Do you avoid making decisions? Maybe you’re afraid to make the wrong one, or you want more time to think about it. If this is the case, you likely have a low decision making score, and you’re definitely not alone.
Your decision making score is a direct indicator of your ability to take action, trust yourself, and create the life you want. And if you want a six figure job you love, you need to get better at making decisions.
Join me today as I share where I see my clients struggle with decision making and how this impacts their results. You’ll learn how to question your thoughts about making decisions and the step-by-step process I use to make decisions quickly and successfully.
If you’re resonating with what you’re hearing on the podcast and are ready to learn what’s been holding you back so far, click here to learn how you can work with me and get some help to move forward!
Ready to join thousands of other successful candidates in landing a job you love at the pay you deserve? Leave me an iTunes review and email me with the screenshot of the review, and I’ll send you access to my amazing free guide containing 50 examples of behavioral interview questions that you can use to help you prepare for future interviews and land that job!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- Why you might struggle with decision making.
- How staying in confusion doesn’t move you forward.
- How to improve your decision making score.
- Questions to ask yourself when faced with a decision.
- My step-by-step process for making a decision.
- How to gain momentum in your decision making progress.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Featured on the Show:
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- Let’s connect! Add me on LinkedIn.
- Ep #37: Being Your Own Worst Self-Critic
DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT
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You’re listening to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love podcast. This is episode 38, Your Decision Making Score.
Hey there. Welcome to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love podcast. I’m your host, Natalie Fisher. I’m a certified career mindset coach who also happens to want to skip all the BS and get to what it really takes to create real results for you and your career. On this podcast, you will create real mindset shifts that will lead to big results and big changes in your career and your income. No fluff here. If you want to get a six-figure job you love and create real concrete results in your industry and make a real impact, you’re in the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go.
Welcome to the podcast this week. As usual, I’m very excited to talk about this topic because it’s come up specifically with one of my clients. And we had a really good laugh about it because we’re talking about decisions today. And we ended up coaching on decision-making in her current role. And we laughed at the fact that she struggled so much with making the decision to hire me in the first place. And now, she’s in her dream role, and she’s struggling to make decisions in the role, afraid that they might be wrong. Just like she was afraid that it might be the wrong decision to hire me. Now she’s in her dream role, and she’s coming up to the same problem. Which is completely normal, my friends. We often have to get through things in different areas of our life, and we have to see them in different ways to really see where we’re being held back.
And decision-making is something that I see holding a lot of people back. And it used to really slow me down too. So I feel you. And I know what you mean when you’re afraid of making the wrong decision.
So whether it’s one decision you want to make or you have a lot of unmade decisions, then you’re going to have a decision score. And the decision score is going to be determined not by the quality of your decisions because we can’t really know what those are going to be unless we’re talking … and I’m not talking about right or wrong, like steal or don’t steal, or lie or don’t lie. I’m not talking about those things. I’m talking about whether or not you make a decision in order to move yourself forward, but you’re afraid. So you might postpone the decision, right? So I’m talking about those types of decisions today. The types of decisions that we want to make, but we’re just worried that we’re going to make the wrong one.
So you’re normally going to see this show up in your life, and it’s going to look like you make decisions really slowly. Because you think you need to think about them for a long time because you want to make sure that you make the right decision. And you always think about things for a long time. And you think that this is a good way to make your decisions.
And it might be for some things, like for some things, there’s no consequence. You might wait a long time. You might never make the decision, and it might not be a big deal. But for some things, not making a decision can actually change what you’re missing out on in your life. It could change the quality of your whole life. It could change your trajectory. I know for my clients, some of them if they had not have hired me, they wouldn’t be where they are now. I mean, they might be there eventually, or they might not be. We don’t know. But, the decision is what actually drove them into action, is what actually motivated them, is what actually got them to commit, is what actually got them to the point where they were taking that empowered action and moving towards what they wanted very quickly.
So no one makes every single decision perfectly. No one has 100% decision-making score all the time. And we don’t need that. And that’s the mistake we make. We think that it’s possible to make every single decision, the right decision all the time, and we’d never make any mistakes. And we think somehow, it’s possible to make perfect decisions. That’s why we waffle over them so much, because we think that there’s a way that we could predict the future, and we could know if it’s right or not for us.
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So the reason why I think this problem exists is because we’re not aware of the right tools to make an effective decision or the right ways to think about it in order to make a decision that serves us as to what we want to create or what we want out of the decision. So we don’t have the right questions to ask ourselves. There’s no class in school that’s called how to make effective decisions, right? That class doesn’t exist. It would be awesome. I would have been front row hand raised in that class, but it doesn’t exist. So it’s kind of what I’m teaching you here. And that’s kind of what I’m going to give you. So I’m going to give you the questions, give you the tools. And I’m so fascinated by this topic. So I feel like I’m going to keep making more content on it. And I have another podcast on decision-making as well, called Decision Impotence. And this is kind of the 2.0 version of that. And then I have a YouTube video as well.
So a lot of people have given me great feedback on that. They’ve told me that it has cleared their mind and they’ve been able to get out of their own way and make a decision. So I keep wanting to dive deeper every time it comes up again with one of my clients or somebody that I’m working with. It’s going to come up. So that’s why I want to talk about it again in a little bit more detail today.
So, we think that the paradigm of taking a very long time to make decisions is a good paradigm. And like I said, sometimes it doesn’t matter, right? Sometimes it’s fine. But in the context of today and what I want to talk about is how it actually could be holding you back from the results you want. So postponing a decision into the future kind of makes it this nebulous thing where we’re like someday, and it someday land sometime in the future when this pans out or when I have enough money, when I’ve saved. Or when this happened, when my kids grow up. Or you’re waiting for something to happen before you take an action or before you even make a clear plan to make it happen. Right?
So that’s an example of you putting off a decision and basically saying, “I don’t really care if it ever happens or not.” Because we think that waffling in the decision is a wise way to do it. But really, it’s avoiding the discomfort of making the decision. Right? So you can only say if this is true for you with whatever decisions you’re facing right now, but I’m going to give you some examples. And you can just apply it as it applies to you. So I want you to ask yourself how does this apply to me with the decisions that I have in front of me right now? Okay?
So what we do is we don’t set a clear priority or clear markers in the direction that we want to go. We don’t set clear milestones. We don’t have clear plans. So if we don’t have that, then we’re not setting ourselves up to make all the small decisions we need to make to create that result that we want. We don’t give ourselves timelines so that we can measure our own progress. And what’s not measured is probably not very well managed, right? So ultimately, we’re spending a lot of time not doing, and we’re spending a lot of time in indecision. So the time and energy, the days spent waffling. “Should I, shouldn’t I?” Talking to other people, doing all these things, it’s actually spent not doing something. And it’s spent in confusion, indecision, which really isn’t moving you in the direction of the result you want. Right?
So we do this because we don’t understand the amount of control that we actually have over whether the decision is successful or not. Either way, by making a decision either way, it’s going to move you forward. And you’re going to get more information, no matter what decision you make. Just because making the decision regardless is the thing that actually moves you forward. In staying in the confusion and the land of, “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” That doesn’t move you forward, right? It’s actually completely unnecessary. And we could actually have a life where we don’t experience confusion and we could be fine.
It’s like I heard one of my coaches, one of the podcasts I listened to, she said, “It’s like chocolate. You could live a great life without chocolate. But we want it.” And it’s like that with confusion. It’s like, we can live a great life without being confused, but we want to be confused. Because it’s more than having to take a risk of making a decision that we don’t know what’s going to happen after that is made. Right?
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So I thought that was a good way to put it because yes, we can live a life without chocolate, but I don’t want to do that. And I know that I’m probably still going to have some confusion once in a while. But I’m going to try to minimize it because I know that eating too much chocolate is not good for me. And having too much confusion is not going to make the progress that I want.
So, we do this because we don’t understand the amount of control that we have. So this is what I’m going to explain. So staying in indecision keeps you at a standstill. So I’m going to use two examples for the purpose of this podcast. Maybe more than two examples. And like examples, as you know.
So say you’re at work. This is one of my client’s examples. And you have to do something. You’re given a project, you’re given a task, right? So the decision has been made for you that you have to do this. And say the project is you have to create an onboarding process for an organization’s hiring. So the first thing you do is set the goal. Why do you want to do this? What’s the result of it? How are you going to know if it’s successful?
So let’s say your goal is to run the employees through this process. And at the end, they’re going to feel engaged. They’re going to feel welcome. And they’re going to have all the information that they need to get started. So they’re going to know who to speak to, and they’re going to have all the equipment that they need.
So that’s pretty simple, right? It’s very simple to do a list of things that you can easily just get done and check off a list. There’s not much confusion needed there. But, what my client wanted to do is add in some drama, which we do, right? As humans.
So if you’re somebody who second guesses yourself a lot, you might be like, “Huh, okay. So I need to set up a survey, but I don’t know which one I should use.” Right? Or you need to use a certain document to deliver the information to the new hires. How will you deliver that? Will it be by email? Will it be by Google document? Will it be on the company website? “How should I do it?” And then you get confused about what the best way to do it is. And then you get confused about what software you should use, what survey software. “Should I use SurveyMonkey, or should I use Wufoo? Or should I use Doodle polls? I don’t know.” But then you’re like, “Okay. So then I need to do an evaluation of all three, and then I need to decide which one’s the best.” And that leads to more confusion, right?
And sometimes, there’s value in evaluating these things. Like if you’re going to be buying something and it’s a very big cost solution, then I’ve had to do price comparisons too. And then we have very clear markers of what we’re looking for, the criteria and stuff. But this is a relatively small decision. Let’s assume they’re all free softwares that you can try out. You can just pick one and go. You don’t need to spend time to make the three, to check out the three, test the three, maybe make each candidate go through a different one to see what works better. It’s just going to create more time spent and more confusion spent for this, right? So this is a small step in the process, which this is an example of how one might confuse it.
Whereas if you just made the decision and said, “Okay, just using SurveyMonkey,” set up the questions, set up the link. Schedule it to send after the person has started, after two weeks or whatever after they’ve gone through the process, decide a timeframe, schedule it to send, done. Right? It’s a lot faster, and you can just make that decision, and then it’s done. Right? But what we want to do is we want to confuse it. We were like, “Oh no, but which one should I use? Which one is the best?” And then you get into confusion or you’re like, “Which documents should I use? How are they going to access this? Or what if they can’t?”
And sometimes you want to troubleshoot and stuff. But if you just made the decision, you’d find out soon enough. Right? So that’s where you get into the drama. So that’s an example of math versus drama. So we’ve got the to-do list of things, very easy, very simple, not complicated at all. And then we
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complicate it with all of our overthinking, right? So I see a lot of people wrestling with very small decisions. Right? And that’s just one example.
So then, we have big decisions. And those ones, we want to spend even more time on thinking about, right? So what we normally do when we start to get confused and start to get into the drama is we avoid the decisions altogether. So we’ll say, “You know what?” This is what your brain does. When it gets confused, it’s like, “You know what? Let’s just do that later. Let’s just set that aside. Let’s just not bother with that right now.”
So our brain will want to avoid the decision. And I’ve seen myself doing this a lot. Right? So I’ll be writing a post, or I’ll be setting out a podcast outline. And all of a sudden I’ll get stuck and I’ll be like, “I don’t know what goes next. I don’t know what I wanted to say.” And then my brain will want to be like. “Let’s go get a snack.” Or my brain will be like, “Let’s take the dog out, or let’s do something else.” Right? Because it doesn’t want to sit there and problem solve. It wants to avoid the decision, because that’s the easiest.
So with small decisions, that happens a lot. With big decisions, it also happens. Right? So say we’re trying to make a big decision and we’re not certain. We’re going to say, “I’ll think about it. I’ll think about it.” And what does that mean? What does thinking about it mean? What does it mean? What are you actually going to do? Do you have a process for how you’re going to decide? Probably not. It’s just a nebulous thing in the future that you’re going to think about and probably forget about. And if you are thinking about it, it’s just time spent not doing the thing that you could be doing. Not moving forward. Right?
So we tell ourselves that waiting is smart and responsible. And that the longer that we wait to make a decision, the better the decision will make. But logically, the timing doesn’t have a bearing on the quality of the decision. Because the amount of time you spent thinking about it has no actual bearing. We know this because many decisions are made in a minute that turn out amazing.
And then lots of decisions take forever. And then they don’t end up right. We can’t ever know. Right? So some people wait for ages, and ages, and ages. They finally make the decision. And then sometimes, things have changed by then. And they’re like, “Oh crap. I waited too long. I shouldn’t have waited this long to make this decision.” And then, they regret it and they wish they made it faster. Or they wait a long time and then it doesn’t turn out how they wanted anyway. Or sometimes, they wait a long time, and it’s going to be their thinking that’s going to create the quality of the decision after, which I’m going to explain.
But, we think that waiting a long time is what creates a good quality decision. But, there’s evidence to prove that that is not the case. And why it’s not the case is it really depends on how fast you want to move. So if you want to move forward and you want to create something, you want to do something you’ve never done before, you want to do something new, it’s going to involve discomfort. So you might be where you are right now in indecision. And indecision or confusion is still a little bit uncomfortable. Because we still don’t like it. Right? We’re still like yeah, yeah. We still need to make a decision. But it’s more comfortable than moving forward, and making a decision, and making a commitment. That’s more uncomfortable than staying in the confusion.
So the process of making decisions, you can tell if your decision score is high by the amount of decisions you’ve made, not by the ‘quality’ of them.Because the quality of them is going to be what you make them, which I’m going to explain. If you don’t have the results that you want or you’re not feeling certain that you’re working towards them, if you’re not feeling 100% confident that you are working towards the results right now on a daily basis, you’re taking those actions towards them. You’re not moving towards your goal. You should feel that you’re moving towards your goal. It’s just a matter of your actions catching up with your mind because you already know it’s done. If you’re not feeling like that,
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then you haven’t made enough decisions to become certain, right? And the decisions are what make you trust yourself more.
So, you have a lot of unmade decisions perhaps. You’ve been putting off a lot of things. You leave emails not responded to. This is a good indicator, right? So if you have an inbox full of emails and you’ve looked at them but you’re thinking about what you’re going to say or how you’re going to respond, right? Then that’s an indicator that your decision score is low, at least in the email inbox. Because these are all very small decisions that you’ve probably been thinking about too much. Right? I mean not always. There’s exceptions obviously. You might be waiting for someone to get back to you or whatever. But if there’s emails that you could have responded to, but you just didn’t sit and problem solve what you were going to say, you’re not in a habit of doing that, it probably means you’re putting off decisions, because you’re avoiding the discomfort of just deciding and doing. Because you’re afraid you might say the wrong thing. You might not respond with what they wanted, or you’re afraid of something happening, right?
We can always choose to be afraid of something happening when we make any decision, because there’s no guarantees. So again, I’ll go into more detail about how you can make decisions, the best decisions you’ve ever made, and the control that you have over that.
So if you’re not answering people in a timely manner and you’re not responding, then you can often feel worse and uncomfortable because you’re like, “I have these things that I have to respond to. And it’s taking me so long to do it.” Then it takes you so long, that then you don’t even want to do it. Because you’re like, “Now it’s taken me forever. Now what are they going to think when I respond? Right?” So you wait for a certain feeling to come over you. You’re just waiting for you to feel like it’s going to be the right time or feel like it’s the best time for you to magically make that decision. And that doesn’t happen. So then you just avoid making the decision. This is what normally happens, and this is why postponing decisions often doesn’t work. And it’s really just looking at the consequences, right?
So if there’s no consequence for postponing a decision, you don’t really care that much about the outcome or the result, or the consequence. Then fine, don’t worry about it. But if you want to move towards something, if you want an outcome, you want a result. You’re trying to move a project forward. You’re trying to get a new job. You’re trying to create something. You need to make a lot of decisions quickly so that you can learn from those decisions and make better ones. And the more decisions you make, the higher your decision score is, the higher your self-trust is. And the farther ahead you are.
So another thing people do is they will want to ask a lot of other people to weigh in on their decision. So they might want to ask husband, friends, coworkers, someone else they trust to help them make this decision. because they’re second guessing themselves, right? They’re like, “I don’t trust myself to make this decision. So I want to get everybody else’s opinions.” I did this a lot.
And then I found that everybody else’s opinions just stressed me out. Because I was like, “Okay, well this person makes a really good point over here. And I asked this person. So I feel like I should do what they say, because they’re a lot older and wiser than me.” I made the mistake of asking too many people. And then I got even more confused. And then you live in more stress of worrying about whether or not they’re going to approve of your decision or not. At least this was me. I don’t know if this is you. But this could be another roadblock that you get caught up in. Right?
So when we take a long time to make decisions, when we ask a lot of people about what they think we should do, when we involve a lot more opinions, and when we go and do more research, when we think about it for longer, when we wait for a gut feeling to come over us, when we don’t make a decision to either do the thing or make a plan to be able to be in a position to do the thing, or whatever it is that we need to do, then we bank a lot of time in the indecision, and confusion, and overwhelm of not doing the thing we want and not moving there on purpose.
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So it’s like spending a lot of time deciding what car you should get, right? It’s like spending a month going back and forth from the dealership, waffling over, “Which car? Should I get this one, or should I get that one?” Instead of just picking a car and driving where you want to go. You could have been there yesterday. But instead, you’ve been thinking about the car for so long and weighing all the options, that you aren’t getting anywhere. And if your goal is to go somewhere, then this is an unproductive way of deciding, right?
If you really don’t care about where you’re going, and you’re just buying the car for fun, and you just want to cruise around and enjoy your car, then it doesn’t matter. But if you want to go somewhere and you’re really focused on getting to this thing, and you’re committed, then you don’t want to spend a month deciding what car is going to get you there. Because any of the cars are going to get you there. Okay? Assuming they’re all running.
So we spend a lot of time not moving forward, because decisions are what move us forward. So if for example, now this is where I’ll use the two examples. So if you’re thinking about signing up for a program and you wait, and wait, and wait, your thought might be like, “I’ll do it later. I’ll do it when I have the money. I’ll do it when I sign up. I’ll figure it out at some point.” Or, “Should I do it? Maybe it’s not right for me. I don’t know if it’s going to be the right decision.” And you waste the time that it takes up in your head. You waste the time thinking about it. You waste the time waffling over it.
And I’m not saying that you need to do the program. I’m just saying decide either that you are, or that you’re not. And then make your next decision for how you’re going to move forward. Right? So if you decide you’re doing the program, then you can go all in with the program and start getting the results. Or if you decide you’re not doing that program, then you can decide what you’re going to do instead. Right? But either way, staying in the comfort of the indecision doesn’t move you anywhere. Because each day that you spend thinking about something, you could be moving towards getting that result you want, but it’s now delayed. Again, because the decision, the unmade decision is taking up space in your head. And it’s all because you’re afraid to make the wrong decision, all while not realizing that when you decide something, you are sitting in that driver’s seat. And you get to decide how you show up in the face of that decision. You get to show up how you want to, to that decision. And you have full control over that.
So I want to teach you a process for decision-making that I’ve done a lot of work around. And I do believe this is what has led me to quick success because I’ve been able to identify when I’m having really a lot of breakthroughs. Like one, after the other, after the other. And it’s because of the speed at which I’ve made the decisions. So it moves me forward by leaps and bounds, because I’m able to make decisions more quickly, and more skillfully, and more masterfully. And the reason is because I’ve made a lot of them. And having this process to do so will always make it so that I’m in control of the decision and how it pans out.
So viewing a decision differently, not putting so much pressure on every single decision I make, but making more decisions faster by working through a process. So I’m going to take you through a process to help you with this. And I’ll teach you how you can create your speed of results by making more decisions. And each decision is going to be a win or a learn. So I don’t want you to think of any decision as the wrong decision. Either decision is like you’re either going to win and get what you want, or you’re going to learn. You’re going to learn. So you’re either going to get the result you wanted or the lesson that you needed. And if you get the lesson that you needed, then you’re going to continue. You’re going to make another decision until you get the win. So either way, any decision is going to move you forward way more than sitting in a confused state ever will. And if you’re saying, “I need to think about it, I need to think about it.” And you want to move forward with something in your life. Then that’s an
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indicator that you’re doing that. So even with big decisions, like getting married, or accepting an offer, or signing up for a program, we can apply this process and these questions to all of those decisions.
So for the purpose of these examples, I’m going to take you through two. So larger life decisions that have a big impact on the quality of your life in the future. So I’m not really talking about small decisions like what’s for dinner, or where should you go on vacation. But I’m talking about the decisions that are going to really change the course of your life’s trajectory.
So the first thing is you want to have some really good questions that you ask yourself to decide, to help you decide to see what comes up for you. So what information do you have now about the decision, and how do you feel about this decision right now? So sometimes, and I’ve made gut decisions before, where my body decides before my mind does. So to hire my second coach that I hired ever, I’d already been kind of communicating with her on social media. And then we got on a call. And then she told me what she was offering. And I was just like, “Yes, I’m doing it. Yes.” I already had made the decision. Right? My gut had made that for me. So if that’s a way that you can make decisions, you’ll know right away. And that’s what a gut decision is. You know right away.
If you think you need to wait for three days, then that’s not a gut decision. You’ll know sooner rather than later. So if you’re feeling nervous about the decision and you think you need to think about it, that’s just nerves, right? That’s just nerves. And I’m going to help you unpack those.
But you’re not going to get a miraculous hit, or a miraculous download, or a miraculous I’m going to do it now. That’s just you postponing it, because that would have happened already. So those decisions, they happen fast. And you know. So if you’ve had that experience, I’m sure you’ll be able to recall it. So if you have to wait for that gut decision to show up in three or four days, that’s a sign that you are avoiding the discomfort of having to make the decision.
So example one, getting married. Say you’re like, “Should I marry this person based on what I know about them, who they’ve shown me to be, how long I’ve known them? What information do I have?” Example two, signing up for a coaching program. Does it seem authentic to me? Does it seem like they’re going to help me do what I want to do? What do I want to get from it? Do I believe I’m going to be able to get this? When we feel things are off, we’re not going to want to sign up, right?
So we want to look at whether or not it’s our belief in ourselves. Do we believe that we’re going to show up and do the work for the program? Or do we believe that the program is responsible for our results? So what does it cost me to wait to make this decision? I want to ask that. Is it costing you anything to wait? What does it cost you if you make this decision or you decide … if you decide yes or no, what does it cost you either way? What is your full potential return on this decision? And is it worth it to you?
So we’re talking about signing up for a coaching program right now. These questions are kind of geared towards that. But if you’re thinking about another big decision, you can ask yourself the same things. So what does it cost you to make this decision? What does it cost you to wait to make it? What does it cost you if you say yes? What does it cost you if you say no?
So what I would look at is we mostly look at what we could lose. We’re always looking at what we could lose, what we won’t get. So for example with spending money, we’re normally just looking at what’s going out. We’re just looking at money going out, and that’s it. And that’s why we’re hesitant. We’re like, “Oh no. What if this is the wrong decision?” We’re not looking at the return on investment that we would gain. Right? So we always look at the worst case scenario, because that’s how our brains are wired. We never look at the best case scenario. Right? Or we don’t usually go there normally. Right? We’re always like, “But what if it doesn’t work out? What if I can’t do it?” Whatever thoughts come up for you.
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So you want to look at what you’re actually going to miss out on, which is the best case scenario. What is the return on investment that you’re missing out on? And then another question is why am I putting off the decision? What am I afraid is going to happen? Get really honest and present with what you’re really afraid of. What’s stopping you from saying yes? And what’s stopping you from saying no? What will you do if the worst case scenario happens? Walk yourself through that and figure out what you would actually do.
How will I know if this is the right decision? How will I measure that? Do you have a measure to know? Most people don’t. What are the ways that I am in control of making this the right decision? How will I show up to this decision? What can I control so that this is the best decision I ever made?
So in the first example, to use the getting married example, you have control over how you show up. You have control over how you navigate conflict. If you go into it with curiosity, as an opportunity to inquire, to get to know the person better, or if you fly off the handle and attack them for whatever they did. You are in control of how much you learn about relationships, about how much you put into navigating your relationships in a respectful, loving way. You have control over all those things and who you want to be. Right? So if you want to be with someone who’s loving, understanding, patient, and kind, are you those things? That’s what you have control over. Because if you are showing up as those things, then likely your decision if you feel right about it is going to turn out because you are looking at how you’re going to show up in the face of the decision, and how you’re going to show up in the relationship, right?
Example two, signing up for a coaching program that’s going to help you get a higher paying job. So you’re in control of how you show up to the program. You’re in control of getting what you need. You’re in control of asking all the questions that you need to ask. You’re in control of applying the work. You’re in control of digging deeper to find what works for you and figuring it out with all the information that you’re given. You are in control of so much in how you show up. And that is ultimately what creates the results. You get out what you put in, right? And with the right guidance, so many people fly, right? They fly and they blow my mind and their own minds with what they can do, because they didn’t have that ability to expand their own mind. They didn’t have the ability to see their own blind spots. But they made this decision, which is what created them being able to create a completely different result for themselves.
So back to some questions. Which way am I leaning either way? Is it towards a yes, is it towards a no? What are my reasons for why I would say yes? What are my reasons for why I would say no? Which set of reasons do I like the best? And you get to decide that. And I mean again, if it’s a no, that’s completely fine. The whole point is that you to make a decision, because that’s the uncomfortable part for most people.
So what place in my body am I making the decision from? Is it from lack, from fear, from scarcity? Or is it for my vision of what I want in the future? Is it from my vision of who I’m becoming and where I’m headed? How can I feel certain no matter what the outcome of this decision, how can I feel certain now? What can you do to feel certain now?
If you knew that the decision was going to work out, if you knew that either one was going to work out either way, what would you do? After the decision is made, what is in your control to steer this decision into the best decision you ever made? What can you do to guarantee yourself that you will show up to this decision with the best possible chance of making it a success? How can you personally make winning the decision inevitable? So how can you personally make this the best decision? What would you need to feel in order to feel confident in the decision? How can you give that to yourself? How can you show up in the face of the decision after it’s made? And why will you decide to love yourself no matter what the outcome?
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So that’s another one, a big one. People often think they make a wrong decision, and then they beat themselves up over it. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done that.” And it’s like you could have never known. So you can have certainty that you won’t beat yourself up no matter what happens. And that’s another episode, the one before this one, about being your own worst self-critic and how we beat ourselves up. So if you have a habit of doing that, check out that episode.
So some of the questions that you’re going to want to start with asking are if you’re somebody who needs to think about it a lot, ask yourself what exactly am I going to think about? And why do I think I need to think about it? What do I think I’m going to feel once I’m done thinking about it? How will I know I’m done thinking about it? What’s going to happen in the time that I’m thinking about it? And what needs to happen in order for me to make the decision in that time?
A few more questions. I have tons of questions. What is the upside of thinking about it? What does thinking about it give you? If you had to decide right now, life or death you had to decide right now, what would your decision be? Why? If you could buy your results, like you buy the result of your decision from the store and it was going to work out, what would your decision be if it was guaranteed to work out? Do you trust yourself to figure it out after you make the decision, no matter what? How can you make sure that something is going to work out in your favor? How can you make sure something works? Where does the result of the decision come from? Why do you think deciding slower is better? What does the time in between now and when you actually make the decision cost you. So what does it costing you? What do you need to think about? What do you think extra time will give you? Sorry if some of these are repeated. Maybe they’ll land in a different way. Why do you think that making the decision takes time? And how would you approach the decision if you were looking to get results quickly? And how could this decision actually speed up your results? And if you were leaning one way or the other, which way would it be and why?
And that’s kind of like pick out the questions that are most uncomfortable to you, because you want to work yourself through this process. And it’s uncomfortable to walk yourself through the process of a clear yes or a no, because of what I was saying earlier on the podcast about how we’re just wanting to avoid it. Our brains are like, “Nope, this is too hard. Let’s just go get a snack,” right? So you want to develop your process for how you’re going to think it through and asking yourself these questions are really digging as to what’s under there. Why you’re not making the decision is going to be the answer to how you start making your decisions.
And then what will you be basing your decision on? And do you have clear markers? Right? So in the end, you can set it up so you’re like, “This is the best case scenario. This is what I want. This decision, can it help me get there? Yes or no?” If the answer is yes, then you can either decide yes and then start planning for how you’re going to get through the result, and let that commitment fuel you, and go for it. Or you can decide no, I’m going to do it another way, and then make a different decision. And essentially, that’s the most information I think I can share with you in one podcast on how to make a decision. So hopefully that’s helpful.
I know some of those questions were repeated in a different way. So just bear with me on that. Sometimes, I like to phrase things with slightly different wording, and thinking that they might land a little bit differently. But I understand some of the questions were a bit repetitive. But you get the point.
So decision-making is such a beautiful process. It shapes our lives. And it’s not always going to be easy, especially if we don’t make a lot of them. Especially if we’re in the space of not knowing and spending time and confusion a lot. So if it’s a habit of yours where you’re spending a lot of time being confused, just know that you’re wasting a lot of time. So here’s your step-by-step process after you go through the questions.
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One, you want to make the decision. Knowing that this is the beginning, you won’t always feel 200% confident in your decisions before you make them. Sometimes, you can only have the confidence after, because then you’ll start to take action. And you’ll start to see that you can create once you’ve made the decision. But until you’ve made the decision, you can’t really do anything.
Then when you’re used to making them more and more often, you learn to trust yourself. And after the decision is made, you get to decide to love yourself no matter what the outcome. And when you do that, you’re going to get better, faster. You’re going to be less stressed out about your decisions. And your life is going to get easier, and you’re going to make much faster progress. So trust me as someone who has been through this and led my clients through this.
So the second step is you’re going to have your own back. So one thing that you can do to be sure that no matter what, you won’t beat yourself up or shame yourself if the decision ends up quote unquote not to turn out the way you wanted it. You can always have that certainty in yourself that you are going to have your own back. Because you can’t see the future. You can’t see the crystal ball that’s going to create the future. Because you are the person, the power that creates the future, right? We can’t see the future, but you can create it.
Three is trusting yourself. So deciding to trust yourself. Be like, “You know what? I got me, no matter what happens.” Four, you can reflect on the decision. So you can reflect on what worked out really well, why you liked the decision, why you didn’t like the decision if you didn’t. And then you can move forward. And that is what’s going to create you making better decisions.
So the reason why this way works a lot better if you’re trying to get somewhere, and you want to make progress, and you want to do big things in your life is because you get to become more confident in your decisions by exercising your decision-making muscle. And you’ll make more decisions. And in the beginning, they will be a little bit uncomfortable for sure. But you’re going to be less tired of making them because you’re going to be making more. And then you’re not going to put as much stress or pressure on each one. You’re going to start building trust with yourself versus having a war with yourself over whether you should or shouldn’t, or maybe it’s right, or maybe it’s not, right? And the one takeaway here that I want you to really hang on to is that whatever decision you make, the one thing you can always be certain of is yourself.
And if you can’t be, then that’s an indicator that your self-trust is low. And if your self-trust is low, then you’re going to doubt yourself a lot. And of course you’re not going to put yourself in situations that are going to be uncomfortable, because you’re going to be afraid that you’re not going to be able to handle them. So you can always trust yourself to follow through. So that’s why some people really succeed, and some people don’t. The people who don’t make a lot less decisions. They spend a lot more time overthinking than they do winning or learning from their decisions.
So I just want you to notice, are you a person who avoids decision-making? Would you say you have a pretty high decision-making score or a pretty low one? Take a look at your email inbox and tell me if that is any indicator.
Notice if you’re like this, are you getting the results you want? Are you moving as quickly in the direction that you’d like to? Are there things that you’ve been saying you want to do forever and haven’t done? Are you putting things off? Do you postpone calling people back? Do you postpone responding to emails? Do you keep saying you’re going to do something and you never do it? Are you like, “One day I’ll do it. One day it’ll happen. When this happens. When this, or this, or this,” insert the blank happens. These are indicators that you are living in a lot of confusion and some avoidance probably. Right? And that’s okay. I used to be there too. And I’m just sharing this because your life can really take off when you make more decisions.
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So if you’re happy with the results that you have, then great. You can just evaluate and keep going. And you’re probably getting where you want to go a lot faster. But I find the culprit for many of my clients is that they don’t have the results yet because they are putting too much pressure on each decision they make. So if you want to change that, you will need the willingness to step into some decisions and commit to them. Even though that might be uncomfortable if it’s not what you’re used to doing.
It’s very well worth it my friends. Because faster learning, faster results, right? And faster evaluating better decisions moving forward. Curiosity and momentum is created. Now I’m like, “That’s fun. I wonder what’s going to happen if I do this, or if I present it like this, or if I do this.” Or, “I have an idea to do this. Let’s do it.” We gain momentum because the more decisions you make, then the more I can get down to work. Right? So if I just make a decision to do this, then I’m going to be like, “Okay, now what are all the small decisions I need to implement to get where I’m going?” Right? I’m like, “Okay, what is it that I need to do?” Then I can spend all my time there. Then I get a clear picture towards where I’m going. And I get the momentum going. And then I have breakthrough after breakthrough, right? And this is called living in breakthrough. And you get to do that by the amount of decisions you make.
So you end up creating a life for yourself that you never thought possible, all from changing this habit of your decision-making. Changing your decision making is a game changer. So if this is you, you want to be a six figure earner. You want to be valued, paid at the level you know you deserve to be paid. And you can see how maybe your decision-making could be slowing you down here. I can help you. Stay on at the end to learn how, and I will talk to you next week. Bye.
If you’re resonating with what you’re hearing on the podcast, I want to tell you something. If we ever talk, or work together, or interact in any way, I will not even for a minute buy into the story that you can’t get the job you want at the pay you want and deserve. I will not buy into the story that the recruiter said you needed to have more experience, or that you were told that you needed to get another degree or certification before you could be considered. Or, that there are so many other great candidates out there that are more qualified who have already applied. Or that you need to check with your accountant first, or whatever the excuse you have that robs you from your power. I will not buy it. Because what I know for sure is that if you’re not being valued and if you’re not being paid at the level you can and deserve to be, there is a clear reason why. And, it is a reason that is completely within your control.
If you want to learn what’s really been holding you back so far and you’re ready to get some help, head on over to www.nataliefisher.ca/apply. I will be able to help you identify why you’ve been stuck so far and exactly what you need to do to move forward. And I will help you do this by showing you how to take control of your career. How to set the frame for what you want, instead of thinking that you have to be at the mercy of what you have. And as we all know, if you don’t believe that the job you want is available and that you can have it, you will always settle for the jobs you don’t want. If you are ready to move out of that space and into a better situation, I am here to help you. I’m going to teach you exactly what to do with lots of examples. Head on over to www.nataliefisher.ca/apply. I’ll see you over there.
Before I started working with her, I was employed at a job which I now realize was just not a good fit. And a lot of things were going on in my life. I was just moving to a new apartment, my girlfriend. And then the job just didn’t end up working out. And I unfortunately lost my job, but I knew that I had already taken on so much more responsibility, that I needed to get things on track. Just because I wasn’t going to let that stop me from advancing to my life and throwing away all the hard work I put before that point to get to where I am now. Everything that you were offering, and all the services, and just the advice. Sometimes, that whole mentality, that something could be too good to be true kind of thing. That was really the only reservation I had. But after we had that one-on-one meeting and everything where you discussed everything with me, I could tell you were very frank, very earnest. It wasn’t a show
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you were putting up for your videos. This is how you are in person one-on-one, and then that’s really what sold me on wanting to work alongside you.
I just get in my own head sometimes. And we think irrationally and illogically, and we try to make sense of things, but it’s hard when you’re right in it and you’ve got all these unconscious self doubts and stuff like that. So yeah, I’d say you just do a really good job of painting a really clear picture of the reality of the situation. And it really helps to create confidence. So yeah, I mean a lot of my confidence is definitely attributed to the conversations that we’ve had.
And then just flipping that switch and then being pretty much just my more authentic self and not feeling like I’m owe anything. Your checklist on what to expect from an interview and what you shouldn’t be expecting at all, that definitely helped put things in perspective. Just like you want to connect with a company that you can work alongside them. That they can help you grow, you can help them grow. It’s like it’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
When you leave me an iTunes review and send me a screenshot of the review directly to my email at natalie@asknataliefisher.com, I will send you a free gift as a thank you. And this free gift, I usually sell it for $100. So it’s $100 value. And it contains 50 examples of behavioral interview questions. So if you’ve ever stumbled, second guessed, rambled in an interview, not sure exactly what to say, I have this free guide that’s going to give you so many examples, that there’s no way you’ll be confused at the end. It’s helped thousands of people land jobs just from understanding so clearly what needs to be included. So if you don’t know how to tell a good story, inside, you’ll find the exact words. If you don’t know what stories to tell, you’re going to see the components of a successful story in action, and 50 at that.
You don’t think you have any good stories to share? Don’t worry. There’s 25 questions in there to ask yourself to pull the stories from your own brain. To get your hands on this, all you have to do is leave me an iTunes review and send it to me to my email. And I will respond with this guide. Thank you so much for listening, and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
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