Episode 22- Making Decisions

This episode is all about decisions- why we make the decisions we do and how to make decisions from a more conscious place.  Indecision drains our energy, so learn my best tips and tricks to make decisions on purpose to get the results you want in your life.

 

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Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind—Episode 22–Making Decisions.

 

In this podcast we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.  Become unstoppable, body and mind.

 

Hello, welcome to the podcast. Today we are going to talk about decision making, why it's important to make decisions and how we can make decisions most effectively. But first, a little reminder if you've been liking the podcast and would be willing to do me a favor. Go on over to iTunes and rate and review it please. Rating it literally just takes a few seconds and a review does take a little more time and thought and effort, but I do read all the reviews and really appreciate them. And it helps the podcast be found by more people. 

 

Decision making used to be super hard for me. I used to even describe myself as someone who hated making decisions. I would much rather have someone else make decisions for me than to have to make decisions. I hated it. And I think part of it is that I thought of myself as kind of an easygoing person, not someone who has a lot of strong preferences and opinions, but I was also definitely a huge people pleaser. I would rather let someone else who did have a stronger opinion, make a decision, and I would just go along with it so that I would be liked. I also had a lot of self doubt. And I was definitely a huge perfectionist. And that can play into decision making too, because once you make a decision, you have to get to work on it. And it wasn't that I was afraid of work, but I was afraid of showing up imperfectly. And so if I could stay in indecision, I wouldn't have to make the wrong choice, or put work out into the world that wasn't totally perfect and be vulnerable that way. 

 

But like the Rush song says, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” So indecision is making a choice. It's a choice not to act. And the worst part about it is that when you are struggling in indecision, it drains your energy. Have you ever had that? It's like part of your mind just keeps cycling around this unmade decision, and you keep weighing the options in your head and you keep thinking of the pros and cons. Mentally, it's draining. 

 

When I started learning about life coaching about five years ago, I realized how important making decisions is for your state of mind. And I got better at making decisions because it is a skill you can develop, and it grows stronger as you practice it. You can learn to listen to yourself and trust yourself and stop doubting yourself so much as you practice making decisions. 

 

First, let's talk about why we make decisions. All of the decisions we make, the things we choose or choose not to do are because of how we think it will make us feel. So if you choose to eat a salad, it could be because you want to feel healthier. If you choose to eat a box of Pop Tarts, it could be because you think you'll feel some satisfaction or pleasure from it. If you choose not to decide right now if you are going to change jobs or not, you may think you will feel more sure of yourself after you weigh out all the options or ask a few more people's advice. We are motivated by our feelings. That's why we make the decisions that we do. And that's how we get the results that we have in our life. 

 

Think of all the results that you have in your life as a collection of the decisions you've made. And your day is full of decisions. You're making them either unconsciously, or you're making them in a way to get the results that you want. How do we make unconscious decisions? Remember, 95% of our thoughts are subconscious. So those decisions could look like habits. Like I get up and I make my bed each morning. Or I find myself checking my phone approximately a million times a day. Like it's totally a subconscious decision. I'm maybe feeling bored, or I'm usually avoiding doing something. And then I find myself checking email that I've checked, like two minutes ago. 

 

Think about the decisions you make each day. Do you think there are some unconscious decisions that you make? The first step in making better decisions is to realize and be mindful of the decisions you're already making. Just like we can become the watcher of our thoughts, we can become the watcher of our decisions, and we can decide if they're serving us or not. Another thing that we can do subconsciously when we're making decisions is to say, “I don't know” Do you find yourself saying “I don't know” a lot? Sometimes it can even feel very true: “Like this is just a fact. I don't know.” Something like, “I don't know how to stop my kids from fighting.” “I don't know how to provide more value to my customers.” “I don't know how to quiet my mind when I meditate.” But the thing about “I don't know” is when you say that, it literally blocks your brain from giving you the answers. It shuts down your inner voice, and it keeps you in indecision, which, remember, drains your energy? 

 

Try and notice when you say “I don't know,” either out loud or to yourself, and question that. You might just be in a habit of saying, “I don't know.” It seems easy. And it seems true. So I'll often say to people when I'm coaching them, when they tell me, “I don't know,” I'll say, “What if you did know?” And then, most of the time, unless they say, “I don't know” again, they actually come up with an answer. So give yourself that option. What if I do know when I'm stuck with an “I don't know.” I like to write things down. I like to get out a piece of paper. And if I'm thinking I don't know how to get my kids to eat healthier, I could write down the things I do know. Maybe I know that if I wasn't buying as much junk food and bringing it to the house, then the kids would not have access to those foods. I know that when I cut up fruits and vegetables and put them out at dinnertime, then they get eaten more than when they're sitting in the fridge. Maybe I do know that I haven't had a discussion with the kids about what they already know about healthy eating and what types of foods they think are healthy, and what kind of foods they're interested in eating that are healthy foods. Once you start opening up your brain to thinking of the things you do know, then you can start filling up the page with things that you know, and have a jumping off point rather than just saying, “I don't know” and shutting it down and feeling helpless. 

 

When I'm making decisions between two options, like if I was thinking of buying a new car or getting my old one repaired, I also like writing. So take out a page and make two columns, one for new car, one for repairing the old car. And I would write down the reasons for getting a new car in one column, and the reasons for repairing the old car in the other column. Then I would suggest crossing out any of the reasons that are fear based. We don't want to make decisions from fear. Remember, when we're in fight or flight, we're not using our prefrontal cortex, we're not using our best judgment and logic. So, for example, if I am thinking I'm afraid of how long it would take me to find a new car, I really don't even know that's true. And I would rather base my decisions on reasons that I like, rather than things I'm afraid of, or I'm trying to avoid. Fear is based in the primitive brain and I want to make decisions from my higher brain, my prefrontal cortex. Then, looking at the two columns, I would pick the one with the reasons I like the most, and you could listen to your inner voice here. I talked a little bit about listening to your inner voice on the last episode, and just like decision making you get better at listening to your inner voice if you practice doing it. Sometimes I like to imagine that there are no wrong decisions. Or what if I knew both of the options would work out? Which one would I choose? If I knew that there were no failures in life, that I was either winning or learning? What would I choose? If I knew that I could find a new car I wanted and I could sell the old one, and I could afford the payments or the repairs, which one would I choose?

 

What if in life, there are no mistakes? What if we're either succeeding or learning but there is no failing? And what if in life, there are no wrong decisions, just decisions that teach you what you don't want to do? Those kinds of thoughts can help with decision making. We already have so much fear of the future. A lot of times as humans, we're deciding a lot of things out of fear. But really, we don't even know how the future will turn out. We're just basing our projection of the future on what we've learned from the past. But most of the times, the things we worry about don't even happen. 

 

I find this a lot when I'm trying to predict how other people are going to react. Like my son might not eat anything if I stopped buying junk food, or my boss might fire me if I tell him I want to cut back my hours, or my friend might be hurt if I don't go to girls night that she invited me to. But remember with the model, what we say or do is just in the circumstance line of other people's models. They are in charge of how they think and feel and act because of what we do or say. So we definitely don't want to be basing all of our decisions on trying to control other people's behavior. I like to make decisions that are most loving for me and loving for all of the people involved. So if my friend planned a girl's night, and I don't want to go, is it the most loving thing for me to still go? Is it loving to her if I go when I don't want to? Imagine if I don't want to go, but I go, because I don't want to make her mad or make her feel bad. And then I go, and I'm resentful. That might not even be the most loving thing to her. And it's definitely not the most loving thing to me. 

 

Now, we talked about how indecision is an energy drain, but also if we make a decision, and we're waiting a while to tell someone. Like if I made that decision not to go out to the girls night, but I waited a week to tell my friend, then that also is going to be draining my mental energy. It can be exhausting mentally if it's still hanging over my head. So I might be still dreading telling her or thinking about when I'll tell her or thinking about how I'm going to tell her. If possible when you make the decision, try to act on it without allowing a lot of time to go by so you aren't just taking up that mental space. 

 

Another concept about decision making is to try and make decisions ahead of time. So we want to use our prefrontal cortex, which is good at making decisions. That's the highest form of our humanity. That's where we want to be making our decisions from. So say you're starting an exercise program. You could decide on Sunday night what you want that exercise program to look like for the week, like “Every morning, I'm going to get up and go on a thirty-minute walk with my dog,” or “I'm going to do yoga three days a week, on these days and at these times.” The more we make decisions ahead of time, then we don't have to struggle in the moment—the decision is already made. If we don't decide ahead of time, then you can guess what kind of decision we're going to make. When the alarm goes off and you're not committed or devoted to your decision, you'll probably talk yourself out of going on the walk or just go back to bed. The prefrontal cortex, the highest part of the brain, is the best decision maker. And it only works when we're not making decisions in the moment. When we don't make decisions ahead of time, or we're not committed to those decisions and we leave the decisions up to what we feel like doing in the moment, our primal brain is going to win every time and it's going to want to seek pleasure, avoid pain and do whatever is easy.

 

Another thing to think about with decision making is decision fatigue. So if you imagine cleaning out your closet, taking everything out of it and going through piles and piles of things, you might start out kind of thoughtful about each item and trying it on. And after a while, after a few hours, your brain has made so many decisions that you're just exhausted from making so many decisions. And so you either start just getting rid of everything, or if you're like me, you start hanging everything back up and thinking like, Maybe I'll go through it later, or I'll give it a few months and see if I'm actually going to wear those things and I'll just decide then. So don't try and make a lot of big decisions at once or make a lot of little decisions before you're making big important decisions. Just be aware that there is decision fatigue. In order to reduce decision fatigue, you could give yourself a certain amount of time and commit to making a decision at the end of that time. 

 

An example I've heard of is from my mentor, Brooke Castillo. She said that for clothes shopping, she only goes to one store. So she has one place that she gets her clothes. And she doesn't go to all of the different places, all the different stores and look at a bunch of different things. She knows her tastes and her style and what she likes. And so she only buys things from that one store. 

 

The more you can make decisions ahead of time, decide quickly, not go back on your decisions and not make tons of decisions at once or when you're already mentally fatigued, this will help you make better decisions and it will save mental energy so you're not feeling as drained. If you have a big goal, which I recommend, for the week, or a goal for the month, or the next three months or a goal for the next year, your brain will get overwhelmed with the immensity of this big, huge goal. So what you can do is write down all of the little things you'll need to do to accomplish that goal. Next to each of those things, write down all of the obstacles you might anticipate happening. And then focus each day on the next right thing or the next best thing to get you towards that goal. So “What is the next right thing for me to make this certain amount of money within a period of time?” Or “What is the next right thing I could do to show my body more love so that I can be healthy?” Or “What is the next right thing I could do to be a more present mom with my kids right now?”

 

You can decide that you're a decision maker. That's what I did. I saw that I was already making decisions, which I was. And I just decided on purpose that I am able to make decisions and I practiced making decisions on my own without polling a bunch of people and asking people's opinion and searching online for hours. And when I made a decision, I purposely didn't second guess it or doubt myself or go back on it and change it. And I did get better at making decisions and at listening to my inner voice. 

 

Making decisions is an important skill. And even if you are thinking of yourself as an indecisive person, remember that by not deciding you are already making a choice, and you're wasting your mental energy by spinning and indecision. You might have some strong neural pathways and beliefs about yourself and your ability to make decisions. But as we know from neuroscience, you can always rewire your brain. You can start making decisions consciously, you can start believing in yourself that you can make decisions and the more you practice, the more you will learn about yourself and what types of decisions you can make easily, and what types of decisions you don't want to make in the future. And the more you'll be able to trust yourself in the decisions you do make. So I invite you to notice the decisions you're making in your life and to start making decisions from a conscious place. And if this is something you struggle with and would like some coaching on, please reach out to me. You can go to my website, bodyandmindlifecoach.com or email me at info@bodyandmindlifecoach.com.

 

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And, of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know who wants an unstoppable body and mind.