The High Cost of Deferring Decisions

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. The show to help you break free from social anxiety, people pleasing and self doubt so you can speak up, connect, and be 100% you. I'm Dr. Aziz, sharing tools that have transformed my life and thousands of others. Let's all liberate ourselves together. Hey, welcome to today's episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. Today we're gonna talk about dying a terrible, terrible death. No, no, not, not for you. Not for you. Ain't never gonna happen to me. But that reference, by the way, is to a Simpsons line, which I'll explain, but no, we're gonna be talking about how you can live an extraordinary life. And it turns out that there are some things that people can experience as they get close to the end of their life. So some regrets that can actually serve as a, as a powerful wake up call and reminder for us and what you can do today, this week, this month, this year, that really sets you up to not only not have certain regrets as you die, but also how to not have regrets for this year, how to feel fully alive this very week of your life. Because that's the ultimate goal, is not to have, do something now that, oh, maybe in 20 years, 50 years, I'll, I'll feel better then. What about now? What about this week, this month, this year? So ready to dive into it? Well, that line, by the way, about dying a terrible, terrible death comes from the Simpsons, which was seminal in my development in my humor. And I know it's still going. I think, what are they on season 479. But I watched the classics. I'm like a snob. Like, I don't even watch the new stuff anymore, but I watched it from probably season three to 17 or something. And there's a ton when I was young. And there's an episode where Marge calls a psychic, a telephone, a radio psychic. And he. As soon as she. It's like a very short segment, right? You get to talk to this guy for like 10 seconds. And she's like, hello? And he's like, hang on, I'm getting something. Okay. You will die a terrible, terrible death. And he's like, oh, my God. And he's like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. That was our last caller. Okay, I'm getting something else here for you. Okay, I got it. You will die a terrible, terrible death. This is brilliance. But in any case, what is that in this case for us? Well, it turns out, and this is something that I share in some of my books. I believe in less nice, more you I talk about this, but it's the research of Bronnie Ware, who's a hospice nurse, and she compiled her, you know, relatively informal, qualitative research of talking to a lot of people as they died and compiling their regrets. And she put into a book called the Top Five Regrets of the Dying. And so, you know, this isn't large mass population studies, but you can extrapolate to say, you know, these sound pretty spot on, and I bet a lot of people have this. And we'll just cut to the number. Numero uno. Number one regard of the dying is I wish I'd lived a life true to myself and not the life that everyone else wanted for me. Boom, right? Mic drop. Ugh. And that's impactful. That's impactful to think, what if that's the number one regret of most people and maybe as they die, but maybe years before then, Right? Maybe it's the regret that most people are having right now. And another regret, by the way, that people often share is holding back, both in basic, basically in positive risks in their life, going for things as well as expression of love, saying what they wanted to say, and always kind of deferring that. Right. So first, let's let that settle in. And second, how do we change that? How do we address that? Well, a key to that is living your life, not the life that others wanted for you. What does that even mean, living my life? Right. Is it like the Bon Jovi song It's My Life? I guess, kind of. That's why that song is so popular among the. Among the youths. But, yeah, we got to reclaim something here, and it's uncomfortable, especially if you've been living someone else's life. Like, whose life are you living? Is it what my parents wanted? Is it what my spouse wants? Is it what my friends think is good? Is it what my business mentors or teachers or academic professors or whoever in industry or life says is right or good? Is it what my internalized idea of a good person is? And I'm not saying you cast everything out and it was all a big sham, but there's, like, pieces of it that are not, you know, you. They're like the structures you've created around yourself, the illusion of who you are that is not real. And if you live it, if you cling to that all the way to the end, you will have. I mean, I'm not going to say this definitively about what's going to happen for you, but many people, most people experience that as regret later on. So how do we shift this? Well, what we need, I mean, there's a million ways. One is becoming less nice and more you. Right? I got big. A lot of books about that. But one specific thing that I want to narrow in here is to take control of the steering wheel of your life and steer it and stop deferring that to everyone else. And there's one key pattern that I've seen that causes most many people from not grabbing that steering wheel. And it is a habit of decision deferral. And so here's how it goes. We have an idea. And this is a very common, I'd say, misconception that's only gotten intensified in this era. What is called the age of information. At least that's. I don't know, do people still use that term? But when I was a kid, that was a thing, right? It's like we're living in the age of information. One day, all these books, and they would point at Encyclopedia Britannica or whatever will be on a. On a cd, on a disc. Which is true. It's true. That did happen. And then, of course, then it went from like, why on a disk that you still have to look stuff up on? Why not on some device that you just talk to and it tells you everything, right? The oracle that is. Chatgpt. Oh, great. Chatgpt, tell me what happened in 1847. Oh, great, great. That's good. That was true. Okay, great. Ch. Chatgpt. Oh, great. Chatgpt. Tell me what I should do today. Please become my source of certainty now, great oracle. But the. The robots shall become our gods. Anyway, we have this unconscious idea. It goes like this. Imagine a little causal chain here with arrows, right? Information arrow leads to insight, leads to motivation, leads to action. Bam. Right? So if I can just take in enough information, then I'll have some insight. Aha. That's why I've been holding back. That's why I'm not doing this thing. That's why I'm not speaking up. That's why I'm not going for this thing in my life. Ha. And then I'm gonna feel motivated, like, well, if that's the only thing that's holding me back, look out world, here I come. And then I'm gonna take massive action. And there's some pitfalls in this. In that information definitely can lead to a sense of insight, and it can lead to a burst of motivation. But often we don't break through into action because motivation does not necessarily lead to action. And I'll explain why In a minute. And so what often happens is we have a flurry of temporary motivation and then we go back to, well, I didn't take the action. I, I didn't feel quite ready to take the action. I'm uncomfortable taking the action. So let me go back to information. And we become information harvesters. We become like these strange hermit type librarians, scholars in one of those tall library towers where we're just filing the books away. Ooh, that's another interesting piece of data. Ooh, right. You know, we read another book, you read another book, watch another video, listen to another podcast. Oh, file that one away. And we're really, really smart, we know a lot. But there's a big discrepancy between where we, you know, the life that we really want to live. And what is that discrepancy? Well, it's action, right? That's at the end of the day, that's what is the difference between you living your life and you living the life of someone else's different actions, right? So we're reverse engineering this and say, well, what leads to action and it's not more information. So let me give you a simpler causal chain that's only got three things that helps us bypass this major problem of decision deferral. Right? And that's ultimately why we don't take the action. Because here's how the data chain, how the chain goes. I already got to the. Should have said the first one in there slipped up. Data is the first thing in the chain. Now, is data different than information? Yeah, it is, because data implies more empiricism. Empiricism, science, where you could take in information, other people's smart sounding ideas like yours truly, super smart. And then though you actually want to take in your own evidence from your own experience, that's what makes the data. You go harvest the data. You learn some stuff by doing some stuff. So you take in that data. Maybe you measure some things too. I'm a big fan of measurement, by the way. Then that data leads to decisions. It must data. Information that you take in that does not lead to decisions is not about growth or change or action or anything. I'm not saying you can't do that. You want to read a fun meet me reading an audio or reading an audiobook? Listening to an audiobook fiction is me taking in information. It's fun. It's enjoyable. I like it. You watching a show, you, you know, learning about, I don't know, some interest, some passion you have about history or outer space or with some Theory of, you know, the James Webb telescope has observed a black hole in sector seven. Right. Cool. Probably not gonna lead to a lot of action, difference in your life, but it's interesting and that's fine. And we just want to slot it as that, though, and not delude ourselves into thinking that it's something different. Like it's transformational to know about James Webb Telescope pictures. Although that's not the best example, because it kind of is. If you really ponder what James Webb telescope and other sort of observation of the universe shows us. I mean, that's like a. That's a conduit to God right there. It doesn't blow your mind. I don't know what will. But in any case, we want to take the information and turn it to a decision. That's how you know that the data or the information is in the service of real action. And you take in enough data so you can make a decision. Now, here's where a lot of people get tripped up, because they say, well, I don't want to make a decision yet because that's uncomfortable. And my answer to that is yes. And then maybe the laugh is more maniacal afterwards. I don't know. But yes, the decisions are uncomfortable. Right? The Latin root. I don't know, I didn't really even pay attention to Latin in ninth grade. But it means to cut off. I didn't actually learn that in ninth grade. I just learned that from someone else not that long ago, but makes me sound smart, doesn't it? Just reference some Latin if you want to impress people. To cut off. That's the root, Right? So it's uncomfortable to cut something off. We don't want to decide. We want to stay in the place of. I'm not sure yet. I don't know know yet. But. But actually, when you say, I'm not sure yet, I don't know yet. You are making a decision by indecision. So you're in a job and you're. I. Oh, should I change? You're in a relationship. Should I. You are making the decision to stay by not making the decision to leave, period. And that's okay. I'm not telling you to burn I don't know what's going on in your life. Right. Don't burn everything to the ground, you maniac. But just know that that's what I'm deciding. And that's fine if you own that right now, I'm deciding to stay in this job, and I do this with clients all the time. Right. If they're in this I don't know phase, it's like, okay, let's. Let's explore your options and let's come up with decisions. Now, taking in data and making a decision doesn't mean you have to do it. Like tonight it could be okay. And I've done this with clients, okay, you've been circling around this career change thing for five years before you met me. Here we are. Let's do what, 60 days of concerted focus, effort, deep thinking, research. And then you have a plan, you start to implement it. I mean, if that freaks you out. 90 days, I mean, what do we need? Five more years? I would say compress it to 30 because. What's that? There's a phrase, right? Like the time it takes to complete a task expands for the time that we've allotted to it, or something like that. We'll just delay that stuff for 60 days. I got plenty of time. What's on Netflix? Let's take in some information, the good kind of information that doesn't actually lead to any scary action and decisions, but ultimately then I'm going to regret my life at the end of it. So let's not do that. Let's choose. Let's make decisions. And so I like to compress the timeline for decisions. Make a decision and then build your capacity to take immediate action upon the decision. If you make a decision and then you do nothing, did you really decide anything? I'm gonna totally get in shape. Totally. I decided. I decided that I'm going to get in shape. Okay, cool. What'd you do? I just did it, dude. I decided. But then what? Oh, then, then I went watch Netflix. What do you mean? It's the evening. I'm not gonna do anything now. It's tomorrow. Besides, I'm just gonna eat more tonight because I told myself I'm gonna start working out tomorrow. Right, so then you haven't. You haven't made the decision. Decision is combined with put a practice putting into practice, putting into action. So if you really made the decision, you would reply to your friend says, yes, I'm committed. I'll see you tomorrow at 7am at the gym. Or you go sign up for your frickin orange theory class or whatever it is you're gonna do. Or you get out and you go for a walk that evening after you ate to help your body, which is actually great for your blood sugar, by the way, if you go for a little evening constitutional after you finish your dinner, right? So it doesn't have to be some dramatic thing. It doesn't have to be. Yeah, yeah, you're. You signed up for a Spartan race, although that could be a form of putting it into action. But you. You see, my point here is we put it into action. And so if you hear that and you're like, ugh, I don't know about that. That is a sign that we don't want to decide. We want to defer the decision. And that's usually because we're scared of the action. Action means change. Change is scary. Because I know one thing for sure is I'm alive right now. That's the one thing I can tell you for sure. And if you're listening to this, I can tell that about you as well. You're alive. Congratulations. And there's a part of us. It's like there's a survivor inside that says, well, if I do anything different, maybe that condition will change. And besides, I had some discomfort in the past, and it was real bad, so it could only get worse. I don't want that pain. So we can do that. How long have you done that? How long have I done that? I mean, I could tell you stories from my life of doing that for years and years and years and years. And, yeah, I felt a radically diminished sense of aliveness. It sucked. And I bet you can relate to that, too, from different phases in your life. And so let's do something different. But how. How do I do that? Right? And you see how that question almost puts it, as if it's outside of my control. Well, we just decide. I mean, to put it as simple as possible. You decide and you do stuff. Then you do it again. You decide and you do stuff. You decide and you do stuff. And there's decisions that we're putting off, we're putting off. And it's under the illusion that I'm gonna somehow get more good information. I need more data. But do you. Or are you waiting for a sense of certainty and finality and solidity and wanting to. If I know, then I'll do it. And just take a moment, take stock. How long have you been waiting? How long have you been deferring certain decisions? And of course, there's this great fear, like, well, what if I decide wrong? And, okay, we can look at that. First of all, how do you even define what wrong is? Is wrong something that's uncomfortable, something that doesn't bring you the result that you want? Something that's painful? And is something that's uncomfortable or painful bad? Is it part of the path? Is it part of the Learning. Can we decide with such perfection that we never have uncomfortable outcomes? I mean, those are all worth considering. That's a longer exploration probably than this, than this episode. But then also what about not deciding? What about deciding to keep doing the thing you're doing? Right? Because remember, not deciding is a decision. What is the pain embedded in that? Even if it's deferred and doled out slowly. Right? So loneliness. Okay, what if I go do this thing and put myself out there? I could get rejected. Oh my gosh. I better wait and decide later what I if when I'm gonna do it. Okay, but then you're not getting rejected. You're not putting yourself out there. But then you're accumulating this chronic pain points that comes from loneliness or isolation or not living your life fully. So we wanna take that into account as well. And realized that there is no path that doesn't involve pain. That doesn't mean that all paths are only pain. It means that everything in life is gonna involve some pain, but also greater. Like we want to be going for something else other than the avoidance of all discomfort. Want to be going for meaning or purpose or passion or enjoyment or love or honesty or connection or truth or authenticity or just anything that's your values that's going to make you feel more alive. So let's talk about how to put this fittingly enough into action. Time for action. Action. Well, action. Definitely don't decide anything today on this episode, during this action step as you're listening and then put that decision into action. I mean that this would not be. That this is not the place for that. How dare you. You put that away. Besides, are you really sure? Are you really sure? I don't know. It's probably not. It's probably not the time, right? I mean, it's uncomfortable. It's scary. It's scary to decide. So what if we just wait? I bet tomorrow it won't be scary. You'll have more data, you'll have more information. You'll just feel it. You'll feel different tomorrow or maybe in a month and you'll make the decision. Okay, so that's your action step for today is to not decide anything and just wait 60 to six years and then, and then you see, and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Okay? I can't do it. I can't do it. It's just too painful to end it that way. I mean, I guess I could Leave it as some like really uncomfortable dissonance inside. But you know I'm joking, right? Like, or maybe I'm just in a playful way, needling something, a pattern that's there. So I'm being playful, maybe is a better way to say that I'm joking because I don't know if that was a funny HAHA joke or a funny my life. So let's change that. And if, if, like when would now be a good time? So my invitation for you right now is to make a decision and act on it. And I'll leave that up to you. Whatever size, whatever scope, something that's been building for months or years, or it's maybe something relatively small that feels like a, you know, a five pound weight you could just go lift today. Hey, I don't care. Honestly, whatever it is, small or big, it's not about impressing somebody. It's about you just taking control of some sort of process or mechanism, getting used to doing it again and again. All right now, for reals, until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. 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