283: Making Decisions
I got the most amazing message the other day from a client I worked with, and I want to read it here for you. It says this:
"Just an update from our session treating my agoraphobia.
YOU ARE A MIRACLE WORKER!!
I haven't made any big trips yet but I've tested myself enough to know that RRT really worked. I take smaller trips to areas I know would have been difficult in the past and nothing comes up as far as anxiety. I even push it trying to get myself anxious and NOTHING!
The only thing I've noticed is I'm still hesitant to try going out further, I think it's just my memory coming into play. I've been agoraphobic for so long it's hard for me to think it isn't there anymore. I'm looking forward to our next session.
Thank you so much.”
These kinds of messages make me so happy because someone has broken free of the chains that have kept them contained for so long. This man suffered for many, many years and tried other things to help it, and finally, this helped. I feel so lucky every day to be able to do this work. Every time, I am so amazed at how quickly this can help and how life-changing it is for people.
If you are struggling with anxiety or trauma, I can help you. Go to my website, www.meganhillukka.com and you’ll find a place to book a free 20-minute consultation with me, where we can see if what I do is right for you and I can help you in your situation!
So let’s get started with today's topic!
I have struggled with making decisions. It’s been challenging to decide things, even simple things, because I don’t want to make the wrong decision. But I’ve been practicing making decisions and getting better at it, so I want to share with you some ideas if this has been a struggle for you—ideas to help you make decisions and not worry about them so much.
I do want to say that this got 1000 times worse after Aria died. I didn’t want to make any decisions at all.
The thing about trying to decide something is that it can take up so much brain space. When you’re in the decision-making process, trying to decide yes or no, it’s taking up so much brain power. So the quicker you can make decisions, the quicker you can get out of indecision, and the more energy and brain power you have back for other things. Pushing off a decision for later is actually draining energy, and it’s also continuing that energy of trying to decide. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being in that energy of trying to decide. It feels so good when you just decide, and then you don’t look back and wonder if it was the wrong or right decision. Because it was what you decided, and you just go with that.
Most decisions in your daily life are not final or big decisions. It’s like the little decisions that can make you overwhelmed or make you feel like your brain is going to explode. It’s just overwhelming. If it’s a decision like if your kids are asking about something they can or can’t do, for example, in our house, a decision that kept my brain overwhelmed was if my kids wanted to listen to stories or do some screen time. They would ask constantly. And then, with the constant asking and the fact that I didn’t know if I should let them or not, every time they asked, my brain hurt. And so I got overwhelmed. And I didn’t know what to say each time. So we decided that they could only do screen time once a week for 30 minutes. And we said, OK, Mondays are your screen time days, and it’s 30 minutes. And guess what? My kids stopped asking. Because now there were boundaries and rules, and they didn’t need to wonder anymore if they could do screen time because they knew not until Monday, and they knew how long they got. That was incredible. There is no more brain space for that.
Practice making decisions quickly. Especially little things like when we would go to a restaurant, I seriously could look at the menu forever, because everything looks so good, and I just want one of everything, and I can’t figure out which one would be the best, and I just look and look, and Justin would get frustrated with me because he looks and decides in like 2 minutes. And I’m like, gosh, how do you decide so fast? You didn’t even see the whole menu so you don’t know if there’s something that you would rather have that would be better than what you ordered! So part of my hangup with making decisions is if I make the wrong decision and miss out on something better. So, for this example, I’ve made it more of a practice and a goal to look quickly and decide. I don’t have a specific time limit, but I just pretty quickly decide what I’m having, rather than hemming and hawing forever.
When you make a decision, don’t second-guess it. Because that just brings up more of the waffling energy. Just decide, go forward with it, and if it becomes clear to make another decision and do something different, then you do that. When you’re deciding if you should paint your wall white or blue, if you paint it white and then, after a while, you realize that you’d rather it be blue, then you go with that. It wasn’t the wrong decision. Maybe you had to have a white wall so that you could know that you preferred blue. So make a decision and stop second-guessing yourself. Just do it, and know that there’s no wrong decision. You made the right decision with the information you have, what you’re thinking, your perspective, and all the other things, and then you went from there.
With that, don’t put so much pressure or weight on your decisions. This is very common in the entrepreneurial world, where someone will have an idea, but let’s say for example, they are trying to decide if they should do a membership or a course, and they get stuck trying to decide this and then they just don’t take any action and they don’t make a membership or a course. You can always change your path, but you've got to start knowing where you’re going. If you do membership and then realize you like the course model better, you’re free to change it later, and now you have that knowledge that you don’t like the membership model.
And if you treat every decision like it’s this huge thing, of course, you’re not going to decide because you don’t want to make the wrong choice, and so maybe if you don’t choose, then you won’t make the wrong decision. But in so many ways, it’s causing a lot more turmoil to stay in indecision than it is to just decide and then deal with it if you would like to do something different.
The other part of decisions is that if you made a decision in the past and something very terrible happened afterward, and maybe that’s been causing you to struggle with decision-making, it can help to clear out that part of your mind that’s been thinking that you could have done something differently or decided differently.
When we make a decision, we don’t know the future. We decide based on the information we have and what we think will be the right choices. I don’t think any of us go around trying to make a bad decision on purpose. This is when RRT can be super powerful in helping your mind clear and stop thinking something could have been done differently because it couldn't. It’s super interesting how much time we can spend thinking about how things should be or could have been done differently when they couldn’t, because they didn’t. But I’ve felt this myself; even if the facts say otherwise, I have still wanted to fight against it.
But anyway, once your mind gets cleared and stops trying to get you to do something differently than you did, there is so much more peace that can come. And then, you can have the freedom to make decisions because that’s what they are for all of us—just decisions to make, and then life plays out how it does.
Let me know. Has making decisions been a struggle for you? And if so, which one of these was the most helpful for you?
I’m always rooting for you, my friend!
Have you felt anxiety after your child died?
The racing mind, unable to sleep, waiting for the next bad thing to happen, unable to breathe, panicky kind of anxiety, whole body riddled with anxiety?
Watch my free video on anxiety and grief below!
So that you can think clearly, feel calm in your body, and live your life without the chains of anxiety.
