Escaping the Land of Miserable Maybe: Boosting Decision-Making Confidence

Ever find yourself standing at the crossroads of a decision, only to set up camp and live there? That's what we call the "land of miserable maybe," a place where choices are as elusive as mirages. This episode, Life Coach Jen, steps in as your guide, sharing tales of her own battle with decision paralysis and contrasting it with her knack for rapid-fire choices. We dissect the pitfalls of indecisiveness, revealing how it not only stalls commitment but also fills our schedules with an exhausting parade of 'what-ifs.' By leaning into the decision-making process and shunning the allure of perpetual uncertainty, you'll learn how to reclaim the driver's seat of your life.

Strap in as we power through strategies for boosting your decision-making confidence, turning the once-daunting task into second nature. I lay out a road map for setting your own deadlines and the art of weighing multiple options, helping you cultivate a robust confidence in your choices. We'll pinpoint the comfort zones where decisions flow naturally, using them as launch pads for leapfrogging into the more intimidating realms of choice. This journey is about trusting your inner compass, diminishing the need for external validation, and ultimately, steering towards a life brimming with happiness and self-assurance. Let's embark on this transformative path together, and remember, your insights are the compass that guides our future discussions—so keep them coming!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I'm Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I'm a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing senora, a home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself and your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life's greatest challenges. Hey, friends, welcome to today's podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:43

If you are listening to this, on Monday it's President's Day and your kids are out of school, so maybe you are listening, maybe you're not, but anyways, it's my favorite weekend because yesterday was my birthday and I don't know. Having a birthday on Sunday isn't ideal, but I'm so grateful to be alive and because not everyone gets to celebrate their birthday, and so I'm excited to be here and talk to you about this interesting topic. And the topic that I'm talking about today is living in the land of miserable. Maybe and I don't know, and I'm guessing some of you can relate to this and maybe some of you can't, but what it is, if you find yourself saying I don't know and avoiding making decisions, this podcast is for you. I think a lot of times we get stuck in deciding because we think that there's a right or wrong choice and sometimes there's not. And if you want to be more empowered in your life, then this is a problem for you, because you can't be empowered when you are stuck in. I don't know, maybe I don't know, it's like lack of confidence, I think, lack of willingness to be wrong, make a wrong decision, and I think when we make it right or wrong, that puts a lot of pressure on us, because many times there isn't a right or wrong decision. There might be a little better decision or we just put a lot of weight on it, and so then we get stuck and spin.

Speaker 1: 2:23

But what I found, especially being divorced I'm a single mom, I'm a single woman I have to make lots of decisions just on my own, and one thing that I didn't necessarily realize about myself, that I have discovered about myself, is that I'm actually a pretty quick decision maker. I don't spend a lot of time. You know, I have a brother I won't say his name he will spend months researching cars Me. I spent about a day and I went to the car dealership and I was like, oh, I like this car and I bought it and so I didn't really. I'm like I like Nissan's. I think they're good cars. I like this particular. The Nissan Rogue is the one I ended up buying several months ago, but he just spends a lot of time with certain things.

Speaker 1: 3:16

And I'm not saying that is the wrong way to do it, but getting your back and having confidence and knowing what you like and what you want and going after it, I think is much more empowerment and you won't be spinning in the land of miserable, maybe because that is a miserable place to be. I don't know if you've ever had a party, and usually I like to send evites and there's the option of, yes, I'm going to the party, no, I'm not going to the party, and maybe I'm going to the party and, as the person hosting the party, when you get some yeses and noes and a lot of maybes, that is really hard right, because it's like okay, do I think the maybes are gonna turn into yeses or noes? So you either buy too much food or not enough and you have a lot more people show up than you think. And so I realized sometimes you don't know and you wanna let them know like, hey, I'm thinking about it, but maybe is just such a, it's very non-committal. So if you find you're a maybe person, maybe look and analyze like, do I struggle with commitment? Why am I just too busy in my life that I have 10 things on the same day all the time and maybe decide like, do I like that about me? Do I wanna make my life not so busy? Because busyness is a whole other issue that maybe we'll talk about someday. But women especially were always busy, right, and that means we're avoiding feeling and doing other things. So anyways. So I just think that is a good example of how maybe because I think sometimes that's kind of the lazy part of our brain Like we don't wanna commit, we don't wanna decide, so we're just gonna say maybe.

Speaker 1: 5:18

And I think you know just anything in your life making the decision to get divorced. Now I realized that going to a party and getting divorced are totally different. But many times I know I it took me. I think from the first time I filed from divorce to when I actually got divorced was five years, so I'm not telling you that decision. It carried a lot more weight for me, cause remember, if you listened to last week's podcast or a few weeks ago podcast. I talked about pretty little thoughts and I had the thought of families are forever and it was really hard for me to decide like, no, I'm gonna get divorced. But honestly, the moment of decision to when we got divorced was like six weeks and so it happened fast. Once I knew, I knew and we were divorced.

Speaker 1: 6:17

And so sometimes it does take some time to make a decision, especially when it carries weight on other people's lives, on your children, your lifestyle, all the things. Maybe you need to spend more time on that decision, but I find that in general, we are spending a lot of wasted energy on making a decision and knowing what we want. A lot of times we, instead of making our decision, we wanna ask everyone else. We ask our brother, our kids, our neighbor, a friend from high school what they would do. Instead of going inward, we decide okay, I can't make the decision, so I'm gonna ask everyone else.

Speaker 1: 7:07

And guess what Chances are? You get lots of different opinions, right, and so then you get confused anymore because they're not you, so they don't even know the full gravity of your decision, and especially when it's a big decision. Or should I switch jobs. So let me decide my employment by what everyone else says to me, right? I also know that it's good to talk to someone else, but those people are not neutral. They have skin in the game, right, and so they're gonna base their decision what they're telling you on their thoughts and feelings. So I think it's always helpful to have a coach, because they're a neutral person in your life, or a therapist, and they're gonna be able to help you sort out your thoughts and help you uncover what you're worried about and the real issues, as opposed to asking your brother, your mom, your dad.

Speaker 1: 8:05

Instead of doing that, we need to go inward and figure out what do we want, because otherwise then we're making a decision while my brother told me to get the car, and then you end up getting it and you hate it, and then guess what you get? To blame your brother? Not really, but that's what our brain wants to do, right? It wasn't his fault. He just mentioned yeah, I really like the Nissan Rogue, and then you buy it and hate it, and that's not I just made that up, but because I really like my Nissan Rogue actually. But you get what I'm trying to say, right? And so just be careful when you ask for other people's opinions for you to make your decision.

Speaker 1: 8:45

So sometimes there may be things in your life that you're really good at making a decision about. So pay attention. What are you thinking? Why is it easy for you to make a decision about what car to buy or what to wear or what school to go to? Why are those decisions easy? Maybe you made them ahead of time. I think you know back in the day and I know I taught my kids this like make decisions ahead of time that when someone asks you to drink alcohol, that you're gonna already know the answer is no, right. And so it was easy because you already made the decision. So maybe that's a good way for you to go. Hey, maybe I should make the decision about certain things ahead of time.

Speaker 1: 9:31

But I'm guessing most of us decided if my spouse ever has an affair, we're gonna immediately get divorced. Well, that sounds great. Right, that feels like a good decision. Except for when you're in it and you have babies and you have kids and you have assets and all the things right, it becomes a much more complicated decision. So I'm not just saying that all decisions are easy or complicated, but when we start telling our brain I don't know, then our brain doesn't give us any solutions, because there's a million solutions and ideas, but it shuts off our ability to get creative and have other thoughts and get inspiration. The moment we tell our brain I don't know, it shuts off and stops looking for solutions. So I would encourage you, even if you say the thought I don't know yet, but I'm gonna figure it out Something like that will still help your brain continue looking for ideas or thoughts or solutions, and so I think that is really important.

Speaker 1: 10:45

It helps you get a little bit more curious and helps you make a decision, especially when it's something like divorce. Now, what am I gonna wear today? That doesn't have anything. You know, nothing bad's gonna happen with your choice of what you're gonna wear today. Right, but sometimes start with those little decisions and get good at those. Like I'm really good. I know what colors I like, what things I like. I can look at paint colors and decide I like that one, that one and that one. And every now and again, if I've had something getting painted in my house, I choose a color and they paint it and I'm like oh okay, I don't really like that, but I'm at least a lot closer than I was. So sometimes you have to experiment with a decision and, especially when it's like paint, you can just paint right over it. Right? It's not a life or death. You know a huge decision. And so practice with those little decisions and don't get stuck in the miserable maybe and the I don't knows For those that are divorced or widowed.

Speaker 1: 11:54

I challenge you to practice figuring out what you like, because I think a lot of women are like well, they default to what their husband liked or what he liked to do, and I don't know why we do this as women Not all of us do this, but many of us do. We default to what their preferences are. But now that you don't have a husband anymore, decide. What do you like. What do you want your home to feel like? What do you want to do with your extra time? Where do you wanna travel? Like? Figure out what you like instead of defaulting, and I know a lot of women get paralyzed in this because they're not used to making those decisions.

Speaker 1: 12:40

But I promise you, as you get confidence, as you practice, you're gonna figure out how you want your life to look, how you want to be a mother, how you want to parent, how you want to live your life without your default brain going to oh, I have to ask someone else's opinion, because my opinion doesn't carry it as much weight as someone else's. So I would challenge you to find out look at your life. Where in your life is it easy for you to make a decision? And then practice finding things that are harder for you to make a decision, and practice, practice saying okay, I'm going to give myself 24 hours, I'm going to give myself five days to make this decision. Give yourself some deadlines, because I think our brain will start getting creative. Write down I'm going to write 100 ideas on the paper before I make a decision and just force yourself to do that. Write all those ideas down and you're going to get better at making decisions and I promise that's going to help you in your life and all aspects of your life, instead of getting stuck in the I don't know, because we all really know if we look inside, we all know there's something, even if it just sparks something, just a tiny bit of something, just a preference, and you can't even explain to anyone why you're choosing that. It doesn't matter. You don't need to explain to anyone why you're choosing it. Just choose it and go down that path and see how that goes.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Hopefully this was helpful. I would love to hear your ideas on topics that I can talk about in my podcast, so send me an email or a message on Instagram. I'd love to talk to you and get your thoughts and opinions. Have a beautiful day. If you want to learn how to live happily even after sign up for my email at. Hello at lifecoachjenn with one n dot com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let's work together to create your happily even after.