00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 229, "How to Make Better Decisions." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Alright. Hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast today. First of all, if you are listening to this on Monday, the day that it comes out on November 14th, my Mastermind classes that I am doing, today is the last day to register for those, those start tomorrow. So if you've been thinking about it, it's time to make a decision, my friends. I would love to have you. Both of those classes still have room in them and I just think the more amazing minds we can get together, the better off we're all going to be and it's going to be a great experience. I have some great stuff planned. So if you have been on the fence, it's time to make a decision, which just happens to be the topic of today's podcast, which is how to make better decisions, but I did not have that in mind when I prepared this content. 

01:11 

So the other thing I just want to say is I have gotten a lot of reviews lately on iTunes and I just so appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time to do that and helping other people to find this content. I feel so powerfully about this content and I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have to share these things with you and I appreciate you then turning around and sharing in with others. I think that there's some content here that can change lives for the better and help us be more in alignment with the kind of person that we want to be and with the kind of life that we want to have and I love that you're sharing it. So thank you very much. 

01:47 

Okay, let's jump in today. How to make better decisions. So what is it about making a decision that can sometimes seem so difficult? Because really, when you think about about it, a decision can be made in less than a second. What drags it out is all of the trying to decide what is the best decision. Okay, so let me give you for example, for my own life. I was scheduled to speak at the BYU Divorce cCnference earlier this month, and I was trying to decide how long I wanted to stay in Utah, and BYU for that paid for my plane ticket to get out there. So I knew that I was going to fly out on a Thursday, the conference started on a Friday, and I could either fly home on Sunday and be here in Indiana to work with my clients starting on Monday, or I could stay until Thursday and work with my clients from my home in Utah Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then also I would have time to visit with some friends and family. And I had been mulling over this decision for about two weeks, knowing that I needed to make it, but not sure what I wanted to do. I am after all, still a newlywed, and I really, really like to hang out with my husband. And I wasn't sure I wanted to spend an extra four days away. I know, isn't that just cute and lovely? It's so fun to be in this place. But while I was still bouncing all this around on my head, I had a call with a woman who was in charge of the conference and she ended up asking what days I wanted to fly so that she could arrange my ticket and I hadn't thought, I didn't know that that's what we were going to be discussing that day. But guess what? I decided right then, no drama, no more mulling it over, even though in my head I hadn't finished weighing all of the pros and cons and I didn't feel I was close to making the decision. I did and it was done and there was no going back. So then I thought, "huh, does this mean I didn't need to expend all the extra time and energy mulling because..." anyway, it's gotten me thinking a lot about how and why we make decisions. And I want to share some of my thoughts with y'all. 

03:52 

So a decision is really just committing to something. It could be a behavior, a belief, or a thought, but it means being really committed, being all-in on a decision and not constantly second guessing or doubting. When we don't make a decision about something, one word that I often hear is "stuck" and it makes perfect sense why we would feel stuck when we're not deciding, because we've stopped moving. That's part of the definition of being stuck, right? Stagnant, no movement. Decisions create movement and movement means we're not stuck. So first, let's talk about why it can be hard to make a decision and that will bring some clarity about how we can make better decisions. 

04:37 

So one reason we hesitate making a decision about something is the struggle surrounding the idea that there is a right or  wrong decision. Personally, I do believe that there are some decisions in life that really matter a lot and that there really might be a right or wrong decision. Most decisions, though, I believe there isn't really a right or wrong. I believe this is just part of our God-given agency, our right to choose for ourselves the experiences we want to have. I love that in the Doctrine and Covenants Christ says that He will order all things for your good. I see the Lord saying here that He can take any situation and make it a good learning experience for us. Even though I chose last year to get married and move away from my children across the United States, I could have also chosen not to get married to stay single and live by my children. And I feel honestly that either situation would have been great. Either one would have given me the experience to learn and grow from, and I fully trust that God would order all things for my good. I chose what I chose and now I'm just having a different experience, brilliant experience, mind you, but it would be different. What I was really choosing in that was the experience that I wanted to have, not so much the right or the wrong decision. When we get in a place where we are so fixated on what the right decision is, we can stop all movement; it can paralyze us. And this halts our progress. And I fully believe that if there is a right decision and I make the wrong one, that it won't be long before it becomes abundantly clear that I should have made a different decision. And I'm able to course correct and get myself on a different path. I can always re-decide, make a different decision. 

06:29 

I love the story told in conference several years ago about a son and his dad were driving home on an unfamiliar roads when they came to a fork in the road. And they weren't sure which direction to go. And so they prayed and they both felt like they should take the right fork. And so they go down the right fork, they get about a mile down the road and all of a sudden it comes through a dead end. And so they turn around and they go back and they take the left fork. And the boy ends up asking his dad, he's like, well, "why did we both feel like we should take the right fork when it ended up being in a dead end?" And the decision that they came to was that by taking the right fork, they went just a short amount of time before they knew it was the wrong decision. And then they could go back and take the left fork and never have to wonder. They don't have to continue down that path thinking, "huh, is this the right path? We've gone 20 miles and there's no answer here", right? Like "we're not where we're supposed to be. Did we make the wrong decision?" They were able to move forward confidently. And I just know that God loves us so much and really wants what is best for us. And I promise if it really matters, He will step into nudge us, although not force us, in another direction. Otherwise there is a lesson to be learned and strength to be gained anywhere on the path we choose. My friend calls this like picking up mana. Like, when we're moving forward in the decision we need to, those lessons are like mana. And when we're moving forward with a lot of doubt, we're so in our head that we can't see the man of the lessons to be picked up. 

08:06 

So another reason that I think we struggle with decision making is because we're worried about letting others down and having other people feel disappointed. This element of people pleasing is so intriguing because we can believe we shouldn't ever make a decision that hurts other people, even if the decision is hurting us. Somehow we believe that we're in control of all the people's emotions, that how I live, what I do, what I choose, how other people think and feel about that is my responsibility. But the alternative is that we end up living a lie. We end up not being true to us because we're trying to control the reactions of all the people it may affect. So along these lines, we may feel that we are being selfish to make decisions based on our own wants and desires for something. But the alternative again is that we're lying. We're not being selfless. We're being dishonest about what we really want and what we really need. And this also makes sense because as women, we have socially been taught that we are in charge of everyone else's emotions and experiences. And we have often learned to shush the voice inside of us that wants or needs something. And along with this, as well as women, we've also been taught to defer to others when it comes to decision making, to not trust ourselves. Pick up any woman's magazine off the shelf and browse through it and you will see articles telling us the best way to do almost anything. How to dress for our body shape, how to wear our hair for our face shape, the best way to wear makeup to slim down our nose and our faces. How to sit, how to stand, how to walk, how to show up during intimacy, how to do almost anything. And I just realized the irony of talking to you about how to make better decisions. So funny. Okay, I feel that as women, we are taught that the answers are all outside of us. 

10:05 

So we get really used to handling out survey cards when we have a decision to make. We start asking our spouse, our friends, our siblings, our children, our mothers, what they think the best decision for us to make. When in reality, we are the only ones who can really know. And yes, I believe we can know for the most part. When we learn to listen to ourselves, to what our spirit wants, and also learn to tune into the Holy Spirit and also learn to trust those two sources of knowledge, we  can make decisions with confidence. 

10:40 

So I think another reason we are sometimes fearful of making a decision is because we can think that we can't change our decision once we've made it. And that our current decision would be changing our mind. I get this. This is one reason why those of us who find ourselves needing to make a divorce decision can struggle so much. We made the decision years ago to get married and often we felt spiritually guided to make that decision, and now we're revisiting it. Can we revisit decisions? Can we choose a different course of action? I believe we can and I believe that there are a lot of situations where it's a great thing to make another decision to change our mind days, weeks, months, or even years later. If we are learning and growing and progressing, we will outgrow some of our decisions. It's just inevitable. We become a person who has different needs and wants and desires so we revisit decisions and many of them can take a considerable amount of time to feel that we have considered our options and that we are clear about the path we want to take. And even when we feel we've received the clarity we need, fear can absolutely play a part in our hesitation to move forward with the decision we feel we want and that we need to make. 

11:54 

It's interesting to note that all of these reasons for struggling we've talked about are fear-based. So I want you to think about a strong decision you made that you didn't feel stuck in that you felt confident moving forward with. Most likely it was a decision based much more in love than it was in fear, meaning that it wasn't a scary decision but that your reasons for choosing what you did were based in love rather than fear. For example, the most difficult decision of my life was when I decided to get divorced. I sat on it a long time because I was scared. I was scared of what other people would think. I was scared of what impact it would have on my children. I was scared of the financial implications of whether I would be able to support myself. I was scared of breaking marital covenants with my spouse and with God and with myself and what it would mean to be single again after 20+ years. I was scared of so many things. The shift happened for me though, my ability to make a decision, when I felt that I moved out of the fear and into love for myself. When I really felt that I was strong and capable, when I felt God's love and knew that He would support me, when I felt love and compassion for me and the situation I was in, then the decision came much easier. It didn't mean that I wasn't still scared of how it would all play out, but I knew that I had my back and I knew that God had my back. 

13:26 

I believe when we really start to move into this new space of confidence that decision making really becomes easier. When we know that we love ourselves enough to have our back with whatever decision we make, then making the decision becomes easier. It's super hard to make a decision when we know that we will constantly be second guessing, looking over our shoulder and wondering if we should have made a different choice. I believe when we realize that we will always have our own back, regardless of our choice, that we also realize that we can be happy and successful with whatever decision we make, because then we will be all in with our decision. We will be fully committed and thereby much more likely to be successful with whatever the decision is. 

14:14 

I'm going to put it in a thought model, because I love the clarity that that brings. It's just fascinating to me. If we put in the circumstance line whatever decision you make, it could be a parenting decision, a marital decision, a career decision, a moving decision, right, whatever. But then if your thought is, "I'm just not sure this is the right decision." The feeling that that thought creates is apprehension or hesitancy. And then the action that shows up is we second guess. We keep waffling on our decisions. We keep revisiting it. We're not all in. And then the result is we never really know if it's the right decision. We're always struggling with that. That question keeps coming up. But let's just change our thought about it. So put again whatever decision you want to make in your circumstance line. And if your thought is, "I'm all in on this decision," your feeling is confidence. And then it shows up for you, but in that you keep looking forward. You start making more aligned decisions that help create what you want. You are all in on that decision. And the result is that it becomes the right decision. 

15:30 

What if something is the right decision just because we decide to make it the right decision? For example, say you're thinking of moving to two different places and you finally decide on one. If you're all in on the decision, believing that it's the right one, you will show up confident. You will decorate your house and paint your walls and hang your pictures. You will reach out to people. You will get involved in the community and in your church. You will put down roots and you will fully engage. And the decision to move there ends up being a great one because you've been all in. If you're not all in on the decision, if  you're always second guessing and doubting, you show up hesitant. You don't paint your walls and hang your pictures. You don't reach out as much to people because you don't know if you want to establish friendships because you might leave. And for the same reason, you don't get involved in the community and your church. You don't fully engage because you're always doubting whether you should be there or not. This would most likely end up not being a great decision for you. You would have a miserable experience there, but not because the decision was wrong or bad, but because you didn't have your own back. You weren't all in. 

16:43 

So, if we go to the first point I talked about today that there usually isn't a right or wrong, that there's just decisions we make and either choosing to be all in or not, we either have our own back and support ourselves in our decision or we don't. We might make a decision and then continue to stay stuck in indecision because we don't go all in on what we've chosen. We're not confident in our ability to do that decision. So making a decision and then not having your back is not really much better than not making a decision at all. But if we make a decision, really choose that decision and then move forward with confidence, then it becomes the right decision because we make it the right decision. We create the environment where we become successful. So we want to think about our decision in a way that supports us in our decision and in a way that has our own back, a place where we can actually create the success of that decision. 

17:41 

So another point I want to mention is that if we are making a decision to escape something, to run away from something, to avoid feeling something, we are losing out on an opportunity to grow and progress and that may not be the best reason to make that particular decision. We can absolutely make that decision, but I can promise you that you will end up in a similar situation in the future, that you'll be at the same crossroads just at another time. This is because though you change the circumstance, you don't change the person engaging with the circumstance and that person, you, will eventually create the same type of circumstance. So if everyone bullies you at work and you decide to get another job, I can promise you, it won't be long before everybody at your new job bullies you. And you've all seen this with people you know, they take the same brain to a new place and eventually they create the same thing because they're going to see everybody's behavior as bullying behavior, even when it's not. 

18:43 

And I believe this is why 67% of second marriages fail. We just take the same brain, the same dysfunctional patterns of behavior into a new relationship. We have to love our reason to leave. We have to engage differently. We have to have our own back and part of having our own back when we leave a relationship is figuring out all the reasons that that relationship failed. And those reasons are based in us, not in the other spouse for sure. That's the place we have to get to in order to have our own back. So loving your reason to leave rather than leaving because of fear is a fabulous way to have your own back. We want to create decision from a desire to progress and move forward, not with an effort to run away from something. 

19:37 

So here's another point I want to talk about. As we've already discussed, many of us procrastinate making a decision based on our fear of making a wrong decision. So please realize that not making a decision is making a decision and is subjecting ourselves to the consequence of that decision. We are deciding or choosing to stay in the same place. One of my coach friends was telling me about a client they had who didn't know what decision to make and sat on it for years, literally years, waiting for God to give her direction. She sat stagnant and stuck for years. Had she just made a decision, any decision, think of what she could have created during that time. Indecision is a decision. We are deciding not to take a committed course of action. We are deciding not to create a different consequence. And this is something that I often refer to as the decision drama. We're soaking in indecision, refusing to get out of the water, thinking that it's all warm and comfortable, but our brains are going crazy, beating ourselves up over our lack of decision. And this is the exhausting part, this place where our brains are spinning over what decision to make, and whether it was the right decision, and all the second guessing, and doubting, and fear. That's what's exhausting about decision making: all the decision drama that we create. 

21:06 

I found in my life that the greatest growth and change of consequence has come when I have made a committed decision, been all in, and didn't keep thinking I had to make this same decision, over and over. This is actually energy-producing, so much more energizing when we are all in and have our own backs. When I decided to start a coaching business, it was really slow going at first. It was scary and uncomfortable to start telling people I was a coach, wondering what they were thinking  of me, thinking that I could do this. I had no idea how to market, put myself out there, and it's taken me a long time. It's a long time, four years, right? But I made an all in decision. I decided I 100% was going to figure out how to create a coaching business. I believed that if I just kept at it and never quit, that eventually it would work out. And now I am really starting to see the consequences of making that all in decision. Being all in meant that I didn't keep wondering if this was what I wanted, or wondering if I could figure it out, or constantly thinking that it was taking too long. Being all in meant that I 100% knew that I could do what it took to make this successful. I kept reminding myself that it was okay if it took several years, because I was figuring it all out from scratch. I was 100% committed to figuring it out. And now this year, my business is at a point that I'm making more money doing this than I was making. being a teacher, right? It's a process and it's taken me years to get there, but it took four years of going home from school every day and then coaching my clients and posting on social media and writing and recording podcasts and sending out my weekly email. And that decision I made four years ago to go all in on this is now producing fruit. 

23:05 

I made a similar decision two years ago when I decided that I wanted to get married. Again, it wasn't a decision made from fear or scarcity. I didn't want to get married because I didn't think I was enough or complete on my own. I didn't need someone to take care of me or to stroke my ego or to give me money. I decided I wanted to know what it was like to have a deeply intimate partnership, something I had never had before. And this became my driving force. And once I decided that, I was all in. I started cleaning up a lot of my thoughts about sexuality and about relationships. I started getting online and meeting men. I started cleaning up how I was showing up when I would meet them online or in person. I consciously adjusted the questions I was asking and the vulnerability level that I would show up with. I was all in on figuring out how to show up 100% as me and how to find my person. I didn't keep second guessing or having a hard experience and then deciding, "oh, I'm done dating forever. This is just too hard. There's too much drama." I didn't allow myself to go there. I just allowed myself to feel the pain of a broken heart and then I got up and I got back to work, figuring it out. My siblings and my kids, I'm sure, were rolling their eyes because I would bring someone to a family party and they would all love him and then a short time later, we would not be dating but I would tell them that I was going to figure it out. I was going to find my person and then the next family party, I was showing up with somebody else, right? And I did, but I decided to find him and I went all in. I don't know that everybody will find their person this way but knowing that I was all in, knowing I was determined to find my person, absolutely impacted the way that I showed up in the world. The decision to make it happen, had me showing up differently. I do believe at a pretty deep level that I created this just by my level of dedication to my decision. I think many of us play the flip a coin at the intersection game. 

25:09 

Remember that one in high school where you would be in a car with a boy and every time you came to an intersection, you flipped a card and heads you turned right and tails you turned left and then you went until you found the dead end and then you got to make out, remember those days? So it's kind of the kind of thing I think a lot of us are just like, "oh, I'm at this intersection, what decisions should I make?" And we just flip a coin and then we go until the next intersection and then we flip a coin. Like, we're not intentional. What if instead we started with a map of where we intentionally want to go. And then we know before we get to the intersection what direction we're heading. What if we start with these questions? Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What do you want to create in your life? These questions lay the foundation for us to get traction to start moving and make a decision we can be all in on. I really believe that making good decisions is more about having our own backs when we make them than it is about which decision is right or wrong. Also in making that initial decision I'm a firm believer in involving God, in seeking His guidance and his help. 

26:29 

When I was making my decision to get divorced I believe strongly that it was God who opened up information that let me know that it was okay. When I was deciding the timeline of when to move forward with the divorce, I also believed that God was very clear on when was a good time to do it. When I was contemplating becoming a life coach and starting a business, I 100% believe that God was nudging me and showing me glimpses of who I was meant to be and what I was capable of doing and how to get there. When deciding it was time to date, I felt God's presence enlightening my mind in teaching me how to show up and how to engage and knowing what I wanted to create. And then after seeking his guidance, I made the decision and I had my own back. And this is how it is with any decision that we make. Seek God's guidance the best you can, make the best decision you can and then have your back 100%, knowing that God also has your back. 

27:28 

You've got this, my friend, and I've got you. The content here will help you as you start aligning your life with your values and living the way that you really want to. I really believe that these decisions come easier and the more that we step into the space where we trust ourselves, we love ourselves, we want to do what's best for us, the easier it can be to make these decisions and have our back 100%. This is growing up and growing up into the middle age is spectacular. Spectacular. I love it so much. Okay, that's going to do it for me this week my friends. I hope you have a great week and that you can use this decision to move yourself forward on the path that you want to go. And I guess I'll see you next week. Bye. 

28:18 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.