts? Of course they did! It's natural to doubt yourself. Nevertheless they persisted through, trusted their instinct, and we now know how to utilize electricity, have the theory of relativity, the Red Cross, and the magic of Disney World.

We are all going to face challenges we cannot even imagine during our lifetimes. However, trust that you will have the knowledge and instincts to make it through. You are stronger and smarter than you think. Listen to that little voice inside you and try not to doubt yourself.

After all, mother's are always right in the end anyway.