What is it about making decisions that can feel so hard?
This comes up eventually in almost all of my coaching sessions.
A decision needs to be made, large, small, in between. It doesn’t really matter.
In the moment, it feels like a very large and very serious decision, no matter what it’s about. Life or death. For sure.
And for some reason it feels impossible to make it. To decide.
When I ask my clients why? Why is it hard to choose?
They tell me the following:
“What if I make the wrong decision?”
“What if I regret my decision?”
“What if it turns out bad and I get blamed?”
“What if the consequences are bad and my fault?”
“What if I change my mind later?”
Let’s take a look at these a little bit closer.
Is there a such thing as a wrong decision?
What if everything worked in your favor no matter what you chose?
Romans 8:28 is a favorite verse of mine.
“And we know that for those who love God, that is, for those who are called according to his purpose, all things are working together for good.”
All things!
No matter what decision we make, it will happen FOR us.
Even if it feels like it’s not working out the way we intended, or desired, we can have faith in the fact that in the larger picture it will contribute to our good.
What is regret?
According to the dictionary, regret is: a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done.
Let me repeat the first part…regret is a feeling.
What do we know about feelings?
That we create them ourselves with what we choose to think.
We can think a thought, like “I knew I should’ve chosen the other one. Now I’m stuck with this.” and feel regret.
Or we can think a thought like “I got the perfect one for me. How do I know that? Because it’s the one that I have.” and feel confident in our selection.
Who decides if something’s bad?
And who decides if we feel blame?
Good news again! We do.
For every single thing that happens, we get to decide if we are going to find the bad in it or the good in it. There’s always both.
Let’s say something doesn’t go as planned, and someone “blames you for making the wrong decision”. You get to decide if you want to agree with them and join that party, or not.
Let them think what they want. They will anyways. You get to decide if you want to think the same thing.
The good thing about others being allowed to think whatever they want, is we get to do the same thing!
Next time you’re faced with a decision treat it like a band aid that you forgot was there. It needs to come off and the faster the better.
Ask yourself if either option worked out perfectly, exactly the way that you wanted them to, which would you choose then?
Go with that one.
You feel stuck because you’re delaying the decision. Making a choice actually takes less than 30 seconds.
Rather than choosing an option, and making the decision, you’re choosing to stay stuck.
It’s not happening to you. You’re choosing it.
You make a decision the same way. Just choose.
If you think you may need a life coach in your life, I’d love to talk with you. Book a free 45 minute mini-session to find out what it’s all about and how it can help you launch into the next version of yourself!
