Decision Debt

What it’s costing you, and how to get out of it

Last week I broke up with my boyfriend of 6 months.

For weeks prior to that I hemed-and-hawed, obsessing over the details…is this what I want? Is now the right time? What should I say? How should I say it? How will he react?

When we spent time together I made things awkward by hiding my feelings and pretending everything was okay when I knew it wasn’t. When I was alone I replayed the same questions on an endless loop in my head.

I couldn’t sleep, I was too tired to go to the gym, and I was consoling myself with food.

I was exhausted.

I was thinking the thoughts in my head but avoiding making a decision, and being in that loop made an already uncomfortable situation even worse.

Decision Debt is the mental, physical, and emotional cost of avoiding a decision we know needs to be made. Whether it’s a relationship, work, or other life circumstance, our unmade-decisions keep us spinning, cost us energy, and – most importantly – produce no results.

Why We Leave Decisions Unmade

I let indecision sabotage my time and energy because making no decision felt safer than making the wrong decision, even though I was miserable in the meantime.

Inaction is based on scarcity and fear – scarcity that there is only ONE right decision, and fear that we might make the wrong one.

But that’s primal brain thinking.

Our primal brain has 3 objectives: avoid pain, seek pleasure, and use the least amount of energy. It convinces us that staying miserable in the cave is still safer than exploring outside of it.

From the view of my primal brain, my impending break up was a life-or-death decision that there was no coming back from. I didn’t trust that I knew what I wanted or that I knew how to make it happen.

Fortunately, we also have a a prefrontal cortex…the logical part of our brain that knows how to step back and consider information and data. It removes the layers of drama and is a much more solid place to make decisions from.

In my logical brain I knew I couldn’t continue with the current relationship because pretending I was happy left me feeling frustrated and resentful. I was afraid of hurting my boyfriend by speaking up, but staying quiet was hurting both of us, it was just a slower process.

How To Escape Decision Debt

Unmade decisions require energy and produce no results.

Making a decision moves you forward.

When you find yourself stuck in an indecision loop, try these 4 steps:

Instead of running a problem over and over in your head, write it down. Getting it out of your head and onto a page helps to engage the prefrontal cortex and makes the problem easier to see.
Ask yourself “If I know I’ll be happy either way, what would I choose?” In my case, if I knew I would be happy whether I was with my boyfriend, or without him, what would I choose? Don’t overthink it, go with the first answer that comes to you.
After you have your answer, write down your why’s. You have to like your reasons. Liking your reasons for your decision gives you confidence, which you’ll need for the next step. (Note: THERE ARE NO ‘SHOULD’S’ ALLOWED IN THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS. If I hear you using the word ‘should’ to make a decision I will come find you and shake you by the shoulder’s until you delete that word from your vocabulary)
Have your own back. You’ve decided what’s best for you (only YOU know what that is), and you like your reasons. If you have those two things, no one else can talk you down.

And here’s the best part – even if the decision you make doesn’t produce the results you wanted, or expected, at first – YOU’RE STILL MOVING FORWARD BY MAKING A DECISION.

Last week I did finally make the decision to tell my boyfriend I wasn’t happy and I wanted to break up.

We had a good, productive conversation, and he said some things that really made me think.

Plot twist, after a few more conversations I decided to give our relationship another try. (The reason for my change of heart isn’t important, let’s just say it has something to do with my habit of shutting down in a relationship when I feel like someone is getting “too close”. But that’s a story for another day!).

I used the same decision-making process for staying that I used for leaving: I wrote out my thoughts (I had much more to consider after the conversation with my boyfriend and some soul-searching), I liked my reasons, and I had my own back for those reasons.

None of us has a crystal ball. We can only make our decisions based on a hypothesis of what we think the result might be (logical brain), and what we believe what will be best for us.

I’m not saying we should only think from our logical brain, but it bears trying out when we can’t seem to make a decision otherwise.

As cliche as it sounds, we won’t know we’re taking the right action until we take it.

We can spend our energy spinning in indecision for days, weeks, months, or even years. Or we can decide to take the first, best action, and begin moving forward.

It might be the right step on the first try, or we might use that first result and decide to pivot. Either result is infinitely better than hiding in indecision.

The more you make conscious, deliberate decisions, the easier they are to make.

Confidence breeds confidence.

Stop living in Decision Debt, and start making the choices that move you forward.

Discover What’s Possible

Lost in Negativity: Rediscovering the Habit of Positive Thinking

Photo by Ümit Bulut on Unsplash

We all know the benefits of maintaining a positive outlook – lower blood pressure, less stress, better mood, etc.

I even teach others how to improve their life by managing their thoughts.

Unfortunately, my bouts of positivity can sometimes be short-lived.

All might be well for a few days or even weeks at a time…I feel productive, I have a great attitude, I’m in happy hustle mode getting all the things done.

Inevitably, the “ick”, or negative thought loop, will start to sneak in:

“You know you’re doing this wrong. You didn’t finish what you started last time, what makes you think you’ll finish this? And even if you do no one will notice, so why do you bother?”.

My happy hustle mode quietly begins to wane and the negativity sets in. The next thing I know I’m sitting on the couch binge-watching Northwoods Law for hours, crying over lost hikers and injured baby animals.

It takes work for me to keep positivity in the forefront of my brain and I’ve turned that work into a daily habit. It’s when I break that habit that the ick starts to take over. As a result, I can sit in apathy and inactivity for days or even weeks.

Thankfully I’ve learned now how to recognize that pattern within myself. And while I can’t always stop it from happening, I can drastically shorten its effect.

Here are 3 steps I take when I need to get my brain back on track.

Step One – Stop the “ick”.

As they say, the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging.

So the first thing I do when I find myself in a negative thought spiral is to stop beating myself up for being in a negative thought spiral.

If someone I loved was down or in a slump, I would never even THINK of layering more negativity on top of that, because that’s not how we treat our loved ones.

But that is how we treat ourselves.

So I think of something I would normally say to someone I love, and I say it to myself. Statements like “I love you and it’s okay to feel however you feel. It doesn’t make you bad, or wrong, or mean anything about you.” “You’re not doing life wrong.” I sometimes even give myself a little mental hug, just like I would hug one of my kids.

One thing I DON’T do is try to force myself out of the negativity. If I decide I want to feel bad for a few days, then I give myself permission to do just that. When I decide I’m tired of sitting on the couch I get my journal out and get back to doing some simple thought work.

Second step, write down your intentional thoughts. Every day.

Journaling needs to be a top priority for me if I want to stay in a positive thought cycle.

Every time I find myself in a downward spiral you can bet it started when I stopped making journaling a daily habit.

It doesn’t have to be anything involved or elaborate. My daily journaling takes maybe 10 minutes in the morning, depending on whether or not I do a full thought download (aka “brain dump”)..

Since journals can sometimes be pricey and complicated I started making my own using a small, plain, college-ruled notebook.

Each entry starts with a list of the “5 Things I’m Grateful For” that day (big or small). That prompt immediately takes my focus off of myself and puts it towards the good things I have going on around me, even if it’s just a really good, hot cup of coffee.

Next, I make a list of the “10 Ways I’m Living My Fullest Life”. These are 10 ideals I want to maintain daily to help me achieve my goals. It’s the same list every day, in order of importance, and written in the present tense. Here are the first two as an example:

I treat myself with love and respect.

This is a decision I committed to about a year ago, and I still have to write it down every day or I will forget it. When I’m treating myself with love and respect it’s impossible to also hold the belief that I’m not good enough. Writing this simple phrase is a sure-fire way to pull myself out of a spiral, I can feel a shift in my body as soon as I remind myself of that commitment.

The second item on my list:

I believe in myself and my clients

It’s another thought that I decided to adopt a long time ago, and another one I can easily forget if I’m not reminded daily. Just like my first affirmation, when I remind myself that I believe both myself and my clients have what it takes to show up for ourselves and improve our lives, I can’t also hold the belief that “this will never work so why bother”.

Last, but not least

The third step for living my fullest life is to move my body every day.

This can be anything from going to the gym and working hard for an hour, running a 5K, or just walking for 15 minutes.

Committing to moving my body can also be a double-edged sword for me…I love working out at the gym and I equally love getting outside and walking, hiking, running, kayaking, paddle boarding, you name it. It clears my mind, gives me a better perspective, and reminds me how strong my body is.

But it’s also something I can, and will, use against myself if I don’t achieve it (I’m looking at you damn Apple rings). I would also rather work out than do other things, like talk to other humans or try to craft the perfect blog post. So I just need to make sure that the reasons I’m moving my body that week are in alignment with the first two items on my daily list.

These are just 3 steps out of the 10 that I use to get my brain back into a positive thought habit. It would be wonderful if I could just wake up every day and have all these great thoughts and feelings generated automatically, without having to put in any work, but that’s just not how it is for me.

And that’s okay.

I don’t believe we’re meant to have “only good vibes”, or “no bad days”. I think life is more like 50/50 – 50% positive and 50% negative. And when my life is turning out to feel more 70/30 or 80/20, I know what steps I can, and need, to take to get my life back on track.

And now, so do you.

Discover What’s Possible

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Hustle, People-Pleasing, and Overwhelm

Here’s why you’re killing yourself at work, and how to stop.

Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash

I became a full-blown workaholic at the age of 18.

I had started working in fast food jobs at the age of 15 (I had to fake my application to say I was 15 ½, which was the minimum age to start working in California). I worked in a few different fast-food chains before starting a corporate job in the real estate industry at 18.

And I’ve been in that same industry ever since, 37 years.

But my job/life balance looks drastically different today than it did back then.

It’s not that I loved working. It was more like every day gave me a new chance for me to prove my worth to my managers, bosses, and co-workers.

I would go into work early, stay late, work weekends, and even bring files home. Sometimes I wouldn’t log my time because “that’s just what it took” to prove my worth. Unfortunately it also meant sacrificing time with my newly born daughter when I was a single mom, and, later on, my other kids and my family.

I’m not proud of that.

I’m only thankful that I had the opportunity later in life to re-build, or build, that relationship with my children as we all got older.

Once, when I had been working my ass off in corporate for about 8 years, I had a meeting with our office manager to go over my yearly performance. I had established myself as a hard worker at that point, so I was expecting a good review.

We were sitting in his office, him seated behind a big mahogany desk in an over-stuffed chair, and me sitting on the other side of the desk in (of course) a chair that was smaller and lower to the ground.

He knew who I was and I knew who he was, but we had never really had a conversation before.

During our meeting I remember him looking at me without speaking for what seemed like an uncomfortable amount of time. He finally said he appreciated that they could put me as an assistant with anyone because I seemed to get along with everybody, even the hard-noses that no one else wanted to work with. Then he tilted his head one side and asked “Are you a middle child?”.

That was around the time The Birth Order book came out, and apparently this guy that I had never really spoken to before had me all figured out.

I remember feeling very uncomfortable and resentful at his question. I had never considered my birth order up to that point, or what it even meant, and I certainly wasn’t expecting that question as part of my review.

Unfortunately though, his theory was right, I was a middle child. And, although I never read the Birth Order book, I definitely grew up with an urge to make sure everyone else around me “felt okay”. I learned early on that was the best way to keep the peace and avoid unpleasant (and sometimes angry) confrontation.

It was my way of making myself feel safe.

I have no idea how my boss had figured out so much about me, since I didn’t even understand it about myself at the time.

But my review was favorable, and they rewarded me by making me the assistant of one of the mangers that was such a jerk no one else wanted to work with him. But I played my people-pleasing game and made it work out.

I continued to be a workaholic and feed off of the attention and the accolades until I eventually burned out from it.

And now, in spite of all the blood, sweat and tears I gave my job over roughly 30 years, I’ve learned that it could never give back to me what I desired most. It could never give me the love, attention, and value that I wasn’t able to give myself.

Anyone who has ever worked in a corporate job knows the more work you do, the more work they give you to do. It’s like trying to dig a hole in the sand at the beach, the more you dig, the more it fills itself back in.

And when you burn out, it’s not your job’s job to save you. The Powers That Be will simply move on to the next hustler, and then you end up back where you’ve always been.

Responsible for your own feeling of self-worth and value.

And that, my friends, is a good thing,

You’re the only one that responsibility SHOULD belong to. You’re the only one who can control how you feel, and it’s because of the thoughts you’re thinking. It comes down to your beliefs.

You don’t need a job to feel worthy.

You need to believe you’re already worthy.

You don’t need a job to feel valuable.

You need to believe you’re already valuable.

And no job, no person, can give you that value, but they also can’t take it away. It belongs to you and only.

And once you anchor yourself into that belief you will be able to establish boundaries to protect it.

You will stop hustling to prove yourself. You will stop allowing others to dictate how you feel by what they say and how they act. You get to own your boundaries, your own self-worth, all of it.

THAT’S the work you should be focusing on.

It will change your life.

Discover What’s Possible.

3 Straightforward Ways to Stop Fighting Reality, And Start Working Towards What You Want

Woman in black workout clothes and black boxing gloves hitting a punching bag

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

Fun fact, I had a completely different post typed up before this one.

I finished the first article then shortly thereafter decided that I hated it (which does sometimes happens, not a big deal).

But then I fell into the very trap that I’m here to warn you about.

My usual modus operandi goes like this — I write something that I feel super good about, then I go back to edit it the next day and think “Actually, this is crap. How did I even think it was good?”. But then I mess with it for a little while, get back into the flow, and make it work out.

Not this time.

This time I spent the next three days spinning in thoughts like “This shouldn’t be so hard. I don’t even want to write this anymore. Nothing is working. This is stupid”, and then I would go eat a snack, make some coffee, and binge cooking shows on tv.

I was fighting the reality of having to write a blog about fighting reality.

I’m a firm believer that life is a balance of emotion, positive and negative, and that we’re not supposed to feel good all the time.

The question is, why do we choose to prolong our time in the negative?

I don’t know if anyone loves their job 100% of the time, but usually we can get back into it and remember why we signed up in the first place. The same holds true for trying to live healthier or manage our finances, we have times we’re in flow and times that we aren’t.

The problem comes when we start fighting our circumstances. Naturally the thoughts I was stuck in, “This shouldn’t be so hard”, and “I don’t want to work on this anymore” are going to make me feel crappy. And when I indulge in those crappy thoughts long enough I end up feeling depressed and resentful.

Have you ever tried being productive when you’re feeling depressed and resentful? (0/10, I don’t recommend it).

It’s easy to blame work, our health, or our finances for our unhappiness. But by blaming our circumstances — something that’s outside ourselves — we give away the power to make ourselves feel better and improve those circumstances.

The way to take back that power is to change the thoughts that are keeping us stuck in that negative loop.

Here’s how to get out of that rut and start moving toward what you want:

Accept where you are now

Let me clarify, I’m not suggesting you paste on a happy thought and force yourself to love your current circumstance (in fact I will never give you that advice). Acknowledging you’re not where you want to be is a sign that you’re ready to start thinking about moving forward and leveling up your life.

What I’m offering is for you to accept you are where you are right now, make it a neutral circumstance — you have a job, you have a body, you have a bank account. Accepting your current circumstance doesn’t mean it will always stay this way.

Instead of spending your time and energy fighting it, spend that same amount of time and energy getting curious about what you might want to do instead.

And just a heads up, when you try to ask your brain what to do next it will automatically answer “I don’t know”.

Never let your brain stop at “I don’t know”.

Instead ask a better question, such as, “What if I do know, what would it look like?”. Or, “If I could make money doing anything at all, what might that be?”.

Understand the benefit of staying stuck

Holding onto the thoughts that are making us unhappy has net benefits.

When we stay stuck in an unhappy situation we become the victim of that situation and we give up the power to change it. When we give up the power to change it we also abdicate responsibility, which saves us from having to take scary actions like trying something we’ve never done before and risking failure or embarrassment.

Our brains are so tricky like that.

They’re designed to keep us safe, and keeping us safe means keeping us comfortable. But being comfortable and being happy are not the same thing.

We’re comfortable with something because it feels familiar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we enjoy it. This explains why most of us will spend years stuck in a job we don’t like, we may not be happy but the work is familiar and we don’t have to risk failure by trying something new.

How to move forward anyway

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but: You don’t have to have all the answers before you get started.

You can be unsure, you can be scared, and you can even be wrong (okay, chances are you will be wrong, at least a few times), but you can also do it anyway.

None of us were born knowing how to walk, run, drive a car, or write a blog, every one of us had to learn by doing.

For some reason, it was easier when we were kids. Maybe because we didn’t worry so much about failing back then? As adults, when we start thinking of doing something new, our brains are wired to tell us it’s too difficult. It will automatically answer “I don’t know how”.

Never let your brain stop at “I don’t know how”.

The “how” is, you research the thing, and you take the first step. There is no right or wrong answer here, there’s just one decision or another. You pick one thing and you try it. If that doesn’t get you the desired result, then you try something else. It’s really that simple (notice I didn’t say easy).

Once you’ve committed to your decision on how you want to move forward, put your blinders on and go for it. Decide you will try it for at least “x” number of days or weeks (or longer) before you change it up and try something else.

You may not achieve your first goal, but then again, you might. Or what if you end up doing something completely different, something even better than you could imagine?

You may even discover that you’ve become a better person along the way.

Key takeaways:

Accept your current circumstance/reality. You don’t have to like it but you’re wasting time and energy by fighting it.

Understand that staying stuck will seem easier than changing your situation because it requires no risk and no commitment, but you will be miserable in the meantime.

Ask your brain productive questions about what you might want to do next or what the first step might be. Then let your brain surprise you by coming up with answers you never thought you knew. And don’t panic! You don’t have to execute every idea, just go into each one with curiosity.

Once you’ve decided what you want to do, commit to one action that will move you forward. Then enjoy the person you’re evolving into while overcoming obstacles to get you the life you want.

Discover What’s Possible.