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This episode is about something I’ve been focusing on for the past several weeks. It’s something all of us struggle with as perfectionists and is a must listen if you are working toward freedom and growth. DECISIONS… this topic I take from a different angle because it is talked about a lot from the outside in, as though it is separate from what’s going on in our minds, but that’s not true. When we have decisions (small and large) looming over our heads, our energy is zapped and we have less to give to our lives and our loved ones; to pour into our goals and to honor ourselves with previously made decisions. Here I talk about what I’ve been working on and some helpful shifts in thinking. Subscribe on your platform and share with those who you know would benefit. Thank you for joining me sunshine! Enjoy!
Decide Decide Decide
Hello my lovely friends,
How has your week been!?! Send me a message. I love hearing from all of you. What has your life handed you lately? Have you noticed a change in the way you respond, or bounce back when you struggle? I really hope so. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. You’ll get used to my typical banter.
This past week has been fantastic for me. It is so amazing how therapeutic this work is. The work of personal development is really a personal healing journey.
I’ve said before how cool it is that we talk about growth, and yet it really is as though we are not becoming something new but yet unbecoming what we have been trained by our cultures and our brains to be. We are not the people we present to the world. We are experiencing the world on the inside of this being, and the more we let go of things that have been unhelpful, the freer we become. The freer we become in experiencing life more without the being dragged out of the experiences and into the drama of what we make all of it mean for ourselves unintentionally. The more we also see that all of it has been a beautiful journey, even though it’s been rough.
Anyway, today I want to talk about decisions… I know, that’s a difficult topic to discuss as a perfectionist.
The truth is, perfectionists struggle with decisions more than most people because of the dialogue we have around our actions. Because as perfectionists, by default, we tend to make our value so heavily weighted in our actions that we measure our worth in light of those our perceived success or failure in carrying out the doing of every aspect of our life. Not just how well we have done, but judging any possible flaws. This can result in copious amounts of procrastination and indecision and is just plain exhausting.
When we are not deciding, it doesn’t lessen the burden. Quite the contrary, the lack of finalized decisions compiles into a mountain of “to do’s” in the form of choices queued up that we must make. This can be quite a burden.
As Brooke Castillo Says, “Decide to want what is or decide to change”.
This habit of not deciding is the enemy, not just of productivity, but of action in general. Until we actually start making decisions, and making decisions easier for ourselves, we do not act. When we don’t act, we feed the inner critic. The inner critic gets louder and stronger and we believe what we are thinking more often. Thoughts that our brains default to which keep us stuck in indecision.
If we want to grow, we must act; but in order to be willing to act, we must first not only face where we are and what is in our life but we must also embrace all of it. I don’t mean we accept the way we currently live our lives as our ceiling and settle there. No, we have already been doing that by not deciding, because we are trapped until we have made a choice.
I’m saying we have to embrace what is beyond our control. We have to stop grabbing onto the decisions we have made and actions we have taken in the past to fuel our fear of moving forward.
That is really easy to say, but in order to do that we have to understand ourselves. When we look at those things we hold over our own head with judgement and punishment and loosen our grip enough to unfurl our hands, then we can see the circumstances. When we can climb into our own shoes from when we made a decision and get curious, we can first give ourselves compassion and empathy, seeking to reveal and understand where we were at and why we made the decision we did and acted as we did.
Also, this doesn’t mean we need to go to years of therapy, not that therapy is not an amazing choice or (on the other side) that this will happen overnight; but by simply climbing into our own shoes we can find compassion for ourselves that is necessary to uncover thoughts that led to actions.
Once we can understand ourselves then we can change the thoughts surrounding those actions we took… we can understand why we felt the way we did and it starts to make sense. But we can also see plainly how whatever thoughts we were thinking that led to those actions were not helpful for us.
That is a key here. And yes, the key to making decisions, like most anything in life, lies in your thoughts about decisions.
Perfectionists are so fearful to make mistakes or to screw up, that they will avoid deciding on so many things. They fear that, even with the seemingly insignificant decisions, there is always a right and a wrong. They fail to see the grey… they think if there is the best way to do something, they must do it that way, forgetting that as humans we do not have a capacity to give it all to everything. That doesn’t make us failures. That doesn’t mean we are falling short. That simply means we need to understand human limits, give ourselves credit for all that we do and permission not to do all of the things 100%.
I keep having to relearn this one, and by that I mean that my natural tendency, the habit I have from years of thinking one way and reacting to those powerful thoughts in my habits, is to judge everything I do to an impossible standard. I have to keep practicing thoughts that tell me that I can’t do it all, and reminding myself that when I try to do it all, I do none of it well. When I measure all of my actions to an impossible standard, I waste my time, energy and focus on ruining my own life rather than hugging my kids and laughing at my awful, hilarious and sometimes utterly idiotic mistakes… instead of seeing these mistakes as simply a toddler falling down as she learns to walk.
This week the memory verse I have with the kids is around this very idea, and one I want you to practice. “Failure is misunderstood learning”. It’s true; failure is simply a lens. You get to take off the failure lens and put on the learning lens if you choose, and if you want to move forward in life this is key… you will NOT be able to move forward while preventing mistakes and imperfection, you will simply stay stuck in inaction, wishing and hoping and dreaming while shaming and judging yourself, comparing yourself to a haphazard concoction made of the best parts of all the people you know… a false image of perfection.
This is what kept me from taking a leap when I had finished studying nutrition into actually using my certificate, because I didn’t know it well enough; I didn’t know it all, and because so many people knew more than me; because I didn’t want to mess up, to be an imposter; or to be proved as the imposter I felt I was because my mind was so untamed that all of the mean thoughts I heard run through my mind I believed.
This doesn’t just go for big decisions, but the little ones too. We lose motivation to do things because we don’t believe we can. We have trained ourselves to respond to fear instead of to freedom as our motivator and it reinforces lies about what we are capable of.
Additionally, As I already mentioned, Decisions take energy, and when you are wasting energy remaking decisions you have already made, or wasting energy on decisions that don’t matter much, this leads to a deficit of energy needed to make other decisions. When we are trying to do all of the things, figure out what all of the good things are and do them all perfectly, we burn through that energy pretty quickly.
When this happens, we are on empty… then we consume. We need coffee, treats, food, social media, more content; we become frazzled and have nothing note to give. We can’t give to ourselves, we can’t even stick to what we had previously decided, because there is nothing left to put toward implementation.
What I’m learning to do, is to simplify, automate and make as many decisions as I can in advance and to honor decisions I make when I make them by being trustworthy to myself in following through on the decision and not in running myself ragged over dissecting a decision after the fact. Once the decision is made, I let go and continue on; until something in my life isn’t working and then I reassess and am able to shift gears if needed.
A huge tweak that I learned from Brooke Castillo is that we have to change our beliefs about every decision being right or wrong. We hold too much moral weight in even the small decisions, fearing the consequences of the wrong decision. The truth is, our decisions are not always going to be the most optimal in theory, and there will be difficult consequences; we need to use our moral compass, but beyond that, it’s out of our hands; and if you believe in something greater than yourself, a creator who is orchestrating good in the universe, then you have to work on your thoughts here, because God has your back. You will be learning, and learning is struggling. God wants us to learn, so that won’t be avoided. But the expectation was never perfection. Think about it. Pray about it. Make a deadline and decide. Go with what your hero says, not your inner critic and allow the consequences of your choices to drive you toward learning more. Sometimes you’ll make a “poor choice” and will have phenomenal results, and sometimes you make an incredible choice and the results turn out terrible. You are in charge of your actions; you’re in charge of what you believe, think, feel and then how you show up in the world. You’re not in charge of the world. You are not supposed to avoid struggle, even though your brain will try to convince you of this with every fear tactic known to man, but you will learn and if you are learning, you are succeeding.
Again, repeat after me… “Failure is just misunderstood learning”.
If you’re not a believer in God or a higher power, you still understand that you can’t control it… hopefully you can get on board with the idea that all of the stress and fear and shame of consequences of your actions in life have not helped you move forward and learn. That is cause for surrender to outcomes. That is cause for letting go of what you can’t control in the name of finding freedom in living your life where your power actually resides; in your freedom. Your freedom to choose.
When you decide with all of this in mind, rather than with all of your fears in mind, you reinforce your freedom. When you decide, you are recognizing that you get to choose and then you’re choosing to move forward.
So many of the decisions that we struggle with are not of moral nature. They are neutral, but our thoughts have a habit of making them mean so much more for us about us and because we don’t know this mental chatter is even taking place, we don’t know we can change it and thus we just feel terrible about our perceived laziness or lack of ability to make decisions.
Not everybody struggles with decisions. For me, this is huge and I am tackling it head on the last several weeks, which has been a lot of work but so fruitful in my life.
So this might seem vague until now, because we are making decisions all day long, so I want to get a little more detailed in how I have been making changes in my life.
I have been proactive about a brain dump. I also have a notebook or piece of paper close by whether I’m with the boys or doing something so that I can jot down any ideas and they don’t take over my mind. If I get an idea about something and write it down, my brain seems to calm down about it because it won’t be forgotten. That paper at the end of the day is reviewed. It’s amazing how many fire drills come through this way, and by the end of the day I know they are not important. I have been making as many decisions that I can on things that don’t matter to preserve my energy for bigger decisions later on… things such as what we will have for breakfast in the morning, what my morning routine is, what I will wear, our weekly schedule. Our daily rhythm. My bedtime routine. When I will go to bed and when I will wake up. When I will put my phone away. I even started to decide that I would only do social media a few days a week. I will no longer put the pressure on myself to post on social media more than twice a week because of the difference it makes in my life and time management when I don’t have that going. I made a decision that I would do one podcast episode every other week so I have more time to enjoy my time with the boys. I decided ahead on what chores we tend to do each day, and what time I make dinner.
Now this might be way to structured for many of you, or seem that way… the thing that’s interesting is this is a rhythm and not a rigid schedule, and by that I mean there are days when we go rogue and I am okay with that, but I have in advance taken a lot of pressure off of myself to decide on many of the mundane things that tend to drain me of energy in the moment and now I feel more freed up to focus on taking action in my life that aligns with my goals.
Now regarding to goals, I am working on envisioning what I want in my life, but also loving what I have. In that I am able to see the next best step in areas that I am working toward. So, for example, I am working little by little on my workbook. That’s important to me and fills me up. But I also want to put more focus into our adventures as a family; camping trips, traveling, exploring together and really enjoying it and bonding. So I am making decisions to take steps every single week towards these things. I usually have a day each week or sometimes just several back to back in the month, where I work on de-cluttering my house, garage, phone, and our schedule. This is a decision I have made and it makes it so much easier for me to do. Because my biggest goal has to do with finding more and more freedom myself and spreading that to other women, so one of the biggest decisions I have made is that from 5-7 every day is sacred time for myself. I get up, walk, pray, meditate, do writing exercises, read books, practice gratitude, stretches; and this starts my day aimed in the direction of my main goal. When I’m not feeling well, that time might look like extra sleep and a less productive morning, and I’m learning to listen to the fluctuations of my cycle, but regardless, It is sacred time that I choose to dedicate to my mental health and growth.
A lot of you have been struggling with some decisions you’re sitting on that you need to make. I am not saying that you need to do the thing you’re contemplating, quite contrarily; you need to decide to do it or not. It doesn’t mean you never do the thing, but having it loom over you as a daunting and haunting “Should” is only taxing your energy and draining you of presence in your life.
So today, I encourage you to write a list of all of the decisions that come to mind. Just write it all on a piece of paper without over thinking it… a brain dump as I like to call it. Now take a look at that. Exhausting right? I want you to recognize that you don’t need to do all of those things. In fact, you don’t need to do any of them. Should is not a work I like to use… unless I’m talking about how they’re not helpful. Reflect on your list now with a perspective of logic, is there one thing that you actually feel good about and want to do. That you might be afraid to do but know if you did you’d feel great? Can you make a decision to go for it on that one and commit to yourself? It could be anything… calling a friend you lost touch with, setting an appointment for a haircut when everyone else’s needs have come before yours. Seriously, make a commitment to one of the things that’s been looming over your head for a while now and dragging you down which would actually help you. This will fuel you.
Now, I want you to find the thing that is just a should… just something you think you should do. Maybe you heard about it and now think you should do it, but it makes you feel crappy just thinking about it because there is no desire whatsoever, and instead of helping your life you know it will just stress you out more? What if you decided not to do that thing now, and just erased it… period? Or maybe you don’t think you can and that’s too scary; what if you decided then that you would not do it for at least 3 months. Decision made. Set a reminder on your calendar for that in three months. You have now two less decisions, and one of them you will act on and fuel yourself and the other will not drain you by either doing it out of perceived fear or obligation or by sitting on it perpetually. If you could do this regularly, how much less stress would your life have. Don’t try to do it all at once… take baby steps.
Your to do list should not overwhelm you… and having un-finalized decisions looming is like that. You don’t have to have all of the answers. You don’t have to make a perfect decision. But indecision is the enemy of action and actually having a life that fuels your freedom comes from acting in that freedom; it comes from choices and if you can’t decide, you’ll never move forward.
Far too often, we don’t act on what we want to because of fear; and we do act, or think we should (and overwhelm ourselves) out of fear…
The more you practice noticing the fear and not allowing it to move you away from what you want, the more you will not be afraid of the fear. That sounds crazy, I know; but all of us have thoughts that produce fear. When we can just understand and accept this fact, then we can stop fearing fear itself and start noticing it, like we do other emotions, as a cue as to what we are thinking and believing and where we need to do some more thought work.
This is the truth my friends; I’m changing the world by first changing my thoughts. I know that if I can move forward in my life, through the fear, motivated by freedom and love then I will not stop even if I fall down. The same is true for you.
So a couple of reminders before I go…
Perfectionists can tend to think in black and white. Nothing is black and white. You might think it is, but it’s not. It’s a matter of interpretation and when we realize this truly, and believe it, we can learn to back up when faced with a decision, realizing that there are more than two choices and not be so overwhelmed by the fear that we will be wrong… take a leap and you will learn so much.
Additionally, to gain a perspective in a challenging decision, you can zoom forward and think about it from the lens of your future self or from love. Both of these shifts of perspective can help you.
I know that at least for me, once I’ve made a decision fully, I’m pretty good at sticking to it; but I struggle with commuting to a decision I want to make when I fear the outcome or feel it will take too much energy. I don’t want my life consumed. So, this has been one of my struggles lately, but reminding myself that decisions don’t have to be permanent; reminding myself of the discomfort I’m feeling from not deciding; and the energy lost already from having the decision I want to make but haven’t finalized looking over my head Is pretty substantial. This also helps me to pull the trigger.
It can also help to reshape the situation so I see it as a problem that needs a solution by asking myself better questions, like I talked about in the last episode.
Also, I know that I’m wasting energy in other areas, sometimes by putting too much pressure on myself and sometimes by not giving myself what I know I need and want, and so making tweaks and decisions in those areas fuels me more to have the energy to make better decisions overall.
I really hope you find this helpful this week my friends.