What you need to know about making fantastic decisions with ease
Adapted from: Ditch your Midlife Stress from the Inside Out , Dawn Robinson
Stay in a marriage or search for a new partner? Make the most of a secure but staid career or create an exciting new business? Splash out on the sparkly shoes or make do with the plain?
Our lives revolve around a constant stream of decisions, some with implications that will last for decades, others are no more life-changing than choosing between a biscuit or a large slice of cake ( I’m always in favour of the latter).
And whilst there’s nothing to stop us from resorting to the ever-faithful “flip a coin” technique, consult tea leaves or ask a friend, insight can very definitely shine a beacon of light through the dark night of indecision.
For many decisions, the time to make them is as soon as they appear as questions in our heads. Sitting in a restaurant with a menu full of delicious choices there’s no point mulling it over for the next few hours.
But with others we suffer from premature ‘decisionitis’, we’re too impatient to wait, we dislike sitting in the uncomfortable position of uncertainty. We want to skip ahead and get ourselves caught in loops of doubt, forcing choices before they are decisions to be made.
My daughter sometimes gets herself into a complete state by trying to decide her future career, now. Should she look after horses or become a teacher? Would she be happiest being a marine biologist or a novelist?
As I write this, she’s twelve.
You and I both know how much can change by the time she needs to make that choice. Her ultimate career may turn out to be one that’s not yet invented. If she insists on making the decision now, her choice may have become completely redundant by the times she’s working (there’s very little demand for lighthouse keepers or for anyone to light street lamps at night these days). Over the next few years, her interests are inevitably going to change, circumstances will evolve and this decision can remain fluid right up until the point when it’s time to be made.
Trying to rush decisions, making them ahead of time, is as pointless as trying to choreograph an entire discussion with a friend three weeks in advance. Not only do we have absolutely no idea which topics of conversation will seem relevant at the time, even if we know our friend well, how could we ever predict how they’re going to respond or what they’re going to say? Far more sensible to turn up and respond to what happens in the moment.
If there’s an optimal time for making a decision, there’s also a state of mind that helps
If there’s an optimal time for making a decision, there’s also a state of mind that helps and big hint, it isn’t when we’re caught up in turmoil and worry. When you feel up to your eyes in stress, are lost in the depths of a low mood, or have a strong sense of urgency that this problem desperately needs to be sorted now, once and for all, trying to force a decision is not going to work.
Making important decisions is not recommended when you’re in the midst of a stress thought storm. It’s much more helpful to wait until it’s past. Sitting it out until our feelings are more stable which shows our thinking is more helpful and clearer, is a wiser idea.
Once we start to tap into this deep inner knowing or internal wisdom, it becomes obvious that we do know what needs to be done
Once we start to tap into this deep inner knowing or internal wisdom, it becomes obvious that we do know what needs to be done. Doors need to be slammed shut on doomed love matches, gooey chocolate cakes need to be left on supermarket shelves and tickets for exciting new adventures need to be booked.
But if we’ve fallen into the middle of a stress response, when our thinking is dodgy and our mood is low we’re not in the best frame of mind to make decisions. Our thinking is contaminated with the dust and dirt of pessimism - we lack the clarity to see clearly. That would be like deciding to always wear wellies and thick coats because we once looked out of the window and the weather was dreary and grey.
Contrast this with when our thinking and mood are on a more even keel and then we are able to think more clearly, make more helpful decisions. We have a more realistic grasp of the reality of any situation.
Choose your timing wisely.
I learned this the hard way in my relationships. When I look back at my twenties, I can’t help concluding I was a pain in the arse girlfriend. Not because I was overly possessive. jealous or high maintenance but because I believed if the relationship seemed to be going even the slightest way off track, it was probably best to dissect and analyse it in teeny, tiny detail. And it was best to get into an argument about it when I was feeling most insecure or fraught.
This strategy never ended well (I’m sure even the least talented relationship agony aunt could have told me that!). I remember with some embarrassment those circular discussions that from no one’s perspective could ever have been seen as a fun, productive way to spend a wet, dreary Sunday afternoon.
Of course, later when I came across this understanding, it became clear that talking about relationship issues was never useful or helpful when either party was feeling low, grumpy, or ready for an argument. Rather, the conversations went so much better if issues in the relationship were discussed when both of us were feeling light, buoyant and optimistic.
Funnily enough, my relationships seemed far more successful after this.
So to sum up, these are my top tips for making decisions.
• By all means, do your research. Find out about your options, explore all possibilities and use insight to provide you with fresh and juicy ideas. When it’s time for a decision to be made, you’ll feel it. You will have a feeling of simply “knowing” what to do. Waiting until that time is going to save you much internal angst.
• If you are pondering several alternatives and one option really does make no more sense over the other, then play with the possibility that your final choice may in fact be irrelevant. Both options will bring advantages and lessons and sometimes, the important thing is to just get on and make a decision.
• The best decisions are usually made when you’re in an easy, quiet state of mind and if you’re feeling a sense of panic or urgency, it’s best to leave the life-changing choices for another time.
• Decisions tend to have built-in parameters for the best time to be made and when that time has been reached, very often either the right choice becomes very obvious or there are additional factors to be considered that could never have been anticipated or predicted.
Adapted from: Ditch your Midlife Stress from the Inside Out , Dawn Robinson
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