You may have been taught to think about your decisions. Write down the pros and cons for each decision. Really think about it. You may find, though, that this leads to indecision as you go round and round in your head, thinking about one scenario after another.
What if you have been taught wrong the wrong way to make decisions? What if it is better to make decisions from the body instead of the brain?
The brain is a binary system. It takes in information and compares and analyzes it. This is fine until you want wisdom to be part of the decision. Then you want to look to the body.
Wisdom comes in through the body.
“What are you talking about,” you may be saying right now. Think about almost every successful person who goes out on a limb and makes a decision that’s successful. They usually say it was a “gut feeling”, or “it just felt right”, or “I just knew it was the right decision”.
When you hear that, it may not always make sense to you. Part of that is because it doesn’t make sense from an analytical point of view. These are decisions that were made from the body.
Here’s the problem.
Most of us are so disconnected from our bodies and our emotions, that it’s hard to understand or even tap into.
You may have had a lot of pain growing up which caused you to shut down or when you got emotional, someone scolded you for it, and you began little by little to disconnect.
I get it. I was really bullied growing up for having curly hair. Around 7th grade, I remember getting off the bus and running home in tears being followed by several other kids teasing me. Once I got to my house, I ran up the stairs, locked myself in the bathroom, and stared at myself in the mirror. I made a decision that I was not going to let them hurt me or tell me who I was. This was a great decision at 13-years-old but not in the long run. I stuffed all my emotion and became completely disconnected from how I was feeling.
This served me really well until I didn’t have a parent making decisions for me. I found myself making decisions from my head and looking outside of myself for the right answer. I made choices out of feeling obligated. What I thought someone else thought I should do, until one decision came up that caused me so much anxiety that I had to make the right choice for me. My body would no longer be ignored. Every cell in my body was saying, “Don’t do it”.
I would love to say that cured me from over-thinking things and making decisions based on what someone else thought. But it was a journey to reconnect to my emotions and how my body was feeling.
In my experience working with hundreds of women, I realized I’m not alone.
If you find yourself having difficulty making decisions or finding you make decisions to please other people (or out of a sense of obligation), then you too may want to reconnect with your own personal navigation system.
Find that stillness within to tap into how you are feeling.
To make decisions that are right for you, it’s important to tap into your body. Get out of your head, and listen to your body.
Is your gut saying “No” or does saying “Yes” to a decision just not feel good? Or maybe you just intuitively know it’s a “No”. But do you say “No”? You may get caught up with it and think, “You don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings”, “I really should do this”, “They really are counting on me to do this”, or you just feel plain obligated.
Then there is the sneakier, “No one else can do it but me”. This is how you talk yourself out of listening to the “No” your body is telling you. Then you end up resentful or frustrated because you really didn’t want to say “Yes” in the first place.
I know that I will get really excited about something when I’m with people and it sounds really fun to hold a dinner party for 10 next weekend. I say “Yes”, only to wake up and think. “Why did I agree to that”??? I don’t want to do that.
I have learned that for me, I need to take a moment and find the stillness within the emotion and figure out if saying “Yes” feels good or not to me. I’ve learned to trust what feels right and what doesn’t. Although every now and then, the excitement still gets me.
The key is really being able to tap into to your stillness, how your body feels, and how it talks to you.
Do you get a gut reaction to things? Do you find yourself saying, “Oh, that feels so good, yes let’s do it”, or do you just intuitively instantly know when something is right or not?
You have your own answers and they lie inside of you.
“Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
~Steve Jobs
When you stay true to what is right for you, everyone around you benefits. You’re calmer and happier, you give others permission to do what is right for them, and you stay out of resentment and frustration. A win-win.
Test it. I bet you can remember a time when you said “Yes” and you knew you should say, “No”. In the end, it would have been much better to say, “No”.
Next time you have a decision to make, take a moment to get still and check in with your body.
Start with small decisions and practice. Play with not thinking so much about a decision, but check in with your body. Do you get a gut feeling or reaction, or are you more emotional and need to find that quiet space in the emotion to see if something feels good to you or not. You may be one that just intuitively knows.
Make a few decisions this way and see what happens. Play and experiment. I bet, like my clients and myself, you will find life and business goes much smoother when you tap into your body and your personal navigation system to make decisions that are right for you.