How do you know if something is the right choice or not? Should you stay? Or go? Quit? Or recommit? Speak up or stay silent? Buy it, or pass it in? Book it, or defer? Trust her, or not? Back him, or walk away?
How do you know which way to go when there is a big decision to make?
How do you choose when there are so many unknown variables?
How do you know what’s right? How do you know what is the true path for you?
I see people tying themselves in knots trying to make decisions about love, life, career, friendship, family and so on. Wrestling with decisions, sometimes for yeeeeeeeeeears and years – and living in an uncomfortable unsatisfied limbo in the meantime.
Here are the three things you need to know to break the deadlock, and make the decision you can live with:
1. NOT making a decision ….IS MAKING A DECISION.
Choosing not to leave? Be clear. You are choosing to stay. Fact.
Choosing not to speak up? You are choosing silence. You are choosing not to assert boundaries. They are not “doing it to you” or “making you feel” something – you are choosing not to voice your truth.
Stop believing you are not making a decision with your endless procrastinating! YOU ARE MAKING A DECISION! You are deciding over and over and OVER again to NOT decide – that IS a decision. And it’s a massively energy sucking one – so get clear on the fact the time has come to make a proper decision one way or the other – that you are going to execute and make peace with.
2. Sometimes trying to “figure it out”…IS NOT SERVING YOU.
There are some decisions in life that are not meant to be decided with logic alone. That is why you never reach a decision you are comfortable with. Because you need to add in the mission critical feeling based, emotion based, spiritual based components of the decision making process. If you exclude them then you will NEVER get to a decision you feel comfortable with – hence you don’t make one. You are omitting the exact things you NEED to reach a consensus within yourself.
To reach a place of peace with difficult decision making, trust me, you need to FEEL IT OUT, not figure it out. You need more than logic – you have to add in the other elements. If you have been stuck on a choice for a long time – that means you need to FEEL it out, not FIGURE it out.
You can trust the truth of your course of action by HOW IT FEELS. How it feels in your body (a much wiser guide than your mind). You will feel a lightening. A “rightness”. Alignment. Your spine will seem straighter. Your body will feel lighter. Even if you are making a choice with a heavy heart – say to end a relationship – your body will TELL YOU – by the way it feels – that it is the right decision. Pay attention. When you ignore this vital piece of decision making GPS you can dither with decisions for years. You can TRUST what your body tells you. FEEL IT OUT, rather than trying to FIGURE IT OUT.
3. Some decisions …ARE JUST HARD.
Seriously. This one is obvious but it needs saying! Some decisions that we can sit on and faff about endlessly with for years…they are BIG DECISIONS. So, they are likely to have BIG CONSEQUENCES, not just for us but for other people too.
I have seen people sit on decisions, for a decade or more, because they want the decision to come with NO CONSEQUENCES.
Sometimes there are decisions to be made in life where that “no consequences” option IS JUST NOT ON THE TABLE.
It’s NEVER going to be on the table.
So, stop waiting for that mythical option.
If you are going to leave your spouse/job/country/social group/religion/whatever – there are going to be consequences. FACT. Stop waiting for no consequences and put that energy into figuring out smart ways to handle the consequences with capability and compassion instead. At some point you have to stop evading decisions because they are hard – and start backing your capability to handle what comes up instead.
So – if you are stalled putting off a big decision – know that we are always more capable than we think. Know you can BACK YOURSELF to handle whatever comes up, but that living with continual SPLIT ENERGY of NOT MAKING A CALL on something that is important to your soul is energy draining in the extreme. It’s time to Man (Woman)-UP!
To summarise:
- Know that by not making a decision you ARE making a decision.
- Know that you DO KNOW THE ANSWER and the right way to jump, and if you get quiet that wisdom from within will reveal itself.
- Sometimes life means a hard call, waiting on it doesn’t make it any less hard, but you do have the capability to handle it with compassion and pragmatism.
