Why You Can’t Make a Decision (And How to Make It Easy)

In this video, I wanna talk to you about how to make aligned decisions on autopilot. So the way we think we make decisions is that one is gonna lead to a better outcome than the other one, right? So we're gonna think, okay, if we make that decision, my life is gonna be better than if I make this one, then it might not be. And there's a wrong decision to make, like under the belief that there is a wrong or a right or a better decision. And I have learned to understand over the years that it is actually not true. There's actually no right or wrong decision. So there's a few different ways to think about this, and you can kind of pick what resonates with you. So the first way is that there, there actually is no wrong or right decision. You could pick either of the decisions. So say it's like 2 different jobs you wanna take, right? And maybe one is more secure. Um, and less challenging. And then the other one is, you know, it's not very secure. We don't know what's gonna happen. It's riskier, but the upside is higher, right? So let's just say, for example, that's the decision, right? And you think there's a wrong or right one, right? You think, okay, if I take the secure job, I'm probably gonna have a better life because I won't have to worry or I won't have to stress about things being unstable or I'm less likely to lose that job. If I take the other one, then I might be really stressed out and I might not know what's happening, and I might have, I might feel more stress and that might lead to less of a high quality life. So what I wanna invite you to understand is that either of those decisions, it's all like the success of you in either of those decisions is gonna be based on your thoughts about who you are. Mm-hmm. So if you identify as somebody who is very secure and certain and just really needs security and certainty a lot more than the average person, because we all need that, we all want to feel secure and certain even though we live in an uncertain world, then you're probably going to choose based on that. And it's based on your identity. So you, as an— you would identify as somebody who's like, yeah, I like secure, stable, and I don't like to take any risks. I don't like to have anything potentially stressful happen. I would rather take that. And to some people, that's very boring if they identify with excitement and, you know, chaos and things happening that they get to fix and jump in. And so that's why it's like, it's very different being an entrepreneur versus being somebody who is looking for a job and just wants to stay in that job forever, right? So it's like 2 different types of people. And as I hang out with both of them, right, and hang out with my circle of entrepreneurs, um, in my groups and my communities and the communities that I pay for, And then I hang out with my clients and people who are in a more secure-minded mode. You can see very clear patterns of identities of who they are, right? So the entrepreneurs, they can handle uncertainty more, right? If they've been doing it for a long time, they've been through these ups and downs, they know what that feels like. So they're likely to choose the decision that is more exciting and has the bigger upside based on who they identify to be, right? They're like, yeah, I'm somebody who wants to, wants to get that upside, it's more exciting for me. I'd rather take that chance versus somebody who's like, nope, absolutely not. I just want security. So the, the example that I use is this guy named Bill who I used to work with at the grocery store that I used to work with when I was at, from when I was 15 years old, I believe I started at that grocery store. And he still works there. I'm 42. I am 42 years old and he is still there and he still stocks the milk. And he stocks the dairy fridge and he's been doing that for however many years that is. And he is somebody who makes all of his decisions based on security, based on unchanging. Like I even asked him, I'm like, how's it going? And he goes, unchanging. And I'm like, just the way you like it, right? And he goes, yep. And that's his identity, right? And so for, for me, it's definitely not been that. I haven't chosen all the safest paths. And I think that you probably watching this probably haven't either. But you'll make decisions based on who you are, who you identify to be. So, and also like, there is no right or wrong. Like, if you wanna be the person who is secure and you like that about yourself and you're like, I wanna be that person, I like the person who, who I am, then no problem. And if you don't wanna be like that, if you're like, you know what, I want to grow my capacity to take some risks. Mm-hmm. And I actually, like, there's a part of me that really wants that exciting opportunity. But I see the fear there in the way, and I don't really want to, you know, miss out on something great, then that's something you can look at, and that's an opportunity for your growth. So the second point is you can actually make decisions based on guiding principles, and we are all making decisions based on guiding principles anyway. We're just usually not aware of them. So what I just mentioned about the, um, security-based mindset and identity, and then the risk, more risk-taker, more Um, open to uncertain outcomes based on mindset and identity. You— both of those people are operating on guiding principles, but they don't know, they're not necessarily conscious of those guiding principles, right? So they're just making those decisions automatically. Like if somebody gave Bill a chance to change jobs, if they said, hey Bill, you wanna become the manager of the store? Um, he's probably gonna say no, right? And in fact, I know that he had been offered several times to move up and You know, have different opportunities and he just didn't want them, right? So it's, it, it's a guiding principle and you get to choose these guiding principles for yourself. And a lot of us just don't do that intentionally. So one that I learned early on was that when I see my growth, I will run straight towards it because I want to, that's who I want to be. And so that guiding principle made it really easy to make some decisions that were really hard, would've been really hard to make. So for example, um, when say, say I'm on a coaching call and a coach points out my growth and they say, okay, they, they coach me and they, they ask me some questions and they're like, okay, what are you avoiding? What are you trying to avoid by doing that? And they come to the conclusion that I'm in avoidance of something. And then they say, okay, well, your work is to go do this, is to go ask this person this, is to go do this. Then my decision on autopilot might is just, okay, I'm just gonna go do that. 'Cause I can see it. I can see that's where my growth is and I need to go do it. Whereas somebody who doesn't have that guiding principle, maybe their guiding principle is, I wanna stay comfortable, then they wouldn't go and do that 'cause they would be at emotional risk. They would risk fear rejection. They would risk feeling disappointed. They would risk all these things that they don't wanna feel. So if you're led by the guiding principle, for example, of if, if and when I see my growth, I run straight towards it. Mm-hmm. Or when I see it, like you can see it yourself or you can have a coach point it out to you, you're gonna make a very different decision than somebody who says, oh, um, I'd rather just stay comfortable and not take the risk. I'd rather just not, not go for it. Right. And those are 2 decisions made by 2 people who just had very different guiding principles. Right. And you get to decide what those principles are for you. So, um, another example of a guiding principle might be to, um, embrace discomfort. It might be like, you, you might be like, okay, I understand that there's a few things I have to do that are uncomfortable that are gonna get me from point A to point B. So when I'm given the chance to do those things, I'm going to do them. And so that might mean that at a networking event, maybe somebody says, hey, would you like to come and meet this person? Or would you like an opportunity to speak on this stage? Or, you know, we would like to invite you to this. You would just say yes to that for the most part, right? You would evaluate it, obviously, if it was worth your time, but you would say, you would be more likely to say yes to that because you want to embrace discomfort. You wanna do things that grow you and push you. And so, and that growth might be in different areas, right? It might be that you are keeping yourself really, really, really busy. In order to avoid the feeling of stillness and just resting. And so this is why it's really helpful to have somebody point these things out to you because you can't often see them yourself, right? We're often like, we're, our default is to stay in our comfort zones. So a lot of the people that I work with, they will say things like, oh, I hired you because I knew that you were gonna push me, or I knew that this was the next level for me, right? Like I'd listened to your podcast, I'd listened to all this stuff, and I knew that The next level for me was to get you to, you to personally push me and see my gaps and point out my growth, right? So those are just examples, but the, the recap here is there is no right or wrong decision, right? And you are basing that on the fact that there's some future predetermined that is set in stone that you would know about, right? And it's like you can't predict the future, so you don't know what the decision would be. Right? A fun little hack if you want, if you're in the middle of like making a decision and you don't know what to do, pick, uh, take a coin, flip it heads or tails, and assign heads to one decision, assign tails to the other decision, flip it, see what it lands on, and then see how you feel when you get the answer. And be like, okay, that's gonna be my decision. That's it. And then see how you feel when you get that answer. So letting the universe make the decision for you and then see how your body reacts, right? And you'll see your true feelings about the decision. So there is no right or wrong decision. There is the decision that you make from the identity that you, that you currently have. And then when you, when you make decisions based on the identity that you wanna have, so say you're somebody who's very security-minded, but you want to be taking more risks, you want to become more comfortable with uncertainty, you might say, okay, so that's my growth. So that's the decision I'm gonna make. And that's gonna grow you for a whole ton of reasons. First of all, you're gonna have to become more comfortable with uncertainty. You've now put yourself in a position where you have no choice but to embrace that. and learn to feel that and learn to go through the terrain that that involves, right? And that's a beautiful thing because the real security comes from you doing that over and over again. And it comes from you showing yourself that you will be able to have more, more success on the other side, even though there's gonna be ups and downs and dips in the road. And the interesting thing that I'm seeing now is that a lot of people are posting about how they can't find work or they're really struggling to find work. And it's like, That, that uncertainty is what's killing people. It's like the not knowing, and the not knowing comes from them having an identity of not being certain of themselves to create, right? And it's because they haven't had to, right? Like, for example, if you're an entrepreneur and you've had a lot of ups and downs, right? Maybe you've had some down months and you've had some ups. And like, if, if anybody who's an entrepreneur knows that you don't just like linearly grow your business and everything works out perfectly all the time, like you are going to have Downtimes, you're going to have stagnant times, right? And the more you go through that, you realize that you can, that you can handle that, that you can handle the emotions of it, that you can handle the problem solving of it, that you can figure that stuff out and you can, and then you can keep going up. Usually what I like to show is a graph. It's like the stock market, you, it goes up and then it'll go down a little bit and then maybe it'll stagnate a little bit, then it'll maybe go up a bit, but it's never just this linear path up like we think it's supposed to be. So decisions are made based on thinking there's a right or wrong. There isn't. You choose it based on the identity that you have or that you want to have. You can choose from your future self, your future self, what would your future self do? And that is all dependent on who you wanna be, and there is no right or wrong. Second, you make decisions based on guiding principles that you already have. They're either conscious or subconscious. So you can look at your decisions and see what your guiding principles are. Like, say you've lived in the same place, you've done the same things, you've had the same friends, you haven't moved. Like, and this is my, my husband, my partner. He is that person, right? He had had, he's had the same job for 16 years. He's, he would've been in the same relationship if she, like, he was in a relationship with someone else before me for 18 years. And the only reason he left is because he realized she was never gonna have kids and that's what he wanted the most in his life. So, um, he ended up leaving and then we met and we had a kid and that was one of the biggest risks that he took. But he is like, he has the same friends since he had in like elementary school. He's had, he did move towns. He did move towns, but he's been in, in where we live now for, um, probably 18. Yeah, 18 years. 'Cause he met his partner then and then. So, and there's nothing wrong with that cuz he likes that life, right? He's happy with that life. He has a secure government job. He loves that life. And he wouldn't change, he wouldn't wanna change that stuff unless he absolutely had to. And even him, he's willing to go through that discomfort to get on the other side what was really, really important to him. So leave a relationship of 18 years in order to go after an unknown that he never, he didn't know guaranteed that he would meet someone that would wanna have kids with him. He didn't know any of that, but he was willing to do that for that reason. But he wouldn't, he wouldn't have done it otherwise. He's like, yeah, we would've just had kids in his old relationship and that would've been okay. Even though he wasn't happy, he wasn't happy in that relationship. He's like, yeah, it would've been a lot tougher. It would've been a lot harder if we had, but he would've stayed because that's his guiding principle is security. And there is nothing wrong with that. There's no judgment here about that. It is just the way, it's just the way for me to explain. How you make decisions and how you shape your life, right? So I want you to ask yourself, what are my guiding principles? Can you see any of them right now? Like if you're looking out at your decisions and what you have, like what, what do you, what would you guess your guiding principles are? And then what might you want them to be? And what principles would lead you to the decisions that would most align with the life that you want? Inside my community, I am gonna be doing a full workshop on this, on how to make aligned decisions that you can make on autopilot. Because once you have a guiding principle, then you will make decisions based on that guiding principle without even having to think about it. Like you won't have to be like, oh, is it this? Is it that? Like you won't have to make the pros and cons list cuz you'll just know, right? So for example, if one of your guiding principles is I'm always gonna be honest with my partner. When they ask you a question that maybe you don't want to tell them, you're just going to probably tell them the truth because that was what you decided already was your guiding principle, right? So when I come home and my husband's like, how much money did you spend on that? I'm going to be like, I'm going to just tell him. Eventually I'm going to tell him the truth because I've decided ahead of time that I just want honesty in the relationship and I want transparency from him and I want to give that, right? So we make decisions basically ahead of time from who we've decided we are. And you can change that decision at any time. You can decide you wanna be somebody else. You can decide you wanna have a different life. You can make these decisions and change them. But the core principle is that there is no right or wrong decision. It is just, is that decision in line with the life you want? And if you continuously make decisions in line with the life you want, then you will create it. Now, the problem is people are making decisions against their values. So they're making decisions that they feel they have no choice in making. They maybe got talked into by somebody else. They're limiting themselves somehow with a limiting belief or a subconscious guiding principle that they got from their parents, and they end up creating things that they don't actually want in the end, right? So another good guiding principle is, um, is that I'll always Speak up in the moment. This is one that I've practiced and that my dad taught me when I was younger. He always taught me to go and ask for what I wanted, right? He would force me to go up and order my own food, or he would go, like, not in a bad way, but he would always be like, go, you have to go ask to be paid for those classes. Like, I was doing some classes at the rec center where I grew up, and I wasn't asking to be paid because I was filling in for an instructor who was sick. And she ended up being sick for a really long time. So she ended up being off for months, and I ended up covering her classes. And I decided that I was just going to do this because it was great. It was a great opportunity. It was fun for me. I loved it. And I was getting hours in for practice because I was getting my certification for this type of fitness instruction. So I decided, you know what, it doesn't matter. I'm just not going to get paid. And so when my dad found out about this, he's like, no, you go. You ask them. You say, hey, I need to be paid for these classes or I won't be able to continue teaching them. And I didn't wanna do this, and I fought my dad on it and I said, no, it's okay. I'm getting experience. I would have to pay for these classes anyway. You don't understand, Dad. Like, I was like, no, this is a great opportunity for me. And he said to me, no, I don't care about any of that. You are doing work for them that they would be paying somebody else for. You go ask for that payment. And so I did, and they wrote me a check. And from then on I was like, okay, imagine if I hadn't have asked for that. Imagine what would've happened. So my guiding principle is I always ask For what I want. And so that's automatic. So if I'm like in a conversation with my husband and I'm like, oh, I think I'd like to do that, or can we do that? Like, it's not, I'm not like, oh, I wonder if he's not going to want to, blah, blah, blah. It's just an automatic thing that I do. So to learn more about guiding principles, you can sign up to get into my community. It's called Better Than Qualified. You can like this video if you'd give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, give it a thumbs down if you don't like it, and just probably don't listen to any of my other videos. And I will see you next week.