249: How to Make Decision-Making Your Superpower
How to Make Decision-Making Your Superpower
I have recently finished Jen Sincero’s book, You Are a Badass. One of the chapters in the book is on “The Almighty Decision,” and I wanted to dive into this topic for this episode.
One of the things I talk with my clients about is the three-step process of decision-making. Those steps are:
1) Give yourself a limited amount of time to explore options.
2) Make a decision based on the information you’ve gathered AND what your gut is telling you. If the two disagree, ALWAYS go with your gut.
3) Decide you have made the right decision. No waffling, second-guessing, or changing your mind. Have your own back as to the decision you made.
Why does this matter? So many people take FOREVER to make a decision… sometimes, even over small, fairly inconsequential things. Decision-making is a muscle, and the more you exercise that muscle, the stronger and more dependable it will become.
In my work as a career coach, job search coach, and Master Resume Writer, here are some of the indecisions I see clients grapple with:
-Should I leave my current employer and go elsewhere, or should I stay?
-Am I qualified to apply for this position?
-Should I ask for a promotion and/or raise?
-Is my dissatisfaction with my career path — or just my current employer?
-Should I make a career pivot or completely reinvent my career?
-Should I reach out to X for help with my job search?
-Should I stay employed, or start my own business?
-Should I fully retire, or just downshift to a less stressful, more rewarding job?
Of course, there are hundreds of micro-decisions I help my clients with, but these are some of the big ones.
What are some of the decisions you might make in other areas of your life?
-I WILL lose XXX pounds.
-I WILL begin an exercise program.
-I WILL eat healthier.
-I WILL begin dating again.
-I WILL buy a home.
-I WILL stop smoking/drinking/doing drugs.
-I WILL clean out the clutter in my home.
-I WILL make new friends.
-I WILL learn how to do XXX.
In her book, Jen Sincero tells the story of Henry Ford, who was determined to have all eight cylinders of the engine cast in one block. His engineers told him he was crazy – it couldn’t be done.
They came back sometime later, with even more evidence that it couldn’t be done. Henry Ford rejected their “evidence,” and ordered them back to the drawing board.
Of course, they eventually figured it out by creating the V-8 engine like the workhorse I had in my 1970 Ford Torino. (Let’s not talk about the gas mileage, but man could she GO.)
Sincero’s point? “So often, we pretend we’ve made a decision, when what we’ve really done is signed up to try until it gets too uncomfortable.
What do you have to be willing to withstand in order to truly make a decision?
-Family and friends laughing at you, questioning your decision, expecting you to fail
-Deciding to avoid/minimize your interaction with others who don’t support your decision – at least for now
-Avoiding social media, print, or other content that presents evidence that your decision is the wrong one, doomed to failure
-Recognizing that your own doubts are merely your primitive brain, trying to protect you from the certain death you’ll face as a result of your decision (“nothing has gone wrong”)
What steps will you need to take to develop this muscle?
-Deciding ahead of time what you will do each day towards making your decision a reality – then doing the things even when you REALLY, REALLY don’t want to
-Willingness to be uncomfortable — sometimes VERY uncomfortable
-Becoming comfortable with “failure,” and reframing it as “learning opportunities” that show you one more way NOT to achieve your goal
-Training your brain to resist immediate pleasure in favor of your big picture
Here, then, are Jen Sincero’s tips for decision-making:
1. Want it bad
You have to want it more than the alternative. As she says, “You need to have a ten-ton gorilla of desire behind your decision or else you’ll wimp out the second things get hard.” This requires you to be honest with yourself about what you really want to do, not what you think you should do – and believe it is available to you regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
2. Get good at it
So many people have terror around decision-making because they are so afraid of making the “wrong” decision. This is where waffling, making hasty decisions just to get it over with, and choosing to do nothing come into play. (By the way, choosing to do nothing IS a decision.)
A good strategy is to begin practicing on small decisions…making them quickly and changing them slowly. We’re not talking about making hasty decisions here, but rather gathering the facts as quickly and efficiently as possible to be able to MOVE FORWARD.
Also — give yourself a deadline for making the decision.
Finally — quit telling people (and yourself) that you are terrible at making decisions. Talk about confusing the universe!
3. Eliminate the negotiation process
Decisions are simply not up for negotiation. Remember what I said at the outset — have your own back.
The decision-making process is an excellent opportunity for you to improve your relationship with the most important person in your life — YOU.
As you have your own back on decisions you make, you begin to trust yourself more and more. Not only that — others will notice that you are following through on your decisions, and THEY will begin to trust you, as well.
Let’s say you have decided to buy a vacation home on the beach by a certain date. You know how much money you need in the bank…and a friend comes along with an invitation to go to Bali for two weeks.
Of COURSE, Bali sounds wonderful – who wouldn’t want to go there? But you decided to buy a vacation home on the beach by a certain date. You KNOW that going to Bali will delay your ability to buy that home.
SO…you have your own back about your vacation home-buying decision. You thank your friend profusely and tell her that you hope she’ll ask the next time she wants to travel. But this time…you have decided to become a vacation homeowner!
4. Stick like glue
It takes tenacity…stick-to-it-iveness…to achieve your goals.
I like the analogy of giving birth. I clearly remember, when I was in about hour 12 of trying to exit a 10-pound, 1 ounce, human out of my body, that I told my then-husband, “I can’t do this anymore.”
His response? “You don’t have any choice, Lesa.” And he was right; I had no choice but to see this child-having decision through to the birth.
Let’s have this same sense of “you don’t have any choice” with other decisions in our lives. Focus on the result you desire, recognize that the inevitable bumps and bruises along the way are supposed to happen, and STAY THE COURSE.
I love this quote from Sincero: “In order to change your life and start living a new one that you’ve never lived before, your faith in miracles, and yourself, must be greater than your fear. However easy or rough your birthing process is, you have to be willing to fall down, get up, look stupid, cry, laugh, make a mess, clean it up, and not stop until you get there. NO MATTER WHAT.”
5. Love yourself
Because you can do ANYTHING. And it’s much easier to get there by loving on yourself along the way than by hating on yourself.
So, I invite you to make a decision TODAY. It can be a small one…or it can be you, finally getting off that non-existent fence and making a decision about something big.
And congratulate yourself for changing your life forever. Because in the process of making that decision and going through the necessary steps to realize your goal, you will be forever changed. Way to go, you!
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