78: The Power of an Unmade Decision | Dr. Zoe Shaw

Grab a cup of tea or listen as you go, ladies. This is your hour with Dr. Zoe, your life and relationship coach. With encouragement, on-point insight, inspiring guests, health tips, and advice, Dr. Zoe helps busy women keep their mind in the game by redefining your superwoman. You're listening to the Dr. Zoe Show.

Welcome to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. I'm a licensed psychotherapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. I'm a life and relationship coach and a motivational speaker. My passion is helping women find the strength they didn't know they had, learn to harness it and share it with the world. I can work with you virtually to help you get unstuck. So today's topic is the power of your unmade decision. I'm really excited about talking about this because we all have decisions we have to make all the time, and there is actually power in the unmade ones because they cause us a lot of stress. But first, my Superwoman win and my Superwoman fail. So I don't really know if this is a win or a fail, but it's definitely an interesting observation, something that we all already know. We know our kids listen to us. We know our kids watch us and model after But I was at a bike race, my son's bike race, and there was a vendor and they were selling ice cream or something. And my daughter comes up to me and she's like, Mom, can I get ice cream? I didn't want her to have an ice cream, but I said, no, I don't have any money. I didn't really actually have any dollars. And the first thing she does is she looks at me and she's like, well, we can ask them if they'll take Venmo or Apple Pay or PayPal, right? And I kind of looked at her because I've never— she's 6. I've never taught her anything about the various pay apps. I never even recognized that I talk about them in front of her like that. And not only was she aware, of course, all kids know we can pay with our phones. The cards have money on them. They get that whole thing. But the fact that she named, quickly named off the 3 pay apps that I sometimes use. It was just astounding to me. And it just hit me what I've always known. The messages that we send to our children are essentially unspoken. Our kids watch us. They watch every single thing we do. And we know they want to be like us, but we think we're teaching them when we're talking to them and we aren't. They're probably not even listening. They're watching us and that's when they're learning. And it was just another kind of aha moment, another like, wow. Wow, I just have to be constantly cognizant of everything that comes out of my mouth, every word that I say, everything that I do, because she's watching and she's learning from that, not just the stuff that I sit down and say, okay, this is a teachable moment. So I wanted to share it. It's like neither a win or a fail, but definitely like a wow. Okay. So my win though is that We played hooky. I homeschool my daughter and we have a co-op that we go to on Mondays and we played hooky and we went and we got our nails done and we had such a great mama's daughter day. And afterwards she came home and she sighed and she hugged me and she said, I love my life. And that just made me feel so good. It's such a win because this is also the 6-year-old who's like, life's not fair. That's not fair. So just hearing your daughter say she loves her life is just warming to a mama. So there's my win. And next up, the power of an unmade decision. So disclaimer, I'm not actually going to help you make your decision. So just letting you know, that's not what this podcast is about. We all have them. I don't know you or your situation well enough to help you make your decision. And frankly, I'm just not that powerful. But what I am going to do is help you explore why you haven't made it. And possibly find some of the gifts in that indecision. A lot of this information I got from Emily Freeman's book, The Next Best Thing. She takes, you know, that whole idea of figuring out what's next for my life, and it's all about decision-making. Oprah talks about that, the next best thing. So there's so many directions that we can go in our life, and we often obsess over doing that, the right thing, the next thing. And sometimes so much that we paralyze ourselves. What we have to remember is that our life is not usually determined by one big decision. It's the little ones that add up over time that create the tapestry of our life. It's those little decisions that we often don't think about. When you add them all up together, that's it. Those are life-making. We think when we have a big one, buying a house, getting a job, going to school, having, you know, children, All those big ones, retiring or not retiring, going back to work, not— we think those are the big ones that make up our lives, but they're actually not. And so, I do want to put those into perspective a little bit if you have to make a really big decision right now. And so, if you have a big decision to make, you already know the answer to this. But if you're just going about life making those little decisions, what are signs that maybe it's time to make a big one? that maybe you need to make a decision. Some of those signs are maybe you can't stop thinking about something, you have trouble sleeping, you might be irritable, or you might just have that deep gnawing knowing that something needs to change. So what happens if you know you have a decision that needs to be made and you don't make it? Unmade decisions have a ton of power. They have a lot of power in our life because they distract us. There is nothing like procrastination to make hours go by, right? And we can do this with years in our life with unmade decisions. They hold a lot of space, and that space keeps us from being able to do the things, to do the doing. So we can think, and then we can do. Unmade decisions keep us in a thinking place instead of a doing place. And sometimes procrastination can literally become a lifestyle. So how do you know if you're just procrastinating or if you're just waiting? And I love how Emily Freeman talks about trying to kind of decipher the difference between these two. And she used the words sacred and scared, which interestingly enough, you change one letter and it changes the entire word. And she said, sometimes waiting is sacred and sometimes it's just scared waiting. Now, scared waiting isn't really productive, but sacred waiting can be extremely productive. And I'm going to talk about the gifts in the sacred waiting space. But scared waiting is a form of procrastination. It's a form of self-sabotage. And sometimes when we're waiting for something to be perfect, when we're waiting for that perfect culmination of things to happen to make a decision, decisions don't get made. Sometimes we're just waiting for us to get better, for us to be in a better place. But sometimes that whole idea that somebody has to complete their healing before they're ready to do their work is really just another form of resistance. An athlete knows that he will never be pain-free, that he has to compete hurt. And what that means is that you just have to do the thing sometimes, Even though you haven't fully, you know, mastered it. Sometimes you have to play hurt and know that the healing comes in the doing. And sometimes we fear that our decisions are going to be permanent. And some of them are, I mean, you have a kid, you know, that's pretty permanent. But we have this idea that if we make a decision that we can't unmake it, and like I said, some of them you can't, but most of them, life changes, you can make a decision to take a job. And a year or two later realize that that isn't the best decision in that moment anymore, even though it was in One moment. And so it's okay to make a decision knowing that it may not be a forever thing, but for this moment, the decision makes sense. So when you're in that place of a lot of angst, trying to make a decision, wanting to do the right thing, being so scared that you're going to make the wrong decision, what are some gifts that you can actually experience in the indecision? The reality is that nobody can make this decision but you. You may want me, your mother, your sister, your therapist, your husband, your friend to make the decision. And believe me, I get that. I've been there. I'm like, can somebody just tell me what to do? I will pay people to make decisions for me. But the reality is that's kind of the cheap way out and it never works because ultimately it's always your decision, no matter how much advice you get. And you should seek advice. Always. The decision is completely up to you. And I know that that can sound scary, but ultimately it's a gift because you will make the decision. And by the way, not making a decision is still making a decision. And so why is it a gift? It's a gift because in making a decision, it forces you to be self-sufficient. We are taught young the self-efficacy of making our own decisions. And we start to teach kids to make their own decisions. What would you like? What do you not like? What's your favorite color? We start to ask kids So they can start to understand what they do and don't like and, and make those decisions. But as adults, it's hard because it forces you to harness your inner power, no crutches, and walk on your own 2 feet. And you have to learn to trust your own inner knowing. And so that difficult space between not knowing and making the decision is a gift because you grow. It's also a gift because it is space. And we need space as humans. And I'll talk a little bit more about space in a minute, but here's the killer. The decision is rarely the point. It's actually the process. It's the process that's difficult. It's the process, you know, where we learn and grow. It's the process that's probably more important than the decision you make, because the reality is that there's room in your life for mistakes. I have learned my absolute biggest lessons from my mistakes. So it's really about the process of making the decision because the mistakes, if you make one that's not so great, you learn from it and you will make different decisions. Now, of course, a mistake repeated is actually a decision. That's a whole nother podcast. So in that space of an unmade decision, there's a lot of transformation that can take place. This is really an excellent opportunity for us to lean into ourselves and to lean into Our faith. And it's hard. And just like I talked last week with Melissa Maimone about the dark spaces, sometimes trying to make a difficult decision is a really dark space to be in. And that's when we have to get quiet and we have to focus on being quiet and honoring the process of making a decision more than worrying about making the right one. And sometimes, I believe Emily said this, when we think we're waiting on God, God's actually waiting on us. And so it's okay to wait. It's okay to not know. You don't want to stay in that space forever. It really is a season, but it's okay to say, okay, you know what? This isn't a decision that's going to be made tomorrow. This isn't a decision that's going to be made next year or maybe next month. I am going to make it. And there's a process in this making, but it's okay to sit with it and not know. Because in the not knowing, you can do a lot of exploring. You can do a lot of questioning. You can do a lot of learning, even though it's hard. And I talked last week even about that. I prescribe space and quiet time to my clients because that's where you learn yourself. That's where you learn the most about yourself. And that's what you need to be doing with a really big unmade decision. And so, although the biggest gift in your unmade decision is that space, is learning to know yourself and grow and the self- efficacy and confidence that you develop out of making it. I will give you some helpful tips because we will always have decisions to make. And so some good helpful tips as you're in the process of making your decision is to create systems to help you make good decisions. One system I use, and there are plenty of systems, I mean, lots of different ones. Some of them are just regular practices I put in my everyday life when I know I want to do something. But one of the systems that I use is really just a question. As I'm making a decision, I will ask myself, if no one else had any opinion, any input or stake in my decision whatsoever, what would my choice be? Now, I didn't say that nobody is influenced because every, you know, the whole world is influenced by every decision you make if you think of the ripple effect. But I said, if no one had an opinion or input in that decision, what would your decision be? Because often we're making decisions for other people and And we're making decisions worried about what other people are going to think. And when you take that out of the equation, you get quickly deep to the heart of your desire, of your knowing, of you knowing what you really want, what you feel is right. And it makes it a lot easier to make the decision. Now, the hard part is implementing it because you might have to implement it against what you already know other people might think or have to say about it. But you can make the decision separate from that and then figure out What you need to develop in terms of strength to implement it. Another one that Emily talks about is asking yourself the question, is this life-giving or is it life-sucking? I don't know if she used that word, but that's the word I'm gonna take. I'm gonna use, is it life-giving or is it life-sucking? Some things, you know, especially if there's stepstone decisions, like, you know, I need to make a step to go back and get my master's degree. Well, I've already done that, but, you know, go back to get my doctorate, which I did. Is that life-giving or life-sucking? Life-giving. Well, some of the stuff might have been a little bit life-sucking, but maybe it's a stepping stone towards something that's life-giving. But asking yourself that question can help you think, okay, is this something I want to have in my life because it's useful and will ultimately be life-giving? Or is it just a life-sucking thing? A really big one that I think women especially need to concentrate on is, is it the season? So there are many great decisions that could be made. But sometimes they're made at the wrong time, and timing is everything. As you're thinking about a really good opportunity, about a decision that needs to be made, the question is, if you look over the whole tapestry of your life, from what you already know and what you assume or plan to have in your life, is this the right season for this decision, or is there maybe a better season in the future? That's a hard question to ask, but if you can get super honest with yourself, it makes it a lot easier to make. decision. So ultimately, I just want to impress upon you that you have the power, you have the ability, you have the strength, you have the inner knowledge to make whatever difficult decision you need to make in your life. It's really about getting quiet, honoring the whole process of not knowing, seeking advice and answers, and then making the thing. You can do this. Thank you for listening to the Dr. Zoe Show. New shows go up every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and please connect with me. I love to hear from my listeners. You can connect with me at any of my social at Dr. Zoe Shaw, or you can also join my newsletter list. And what I do is I send out encouraging Sunday motivation newsletters, or really just an email, and then I let you guys know when my new podcasts are up. And you can do that by texting the word join to 38467. I look forward to hanging out with you wonderful ladies on social media throughout the week. Have a great week.

You've been listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman, with your host, Dr. Zoe Shaw. Don't forget to sign up for her monthly newsletters to get encouragement, tips, and skills for keeping your mind in the superwoman game. Connect with her now. at www.drzoeshaw.com. Tell your friends and subscribe to her podcast on iTunes. Join us next time for another edition of The Dr. Zoe Show.