Episode 405: Monday Mindset: Never Question the Decision

In today's Monday Mindset episode, Your toughest habits don’t break in big dramatic moments. They break in quiet negotiations you barely notice, the quick “just this once” you tell yourself when you’re tired, overwhelmed, or craving comfort. We’re sharing one mantra that has become a steady compass for intentional living: never question the decision.

If you want a stronger week, write the mantra down, name the decision you’ve been renegotiating, and commit to living it. Share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more teachers can find it. What’s one decision you’re done debating?

Transcript

Monday Mindset For Teachers

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello teachers, and welcome to your Monday mindset. And as always, I want to invite you to think about these episodes beyond just your own life. You know, bring these to your students, to your family, to your peers. You can even put the idea in front of your students every Monday morning and just see what comes up for them, right? Post a question around this on the board and have a discussion. Because what I'm sharing today and in all of these Monday mindsets isn't really necessarily about teaching or being in the classroom. It really is about being human and becoming the best version of ourselves. And your students are navigating that same thing and probably more intensely than we give them credit for. So let's dive into today's episode. And there is a mantra that has become one of the most useful frames of reference for my life in the last three years since I first came across this concept or this phrase. And it's very simple, and I keep coming back to it because it works. And that is the phrase never question the decision. So I want to give you some context around this and where this came from. So many of you know that I made a choice back in December of 2022 to cut alcohol completely out of my life. I believe I gave it up on December 30th, right before the new year. And it really started as like a dry January experiment that stretched into a hundred days. That when I hit that hundred day mark, I was like, I'm just never gonna drink alcohol again. I don't drink, is kind of how I began to identify. And now it just is a part of who I am, is that I just don't drink alcohol. And what was really neat is I was working through an app called Reframe to like help work through removing alcohol from your life, right? Like it talks about the behavioral psychology behind changing your relationship with alcohol, all of that stuff. And one of the phrases, one of the things that it teaches, which applies more way more than to just giving up alcohol, is the one of never question the decision. And it's like once you've made a decision about who you want to be and how you want to live, you stop treating it as a question or you stop treating it as something that is negotiable. It is now not up for debate anymore. And it's not something you revisit every time the situation gets inconvenient or every time your heart softens or whatever it might be. The decision has been made and you just live that decision. So never question the decision. And here's why I think it matters so much because most of us make decisions with what I call like our best brain, right? Our most thoughtful, most self-aware, most forward-thinking self when we're not in a state of crisis or a state of extreme emotional overwhelm. And so we sit down in a calm moment and we say, I want to be someone who goes to the gym consistently, or I want to stop reaching for my phone first thing in the morning, or I want to use my prep period for grading and actually leave school on time, right? Which we talked about last week on last week's podcast episode. Whatever that decision is, you made that decision from a moment of clarity. And the decision feels just obvious, right? Like, of course that's what I'm gonna do. And then what happens? Wednesday happens or Saturday happens, and you're tired, and the old habit and old way of being is right there and it's familiar and it's easy. And your brain, the part that runs on autopilot, right? The part that's trying to conserve energy and trying to protect you and try to return what to what's comfortable, it starts negotiating, starts asking questions. It starts saying, like, just this once, or this one time it really doesn't matter, or I'll get back on track tomorrow, right? How many of you have had that experience? I know I certainly have. And that negotiation is where our habits start to fall apart and our desire, I'm sorry, our habits start to come back and our desire for change starts to fall apart. It's not this like big dramatic thing, but it's in these small micro decisions of these moments that get quietly like brought back to the surface. And so when we have this phrase of, nope, never question the decision, when we have that as our internal compass, it closes that door, right? You've already decided from a place of intention, from a place of clarity. There is now nothing left to negotiate. The question isn't should I? It's just now, how do I do this thing? How do I stay on track? Not should I stay on track, not should I use my prep period, not should I make that decision. It's how do I stay in integrity to the commitment that I made to myself to never question this decision. And this applies to small things and significant things. Perhaps it's cutting back on something that isn't serving you, like alcohol or whatever it might be. Maybe it's committing to something new and adding a new morning routine or protecting time with your family or not working on Sunday, right? Whatever that change is, this mantra is still the same. You make the decision from your best clearest self and then you never question it. And I'm not trying to say like rigidity is this like virtue. But what I'm talking about is that most of the questioning that we do in those weak moments isn't really genuine reflection. It really is resistance to change. It really is our brain keeping us safe and keeping us in our comfort zone. And when we recognize it for what it is, we don't have to engage with it anymore. We've already decided. We never question the decision and we keep moving forward. So my question for you on this Monday is where in your life is there a decision that you've already made or a decision that you know you need to make that you keep quietly like letting into your life that you don't want to anymore. I want you to name it. I want you to make a decision around it, and then you don't negotiate, and then you never question the decision. So share this with your students, share it with family, share it with friends, share it with colleagues. Let me know what comes up for you. Come find me on Instagram at EB Academics, or if you're an EB teacher inside of our membership, let us know inside of our Facebook group. And I just want you to like write this mantra down of never question the decision. Stop negotiating with your higher self's decision making. Because typically, that higher self, that original decision that you made, is the decision that is meant to help you become the greatest version of yourself, to help you protect the things that you care about, to help you protect you. All right, you guys. Here's to another week of living intentionally, and I will see you tomorrow on the podcast. Bye, everyone.