The decisions we make decide the course of our life.
As a new mom I’m faced with a whole new world of new decisions. What can I do today to become a better mom? When should I start sleep training? What kind of baby food should I introduce, Gerber’s or homemade solids? How often should I let her cry it out? What color hair bow should she wear today? What kind of family traditions and lifestyle habits do Brandon and I want to instill in our children? What is our family motto? What will be the first prayer I teach to Ellie? Does Aquafor or A&D work better on her diaper rash and am I using enough? How can I make better nutritional choices for myself so that Ellie receives the optimal nutrition she can get from my breastmilk? How much do we need to put away for her college fund each month? Should I buy that cute dress for her in Target, even if she will only wear it three times before pooping through it?
So many decisions has gotten me thinking about all sorts of other decisions we make in life.
Life is full of decisions and options, and sometimes the act of making a decision one way or the other can be overwhelming.
It stands to reason then that we all could benefit from learning how to make better decisions. I’m less interested in the outcome of our decisions – as I don’t think that’s our main issue when it comes to decisions – and more interested in inspiring a higher level of decisiveness. You see, too often we make the decision to not make a decision by delaying a decision. Procrastination, self-doubt, uncertainty and lack of action ensue, and ultimately we limit our lives by our inability to make decisions and to trust the decisions we make. To help you become more decisive in your decisions, and ultimately in your follow-through on those decisions, I want to share with you four rules to help you start making better decisions by overcoming indecisiveness.
You deserve to trust yourself and the decisions you make. Furthermore, the gift of decisiveness can boost your self-confidence and self-trust in ways that can transform how you approach life and how you pursue your dreams.
I am a strong believer that we all have the gift to make decisions, we just have to learn how to develop this gift. You might be someone who has wavered back and forth in the past, but tell yourself today, starting now that you are going to be someone who will be more decisive. It will take time to develop confident decisiveness, but you can now start to confidently say that you are someone who is working towards becoming more decisive.
Decide to be someone who lives a life worth telling a story about. Decide to be someone who does what they say they will do. Decide to be someone who pursues their dreams. Decide to be someone who lives a healthy lifestyle and encourages others to do the same. Decide to be someone who makes a difference in their community. Decide to be someone who invests in themselves so that they can be the best version of themselves mentally, physically and spiritually. Decide to be someone who contributes significantly to the world by being authentically yourself and by daring to live fully.
Before you decide to become more decisive, perhaps you should know some of the benefits that come this type of proactive thinking:
THE BENEFITS OF DECISIVENESS:
Decisiveness Reduces Procrastination:
When we can’t decide what to do, we ultimately do nothing, delaying any action because we are afraid of making the wrong decision. Living with fear and a lack of self-trust is a negatively consuming way to live. Decisiveness calls us to action and prevents the lag of procrastination from side-railing us from life.
Decisiveness Builds Confidence:
One of the most empowering things about decisiveness is that it gives us freedom in our decisions. Once we make a decision we are then able to say, “that’s it; I did it.” There is a sense of finality to making a decision that forces us to forge forward in trust. We must move on a decision, trusting ourselves for the direction we have taken. As we learn to trust ourselves and our decisions, whether we make the right decisions or not, we build our confidence. If the decision we made was a good one, our self-confidence will soar. If the decision we made needs to be modified, our self-confidence will still soar as we demonstrate to ourselves our adaptability and flexibility. The ability we are given to learn from our so-called mistaken decisions is exactly one of the things that deepens our confidence. Finally, the more we learn to be decisive, the more decisive we will become because our confidence will domino into more decisiveness.
Decisiveness Builds Self-Trust:
When we move forward with our decisions with confidence we are able to tell ourselves, “I am someone who is smart, someone who is investing in myself, I am capable of listening to my heart and making the best decision for myself.” As a result, we will begin to trust ourselves to make good decisions, and also to handle any situation that may come from that decision.
Decisiveness Improves Leadership:
Decisiveness helps express the leadership skills we each have within us. You don’t have to hold a leadership title or position to be a leader – we are all leaders in our families, our friendships and in our communities. By being decisive we become someone who takes charge, takes action and is worthy of trust.
Decisiveness Eliminates Anxiety:
Being a decisive person will help you become a happier person because it will eliminate excess anxiety you might experience over decisions you have made in life. When you don’t have to doubt or second-guess your decisions, you don’t have to battle the anxiety that comes from wavering back and forth in life.
IN SHORT:
Decisiveness gives you an advantage in life, and I want you to have that advantage. Not only will it improve your productivity and clarity as you walk your path and live out your story, but it will also elevate your confidence so you can truly walk confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Here are four rules of thumb you can use today to kick-start your life to become more decisive:
THE 4 RULES OF DECISIVENESS:
- RULE ONE: Make a decision within 48 hours on the big stuff.
Often decisions aren’t made because deadlines aren’t put into place. Anytime you encounter a major decision without an imposed deadline, create one for yourself. Make a commitment to yourself to make a decision – and to take action – within 48 hours. By giving yourself a 48-hour deadline causes you to rise and take action.
Set up accountability for yourself to help with your decision-making. Tell someone close to you about your decision and your time limit, even if they don’t really care. By telling them we will be more likely to follow through with our decision. We were not meant to travel through this life by alone.
- RULE TWO: Make a decision within 60 seconds on the small stuff.
Learn to trust yourself and hone your skill of decisiveness by making faster decisions on smaller things. These small decisions could be having coffee with a friend, going to the gym or not, deciding how much to spend something, choosing what brand of soap to buy, or which charity to make a contribution to over the holidays. Our ability to make quick and confident decisions on the smaller things will give us the ability to be more confident in the bigger life decisions.
Setting the time limit to 60-seconds will help you avoid the habit of procrastination and will train your mind to know that you have the capability to make good, wise decisions on demand. By getting decided what needs to get done in 60-seconds and you will find that you will have a much shorter to–do list, higher productivity, and you will be building within yourself the ability to make decisions and stick with them. Soon your self-doubt in decision-making will disappear and you will feel empowered, productive, and decisive.
- RULE THREE: Know what you want out of life.
It’s harder to make decisions if you are unsure of what you want. Know what you want in life and know what your values are. By knowing what you want in life you will be better able to make better and quicker decisions. Indecisiveness comes from not really knowing what we want. Start thinking about your life goals and start making the decisions that will get you there.
- RULE FOUR: Get an accountability coach.
The forth rule for making better decisions is to get yourself an accountability coach or partner. Link up with someone who will help you stick to your decisions. This person will help you build up that confidence and help you realize what you want. They will speak words of life to you so that you will eventually learn to trust yourself to be more confident in your decision-making. Be sure that this person also holds you accountable for taking action on the decisions you make, and as a result you will become someone who makes decisions and sticks to them.
If you are looking for an accountability coach I currently have three openings. For more information go to http://www.trishblackwell.com/accountability-coaching/or email me if you are interested.
To reinforce these principles of decisive and action-based thinking, make sure to listen to my full podcast episode entitled Overcoming Indecision at www.trishblackwell.com/115. Additionally, if you want more help to become someone who can make confident choices in life, I would love to work with you in my Emerge Experience, a 7-day personal development course that is guaranteed to empower your level of decisiveness. Decide today to sign up and start Emerge right now. Let Emerge be your first, proactive and firm decision to invest in yourself. Get started at www.trishblackwell.com/emerge