Mindset Monday - Decision Power

This is episode 125 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, vitality and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider.

Hello. Hello. Happy, happy Monday. Welcome. Welcome to Mindset Monday. So here we are. We are going to go into decision power. And why? Because so many people are struggling with decisions. I see this with my coaching clients. I've experienced this myself and so I dove deep into this. It took me two weeks to really explore this further personally and also dive into it intricately so I could understand a little more about it. Because I got caught up in another decision that I felt like I was bogged down with. It was really weighing on me heavily. And I'm sure you have experienced this too. Whether it's with your finances, your health, your family. Usually it's those big rocks. It's the big things that matter to us in our lives. Maybe it's a decision on whether to move or not. So first, before we get started, I want to describe to you what I'm meaning when I say decision power. What is decision power? So I made this little definition of it. It's that incredible empowered feeling you have when you make a decision. You are able to do so efficiently and you're confident in your decision. Even if it doesn't turn out the way you want or the way you think it will, you still feel good about the decision simply because the decision is made and you can move forward. You're bringing nothing else with the decision. No baggage, no questioning, no past actions. That, my friends, is decision power. It's when you're not stuck, you're not bogged down, you're not obsessing over the decision and you're not worried about the decision going wrong. And that is decision power. So this comes with practice and confidence. How do you get confidence in decision making? You make that decision over and over again. The example of that we've all experienced, I'm sure, is maybe it's grocery shopping or meal planning or something you make a decision on on the regular and you have the utmost confidence in doing it. Even if it doesn't go exactly the way you want, you just move forward very quickly. That is the confidence in decision making. And we have that in our day to day lives on the regular. So why is it so daunting? Why do we feel so stuck? When we're going over and over and over a particular decision that we can't decide on, it typically has to do when we're in an area that we don't have as much confidence in, why don't we have as much confidence in that area? Because we don't make decisions in, in a particular area all of the time. So maybe it's a big purchase, like our finances, or maybe it's an area that simply matters to us a lot. And usually when it comes to our loved ones, our money, or a big change, or a big event in our life, those are the things that usually weigh on us the most when it comes to decision making. So in the areas that you practice at, such as choosing a weight for your exercise in the gym, or clothes to wear, or scheduling, those don't really matter as much. It's the big ones that we stress over. It's the big ones that we don't know what to do. And this has happened to me many, many times. So the decision on what university to go to, the decision to move countries, the decision to have a child, and by the time my child was 2 years old, to separate from her father. Tough, tough decisions. The decision to take a new job, the decision to leave a secure dream job in order to pursue and start my own business, the decision to sell my gym, and most recently, decisions like buying properties or purchasing a car. Notice as time passes, each one of those big decisions, your confidence, and you've made these big decisions, your confidence increases in making another decision. Now, when I go to purchase a car, it's not nearly as big of a decision for me simply because I've purchased a few cars over the course of my life, my driving lifetime. But what we do as humans is we make story and we make magnitude around the decisions that we make. And that is what makes the decision hard. Not the decision itself, not what it's about, but what we make it mean in our lives. That is what makes it so challenging. As humans, we tend to polarize. We tend to make things right or wrong or good or bad. The truth is there is no right or wrong. There is no good or bad. There is just a decision. It's only a decision. That's all. You can make a good decision and have a bad outcome. You can make a good decision and have a good outcome. You can make a bad decision and have a good outcome. You can make a bad decision and have a bad outcome. Why is this the case? Simply because it's mostly subjective. What happens after the decision? If it's different than what you wanted to happen, then you consider that a bad outcome. But the reality is, it's simply an outcome. And the decision was simply a decision. It's mostly subjective. And yet we as humans want to know the outcome so badly. Because the uncertainty of the unknown, the uncertainty of change, the uncertainty of different is sometimes too much for us to handle. Especially when it's around something that really matters to us, a team. We want to make someone we really care about, the health of a loved one, big money decisions. That's when we can't handle the uncertainty. And that is when our brains, especially our primal brains, where our emotional center is based, that is when our primal brain wants to take over. And that is not the best place to make a decision from our prefrontal cortex, our calm, our best thinking, our highest level of brain is where we want to make our best decisions from. So this is where our emotions lead us astray. As soon as we step into that fear based thinking, that survival based thinking, that primal brain, that is when we make poorer decisions, ones that are not as clear, ones that are possibly emotion based. And then the resistance of the unknown, that is when we're right in that primal brain. Our best thinking, our best planning, creating, decision making come from that higher brain, that prefrontal cortex. So I'm going to give you a few steps. And we used these particular three steps. Paul brought them into our power up call for our team. And what they are are these three steps for decision making on the level of high stakes, low stakes and no stakes. And then I'm going to give you one last tip after that. So high stakes is defining what matters most to you. These are the steps that you'll need to take. If it's a high stakes decision, big money, big family life, moving whatever it is on that really high stakes, that's really, really important to you. Then you're going to define what matters most to you. Your values. Then you're going to research a relevant decision date. When are you going to put the timeline on this particular decision? When do you want to have this decision made by? And then you're going to listen to your gut. Your gut is where you're connecting from your primal brain to your highest level brain, your prefrontal cortex. So connect to your gut. What does your emotional state say? And then tap into three to five trusted resources, really close and trusted, maybe family members, friends or professionals in the area to help you make the decision. Those will be the steps for the high stakes decisions. The low stakes decisions are delegate to someone else, outsource to someone else, or give yourself five minutes and that's it. To make that decision. A no stakes decision, like what movie to watch, Flip a coin. That's how you deal with the different categories of decisions. High stakes, low stakes and no stakes. And lastly, the last thing that I want to offer you is if you're finding that you're really stuck or you're really emotional about a decision, you're in a real fear based place, then simply stop, park it, come back to it the next day or or maybe after you've done a workout or been outside or gone for a walk or talked with someone else. But come back to it at a time when you're not in that highly emotional distraught place. Come back to it at a time when you can be in a more clear thinking and planning decision making state. So there is your overview about decision power. Decision power is something that you can create. It's going to take some practice. It's going to take that practice to develop your confidence and it's going to take those few steps on understanding how to make your best decisions. You've got this. No matter what it is, you can do it. Take the meaning away from the decision and remember it's just a decision. Let the decision be the decision, not a good or bad one, and let the outcome just be an outcome, not a good or bad one. Go for it and step into this power that you have in your decision making. Have a fantastic day and an amazing.

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