TTM #22 RIGHT DECISIONS
You are listening to me talking to myself. Welcome to the podcast, where I share useful tools to create more space, more freedom, inner peace, connection, and life on purpose.
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Decisions are the ultimate power we have in our lives. Decisions are where we can find the power to create the life we want to create and evolve into the highest version of ourselves. We make decisions all the time. If we don't become aware of our decisions, we choose them unconsciously. What we are not changing, we are choosing. And our brain likes to have it easy comfortable and choose the path of least resistance, basically repeating the pattern and making the same choices we have already made before multiple times.
Unfortunately, most of us stop making decisions as we get older. We simply fall into patterns of living out the decisions we have made in the past. We often fall into believing that we have to do things, that we have to live out decisions that have already been made in our lives, or think that all of our important decisions in life have already been made. And sometimes those unconscious thoughts leave us feeling a little disempowered, but when we are consciously making decisions, this is where our power lies.
I would like to challenge you to consider that none of this is true and that you can explore all of your options continually. And this is something I would recommend to doing.
How do I change my thinking? When you decide that you want to believe something new, believe is a thought we think again and again, so if you decide you want to create a new belief, you practice thinking the new thought. You consciously decide the thought and choose to think it on purpose, and the brain will go back to the old thinking because this was comfortable and this is what we know. So by practising believing and thinking new thoughts we create a new pathway. The more we practice, the stronger the pathway will become. And this is what helps us effectively make changes that we want to see in our lives. And it gives us the power to really decide what we want. Go back to Episode Nine to learn more about beliefs and the process of believing on purpose.
What is a decision? A decision is a commitment to a thought, feeling and action that creates a result. In other words, a committed action driven by a committed thought. Any decision is simply a decision to believe something by committing to thinking it. A lot of our early life decisions are simply given to us, some of them are useful, and some of them are not serving us anymore. From an early age, we are taught what to believe and what to think. As children, we don't have the capacity to question what we are taught. So we take on the decisions of our parents and our society and our teachers without even realising that it's optional. Without questioning it. We often don't consider all the options before moving forward because we are so programmed to think in a certain way. This causes us to live lives of ‘This is how it's supposed to be. This is how it should be. This is how everybody else did and does.’ instead of living lives of true desire. Here you have permission to start questioning why we are making the decisions we are and what it means to live a life on purpose.
Three things to consider when making decisions.
First, everything is optional. We don't have to do anything.
You might say, well, that's ridiculous. Of course, we have to do things. I have to go to work, I have to make money. I have to go to school, university. I have to take care of my family, my house. Most of us think that we don't have a choice. Most of us think that they are stuck in suffering because they believe they have to live out the negative decisions of their past and they feel as if their life is a list of everything they have to do.
The reality though is, that you don't have to, you can choose not to, you may not like the consequences associated with not doing that, but there is a choice.
And when you realise that you have a choice, the world opens up. Then you get to decide what it is that you really want to do.
There is nothing we have to do and we have complete free will.
Much of what we are currently doing is something we either really want to do or we could stop doing if we choose to.
The process of evaluating our life in a way that gives us our power back is very important. What's interesting is that it often doesn't mean we will change what we are doing but it will change how we feel about it and how we think about it.
When you look at your life and you become clear that everything you do you actually genuinely want to do, then you will show up in a very different way than when you think that you have to do it.
You have permission to change anything you want in your life. You can change your relationships, your house, your job, your career, your body, and your future.
Challenge yourself to re-decide your life.
You don't have to continue the decisions of your past and you don't have to follow anyone else's idea of how you should live. This includes your parents, your community, your country, or even your religion. Everything is a choice.
The important question is, would I choose this again today?
The reason this question is important to answer is because you're actually doing it automatically whether you realise it or not. By not making a decision to change something you are choosing to have it again and again.
For many parts of your life, this may be good and wanted. But you might also find areas where it isn't desirable to continue and you haven't consciously re-decided your life on purpose.
Second, there are no right or wrong decisions.
There are just decisions, just facts, which are neutral. And then we get to decide what makes the decision right or wrong. We get to decide if it's good or bad or how it is benefiting us even if it didn't go exactly as we had planned.
We seem to believe that right or wrong is something that exists outside of us and outside of our choice of thoughts. And this is not the case. We decide what is right or wrong with our thinking.
Even if we believe in a certain religion or certain human rights, there are still only beliefs we have chosen.
really deciding what is right or wrong for you on a continual basis is what makes your life keep evolving.
What might have been right for you 10 years ago or when you were a child will not be the same as you grow older and change and evolve.
We can change our mind about what is right or wrong or good or bad. You can re-decide things you no longer want.
There is nothing bad or wrong about being and doing exactly what you want. Is it selfish to make a decision based on your genuine desire for something different?
You might believe that you can't make a decision that will hurt another person even if not making that decision is hurting you.
This includes completing friendships, relationships, jobs.
You might feel like you don't want to go back on commitments you have made. You don't want to change your mind if others will be disappointed.
So the alternative is, you live a lie. You stay in jobs you don't want any relationships that aren't authentic in an attempt to control the other person's experience of you. While you are suffering silently.
This doesn't serve living an authentic life.
You aren't being selfless, you are lying.
And if you listen to this podcast, you know that we can't hurt other people's feelings. And otherwise, go back to Episode 20.
This doesn't mean you make rushed decisions in an attempt to feel better or because you expect someone or something to make you happy.
When you know you can be happy regardless of the decisions you make, you learn to make decisions from a calm and balanced place. You never want to make any decision from negative emotion.
When your current life is filled with honest and present decisions and re-decisions, you have the best foundation for growth and authenticity. It's the only way to know who you truly are.
When making a decision, the easiest way to know what you want is to evaluate each decision with the assumption that you can be happy and successful with either choice you make. Your happiness is not based on making a right or wrong decision. Your happiness depends on how you think about your decision. If you're committed to happiness, you can be happy either way.
What makes a decision better than another one is just a thought.
When you commit to making a decision, commit to thinking about it in a way that supports the decision and has your own back.
Everything happens exactly the way it was meant to happen. And all of our decisions that we make are the path of our life. And we can honour that path and we can honour ourselves for the decisions that we have made.
And if we do that for our past decisions, we are going to be much more eager to make decisions in the future. Because we know that we'll have our own backs. We won’t call those decisions wrong. Think about it. What makes something a wrong decision is only you deciding that it was a wrong decision.
There are no wrong decisions unless you decide that something was wrong.
Third, the more decisions we make consciously the more empowered we feel in our life.
Why is that? Because the more decisions we make, the better at it we become. And the more decisions we make, the more we change our life toward the version that we want, the more we become the creator of our life and not being at the effect of it.
Often we stop making decisions that move us forward. We plan, we think it through and then we don't make a decision about doing it.
Like starting a project, or we stop making a decision to show up continuously for this project, because it requires continuous effort.
We don't make decisions sometimes because we think that we are going to avoid making a bad decision or a wrong decision. We use the past sometimes as an indicator of what we think we can create in our future. So we use the past as an excuse not to make decisions. We look into the future and tell ourselves that we can't do, have, or create what we want. We tell ourselves things like ‘I've never done it before. It's too hard.’ Everything that exists in the world was created for the first time at some point without knowing the how and the answer to the how is always ‘yes’. Go back to Episode 19 for the how.
Decision-making takes a lot of energy and thoughtfulness. So we don't want to delay decisions or try to make them in an impulsive moment. We need to consider important decisions ahead of time. Give them thoughts and then let them be automatic. It needs to be a conscious process.
One of the main problems we all have is making unconscious unwanted automatic decisions.
These are the decisions that our brain makes for us over and over each day. They are repeated decisions that happen almost against our own will.
Often they are good and serve us but they can also be negative patterns that we don't even acknowledge as optional. We are just living as if those decisions are who we are and not tiny decisions that are being made by our brains daily.
Those are our habits that we have unconsciously, or we decide to create them on purpose.
The decisions about work, what to eat, what to wear, self-care, how we talk, how we plan, and how we show up in our lives, all have a huge impact on our results and what our life ends up being.
We need to review and make these decisions consciously to ensure they are the decisions we want to be making.
You can completely change your life by changing the daily decisions that affect how you live.
Here's an example of how to look at your daily decisions.
Think of a result you get every day. Maybe you end up feeling tired, exhausted and stressed.
You have done this for so long, you might not even see it as a conscious decision anymore. Maybe it's just who you are. When you step back and realise that just because you're unconscious when you make those small decisions that lead to the result of you being tired, exhausted, and stressed, it does not make it less powerful. The decision to go to bed at a certain time is a very powerful decision. It's one you want to make consciously and ahead of time.
The decision what you will eat tomorrow or what you will not eat, what time you wake up, when and if you work out. Those decisions ahead of time are very powerful and they will change the trajectory of your results.
You want to take a look at those programmed decisions and to make sure you're utilising your power to make them consciously.
It is very important to plan and make decisions ahead of time. Which means we access our prefrontal cortex, that highest part of our brain to make a decision that will serve that highest version of ourselves. That is one of the privileges of being a human, being able to plan and decide ahead of time, to look into the future.
Making decisions ahead of time and honouring them is the way to overcome that primitive brain that likes comfort and instant gratification.
Too many of us hold off on making decisions and ignore decisions believing that we are avoiding making a wrong or bad decision. But the truth is not making a decision consciously is making a decision. You're making a decision not to change something every time.
You're choosing your job, your house, your partner, friends, and habits every single day whether you acknowledge it or not.
Indecision is one of the biggest wastes of time, indecision before you've made the decision and indecision after you've made the decision. So decide on something and then never look back. Commit to that decision. No matter how you end up feeling. You're going to feel doubt, you're going to feel scared, you're going to feel like it was the wrong decision. If you can believe there is no wrong decision and you can stay committed, you will be surprised at how much time you save by not questioning yourself.
Making decisions increases our confidence. As soon as we make a decision and we get out of ‘I don't know’, our insecurity goes away. Think about how you feel when you're confused, when you're doubting. And then think about how you feel when you're decisive, when you make a decision and you back yourself up on that decision. That is a whole different level of confidence.
And the more decisions you make, the more you increase your growth, the more you increase your action, the more time you save and the more confidence you have.
Decisions are always made in an instant. Thinking and discussing only seems necessary. All it does, it prevents you from making a decision until you make a decision. Have your back, follow through, honour your decision no matter what.
So how do I decide?
Step back for a minute and consider this: would you choose it now?
So if you were starting brand new, would you choose whatever it is now? So for example, if you're deciding whether you should leave a job or not, re-decide whether you want to take it or not.
If you're deciding whether you should buy this house, start this project, would you do it today? When you make a decision, you want to make sure you like your reasons for choosing it.
When you're trying to decide between two things, imagine that both decisions turn out amazing. You succeed as both of them. Then which one would you choose?
Either way, you're going to have an amazing life. Either way, you're going to be happy. Either way, it's the right decision. So when you believe that, then which one do you choose?
One of the reasons why some of us don't choose one option over the other is because we've played it out and we've already anticipated failure. We've already anticipated that we won’t know how to do something. So knowing, that either way I could have an amazing life, which option do you choose?
The next thing you might consider as you're making a decision is what if failure is no big deal. What if you're either winning or learning? If it didn't matter if you failed at it, would you do it?
If it didn't matter if you failed at trying something or quitting something, would you do it if failure didn't matter?
Because failure is just the way you think about it. If you're only winning or learning, then there really is no failure. Nothing is a failure. So when you take out the thought that failure ruins everything and that you could fail, which one do you choose?
The next thing you might consider is, can you say yes to both things? A lot of times when we are making a decision, we sometimes think that if we say yes to one of them, we are saying no to the other. And sometimes we don't want to say no to the other and so we don't make a decision. But what if you could say yes to both things?
You may be able to have both things. What if you could do multiple jobs at the same time?
What if you could have both?
Would you choose both instead of saying yes to one or no to the other?
You can really make a decision to have both things that you're trying to decide between.
And then ask yourself, what is the best and worst case that can happen? Look at both options, or all the options and for each option consider what is the best case and what is the worst case scenario for each of the options. And what you will find out, the worst case scenario is missing out on the best case scenario, on what could be possible.
The indecision blocks you from experiencing the best-case scenario.
Explore all the decisions you're putting off. An important question to ask yourself is where will you be in one year, two years, five years, 20 years? If you can't answer the question, it's because you haven't made a decision about where you're going.
‘Well, I have no idea where my wife will take me.’ The truth is you are deciding in each moment where your life is taking you.
If you don't re-decide your current life you have, you will live a life on default.
Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? Decide.
You're in control, and you get to decide what you want and why you want it. You get to decide what to do and where you want to go.
And you get to decide when to listen to. Do you want to listen to when your brain tells you ‘You can't’, when it's not the right time, ‘It's not a good idea.’ You have the choice to listen to those limiting beliefs or let them go and commit to the decision to do what it is that you want to do and create the life that you want.
What are you willing to decide today that will take you in the direction that you want to go?
In the end, it is not about the thing that you choose, the job, the country, the partner, This thing will not make you happy anyway.
It's all about you and because you are amazing, you will make everything amazing!
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