Making decisions, for some of us, it can be the hardest part of our day. Deciding the little things like what to eat or wear and then there are the bigger decisions like what life path am I going to take or am I going to break up with this person? If it is your life, you would think it would be that simple to just think “hmm what do I want?” But it’s not that simple sometimes. So why do we have a hard time making decisions?
Perfectionism: You may want things to have a certain outcome or you envision it to be a certain way. You will worry it won’t turn out that way or you worry that you will regret it or it will be a terrible decision. So you want it to be the “right” decision or you want it to result in the best most perfect outcome.
Fear: You fear the outcome or what could happen. There is a fear of failing where you will get it wrong or feel terrible if it does not go right. Fear that you will look silly or stupid or that you will get hurt. Also fear of commitment where you fear committing to something and having to follow through or be responsible.
Unconfident: You are unconfident in your decisions. You do not believe in yourself nor do you trust yourself. You feel you can not rely on yourself to make a good call and may want others to do it for you to take the weight off.
Overthinking: You will overthink every decision to the point where you talk yourself out of them, you consider too many imaginary factors, you and in more potential decisions. You have a habit of overwhelming yourself with every decision. But even so, as an overthinker, if you make a decision you will still overthink if that was a good decision or maybe you should have done this or that. You may worry about what other people think or bring in other factors that make you more indecisive.
So all these factors can make it hard to make decisions. But the crazy part is that by not making a decision, that is still making a decision and giving away your control. So how do we deal with this indecisiveness?
What is the thing that matters to you most? What do you value? The things you want out of this decision? What do you want the outcome to be? Maybe your end goal is to make more money, to travel, to have a successful relationship. Once you come up with your end goal it will make your decision a lot easier as you are narrowing down your path and taking out some things that you do not want. You want to identify what will help you get there.
Ask yourself what is at stake when you make this decision. What do you gain from this decision and what do you lose? So if you are thinking of joining a company and leaving your other company, ask yourself what do you gain from leaving or staying and what do you lose from staying or going. Same with a relationship if you are wondering if you want to join one, you can ask yourself what do you gain and what do you lose?
You also want to focus on the information you know rather than information you do not have yet. If you are an overthinker you can get lost in the information you do not know so if you focus on what you know like how you feel about something then you will feel a lot more confident in your decision.
From the time we are young we always hear, consequences are bad or oh you are going to suffer the consequence. But consequences are not necessarily bad, every decision you make there will be some sort of consequence. For instance, if you get a hug, a positive consequence is that you will feel warm and fuzzy and happy. So understand your consequences when you choose this decision. Identify the positive consequences and some of the negative ones.
When you are thinking about this decision feel the sensations you feel in your body when you think of this decision. The best way to determine how you feel is to close your eyes and visualize the decision you are about to make. So think about the people involved or the situation at hand and feel how it feels in your body when you visualize it. Does it feel like anxiousness? Passion? Excitement? Joy?
Or maybe it does not feel right, you don’t get good feelings or it doesn’t excite you. Maybe you feel excited but slightly nervous which is normal when thinking of big decisions. Like let’s say you are thinking about this new person you are interested in, do you get excited and maybe a little nervous but overall good feelings? Or do you get a feeling that something is off, you don’t feel that passionate about it. That is how you can tell how you feel and that is your intuition kicking in.
Intuition is always right. It is information in your subconscious mind that you don’t yet have access to. It is usually things that you have been through before and information you have that your body is trying to tell you something is off or something feels right. Your body will tell you what it needs. So whenever you are unsure of something you can ask yourself how does it make me feel? Do I get good feelings or bad ones?
We as humans are driven by emotion and that’s where we get the passion to do things. So you want to listen to your gut and listen to your intuition.
If you are someone to not trust yourself, you want to be aware of those thoughts. If you are someone that was taught to not trust yourself then you are someone that probably says ” I don’t know” a lot. Catch yourself when you are doing that and replace it with “I do know. I know exactly what is right for me. I know what I want.” That instills that trust in yourself that you got it. Be confident in yourself and understand you have the answers it is just that you have this story that plays in your mind that you don’t know. You have to just practice positive self-talk, let go of perfectionism and the fear and accept that sometimes you do not have all the information. You won’t always make the best decision but you will make a decision based on what consequence you are comfortable with. Once you are okay with that then you will feel a lot more empowered.
Once you have gone through everything and decided what would be the best decision for you, now it is time to accept it. You have to accept that the life you have is yours to live and you want to honor the decisions you leave behind. A lot of times we will have those what-if thoughts.
“What if I did choose something else?”
“What if things could be better?”
“What if I made the wrong move?”
“What if I am missing out?”
You do not want to be in that place where you are questioning everything or not accepting of it. You want to be accepting of your decisions. So something that could help is you can think about a decision you have had to make and the two paths you could have taken. Imagine the one you didn’t take as a crusty dusty old rotting boat that is sailing away and then imagine yourself waving goodbye to it. When you look to the right you now see a beautiful shiny golden boat that is the decision you have made and hop on it. By waving away you are accepting letting go and hopping on the new one you are accepting the choice you made.
You also want to let go of that perfectionism or this feeling that you need to get it right because in reality there is no such thing as things being perfect or always getting it right. Life is about trial and error and making mistakes and learning from them.
What do you guys think? Leave it all in the comments below!
