This guide is for those who like me find it sometimes challenging to make a choice. Do you oscillate from overthinking it to impulse decisions in an attempt not to overthink? Well then this article is for you. After bothering multiple friends with photos of my soon to be a couch, maybe? What do you think friends?…I told myself ‘enough’. You are nearly forty, it is about time you learn to sit back and make your own decisions. I came up with this process and practiced it over the last six months and I must say it has been working amazingly well.
It is applicable to any decisions, from buying a toaster to buying a property or choosing your next family holiday destination, your next job or ‘do I go on that date or not’ kind of decisions? Depending on the perceived importance of your decision this process will take five minutes or five weeks, you are the boss here. It will give your decision making structure and transform what used to be either a perpetuated state of regret post an impulse decision or equally life energy draining state of indecision into an empowering state of growing, moving, transforming – enjoying life to it’s fullest potential. Embracing change is a condition to our evolution, our growth, our moving in life and the better you are in decisions making the easier dealing with change will become. Are you ready? Here goes.
Think roughly of what it is you want or need. You don’t have to be super precise here as yet. Just start somewhere.
1. Research your options, ask your friends, read reviews, question reviews.
2. Shortlist 2-3 choice candidates that meet your life situation, budget, time-frame, space, personality. Basically make sure they are somewhat reasonable without settling for boring. You still need to feel joy thinking about any of those.
3. Let the dust settle. Give your brain some time to absorb the detail of your research and create new connections about how your decision will impact your world, future, home, family etc. for better or for worse.
Even if you feel pretty strong about your decision now, hold back.
4. Meditate. In your meditation aim to turn of the chatter of the psyche that usually includes parental, marketing and social pressure voices that have nothing to do with You. Lean back, bypass the noise, connect to your heart, ask your soul ‘what will give me the most joy?! You will get an instantaneous and clear answer.
5. Make the choice within three seconds of reaching clarity of heart (call the agent, make an on-line purchase, e-mail to accept the job) before the mental chatter that’s not You starts doubting and second guessing your decision.
6. Your intellect and psyche keep questioning your choice? Buyer’s regret and doubt creeping in? That’s ok, let them. Most importantly you made A choice which is key to moving ahead with your life. And if your heart is screaming with regret? Well bingo, you know what to choose now and in order to be in that space you needed to chose the other thing first. At least now you know instead of being stuck in that painful and stale land of inaction.
Always remember there is no such thing as a good or a bad decision. They are all just decisions as we will never know what would have happened if we chose the other thing. We think we know, but that is just a fantasy, constructs of our brains, movies of our imagination that have nothing to do with reality. At any point in life we can only make a decision in the here and now, building upon the results of previous choices for sure, but those are gone. Every moment is an opportunity to make a different choice.
As a last piece of advice I’d like to remind you that we only have a certain capacity to make choices each day. If you work in a job where you need to make dozens of decisions each day it may well be that by dinner time the choice between pizza or pasta will cause you a major brainfreeze, know that feeling? As our legs get tired running, equally the part of our brain responsible for decision making has its daily quota. So be kind to yourself and take it one decision at the time. Or as my mum says ‘sleep on it’ to recharge your decision making credit.
Happy choosing and here is to deciding, changing, growing and flowing through life effortlessly.
The Bookbinder’s Wife
Illustrated by my daughter Hannah, 6 years old. The Bookbinder was looking at his wrinkly old fingers. They were always a little bit sticky from the waxed binding thread he worked with each day. The tips of his fingers were bruised from the occasional needle that...