© 2024 Melanie White
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If you’re struggling with making decisions in your business or your life and you’re feeling overwhelmed and procrastinating then this episode is for you. I want to help you to bust through your decision-making blocks and start taking action so that you can create the business in life that you want and do it your way.
I’m currently reading Lisa Sasevic’s book Meant for More. It’s a really inspiring book and I am totally aligned with what she says, she says what I think so eloquently. So I’d like to share some insights from her book in this episode.
Lisa talks about the concept of decision blockers. These are things that stop you from pursuing your dreams. These are the things that keep you stuck in the I’m not good enough or it’s not perfect headspace and prevents you from achieving what you wish for.
As Lisa rightly says, all transformation is preceded by a decision.
In this case, we are talking about daily and weekly decisions – the little things – as much as we are talking about the bigger decisions.
Reflect on that for a moment, like I did.
Maybe you’re trying to decide when to officially launch your business.
Maybe you’re trying to choose a colour and font set for your business branding.
Maybe you’re trying to finalise your website.
Maybe you’re finding it hard to commit to a niche.
Maybe you’re trying to decide which CRM to sign up for.
Maybe you’re trying to figure out whether you need a CRM, a certain email program, or a financial package.
Maybe you’re wondering whether you should do some specific training course to help you with your business or hire a business coach.
Maybe you’re wondering if this coaching thing is really going to work and if you can commit to stepping away from your job so that you can transition into your business.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed just listening to this right now, that’s exactly what happens on a daily basis to a lot of people. You can see how this sort of thinking is not very helpful
Now, remember a time that you’ve made a decision about something, and how much clarity, confidence, and certainty about what you’re going to do next. Even if the thing is a little bit scary, at least you are clear and confident about the next steps.
So what gets in the way of making decisions like this and how do you get past that?
Here are some ways to bust common decision blockers, according to Lisa Sasevich and I.
Some people do a lot of research before they make a decision. And if you are researching all the time and then never making decisions it means that you are researching probably a bit much.
And while a little bit of research is great to help you make a decision, too much is going to tip you into decision blocking.
It’s easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis, especially if you are a questioner tenancy or if you lack self-confidence.
Here are two things you can do.
Lisa recommends that you tune into what you really want, hear the answer, and take action.
I recommend that you put a time limit on your research – a hard stop – so you contain it to equip yourself with essential information to make a decision.
We’re not talking about market research here. If you are constantly second-guessing what you are creating, wanting to put out there, or wanting to sign up for, then you can ask other people about their experience and opinion to a certain point, but once again it’s easy to go overboard with this.
Just remember that other people can give different perspectives but they have different values, goals, and resources.
So like doing research, it’s important that you put a hard stop on the amount of opinions you seek, and to seek opinions from people who you believe are wise and sound.
But ultimately, I recommend you use those perspectives to either strengthen your own opinion or reconsider it.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re thinking about getting a VA for your business. You aren’t quite sure if you want to spend the money or whether it will be worth it.
So you start asking other people what it’s like to have a VA and what they recommend. Because everybody will have a different VA and for different types of tasks and they will have totally different expectations of their VA compared to you.
Opinions can be a handy but subjective guide – take them as information and not gospel. As the expert in your own life, only you know what you want and need, why, and what your expectations are.
The same goes for software. People often ask me which CRM they should use, and which mail program they should use, and I just say do the free trials and see which one works best for you. That’s what I do because some of the most popular software doesn’t gel with me and my learning style, but you can only know that if you do a trial.
People are often researching and polling and getting opinions because they lack trust in themselves. Remember that you are your best investment. If you want to be light, respected, trusted, and invested in you and you need to do these things for yourself.
Start to trust yourself. Do your research, and get opinions, but make your own decisions for your own reasons.
Know that you will make mistakes along the way, but they can use this to tweak and fine-tune your decisions to get the best outcome anyway
Nobody else is you. Only you are you. Back yourself, and you will find that other people back you too.
As you can see, to make decisions easier on yourself, you are going to need to pull back from a few things, and let go of achieving. When you can tap into your courage you will bypass the overwhelm and you can try, and adjust as you go and learn.
It takes courage to do certain things in your life. And that’s really what we are talking about here.
In my experience, every time you get decision fatigue and feel overwhelmed, you can get past that by making a plan.
Even if you plan to make a decision by a certain date, at least that is defining a hard stop.
Plan to spend a certain amount of time doing research. Plan to spend a certain amount of time asking for opinions if you need to do that too.
Plan where and when you might do a trial of some sort.
You will have your next steps mapped out clearly and will know exactly what to do and when. You can even ask for help to get those things done, once you have the steps written out and scheduled.
Today, I talked about how easy it is to feel overwhelmed and to become stuck with decisions or take action. I have discussed four ways to bust common decision blockers, according to Lisa Sasevich and myself.
For this to work, you’ll need to take action.
You might like to write out these four steps, as a reminder of what to do and how to do it. You might like to put in place a timeslot every week to make a plan for things that you need to make decisions on that week.
Also, you might like to create some sort of a decision matrix to help you make decisions and take action at the moment.
Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.
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© 2024 Melanie White