The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

How to Stop Overthinking Decisions (and Finally Move Forward) | Ep. 113

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 113

Share episode

Send us a text

How to stop overthinking decisions—especially the ones that keep you stuck. If you’re someone who spends too much time weighing every option, replaying every possible outcome, or feeling anxious about making the “right” choice, this episode is for you.

I explore how shifting your mindset—by treating decisions as experiments—can free you from analysis paralysis. You’ll discover:

Why most decisions aren’t as high-stakes as they seem

How changing your language can reduce pressure and fear

Why real clarity comes from taking action, not overthinking

This is for overthinkers, perfectionists, and anyone ready to make more confident choices in everyday life. Let’s break the cycle and start moving forward.

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

Sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking here.

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay



Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast with Fiona Kane. Today I'm actually going to be talking to you about decision making and rumination, so really kind of about the sort of the things that can reframe things and the things that can change things in regards to that, because so many of us get stuck in ruminating about decisions and not sure what I should do. Us get stuck in ruminating about decisions and not sure what I should do and what happens is we spend so much time thinking I'll begin that when, or I don't know whether or not I should do that, what will happen if all of these things go wrong? That we just don't get things done and we just don't do things in life. So there's so many decisions where we just don't need that level of rumination. Now, if your decision is about you know who should I marry, or something like that, of course that's a different situation where you do want to spend more time thinking about it and you do really want to get things right if you can. Even then, of course, no, it's modern times. You don't necessarily have to stay with that person forever, but it is ideal if we can make our marriages work, of course. Anyway, I digress, but many decisions are just not as big as we make them out to be. And even today, the world we live in now, 2025, people have more than one career. So even the decision about what career you should do, it doesn't matter. You can change and more often than not, the experience we have in one thing will actually help us in something else, even if it seems like it won't.

Fiona Kane:

You know, I spent many years doing secretarial work and the skills I had doing that really helped me in my own business, right. So you know, it could be the skills you learned as in like what you did at university or what you did in your course. It could be the skills you learned as in, like what you did at university or what you did in your course. It could be the skills you learned by the people, skills or the fact that you had to market yourself in a certain way. It could be the skills you learned by being on the ground in a certain situation, or the travel that you did for a certain job. There's a whole lot of skills that we get that help us anyway, even if we're not sort of doing that thing forever.

Fiona Kane:

So it is really important to not get stuck on making choices, and today I was actually listening to an interesting podcast. I love Chris Williamson's show which is called Modern Wisdom, and he had I think his name was George Mack on the show and he's a really interesting man and he's obviously been doing lots of different research and what he said is in regards to like, when you're ruminating on decisions, he has a great reframe that he uses. So his reframe is to call them experiments, not decisions, and I think that is a really great reframe because an experiment is quite different to a decision, because we do create, we make words a big deal right and we put some words as like they're heavier than other words. We put a lot of weight on them and I think the word decision there's a lot of weight on that word. So when you change the word decision to the word experiment, it's okay. This is just something I am going to try which is very different from I've got to make this decision right. So the word decision is very strong and it feels like it's got a lot of weight on it and a lot of ramifications to it, whereas the word experiment is very different and the thing about experimenting is that, essentially, making a decision is making a decision, even if you were driving somewhere, right.

Fiona Kane:

You make a decision, you come to a crossroads. You don't know which way to go. You say, well, which one? I'll just go this way, right Now. If this way doesn't work, well, what do you do? You end up going the other way, or you find your way back, all right. So essentially, in many things in life, it's the same thing that you make a decision, but that decision doesn't mean you are bound to go in that one direction forever and you can't change anything, you can't add anything, you can't remove anything. It's just a choice to move forward, because moving forward is always a good idea. Occasionally it's good to stop, you know, whatever, but moving forward is a good thing. So a big part of this is actually just moving forward, and when we move forward we get momentum and we get experience and we learn things, and that's what keeps us going right. So you know, I think he's absolutely right in his reframing of the word decision to experiment.

Fiona Kane:

I use the same thing with my clients in regards to food. So I say we're going to have a food adventure. A food adventure is very different and has a very different energy to we're going to go on a diet, or we're going to restrict your diet, or we're going to take foods away or whatever other language. When you just say, let's have a food adventure, let's have an adventure and see how you feel when you eat different ways and you try different things, language is very powerful and it has a very different feeling for it and a very different feeling. The words just have different feelings, different heaviness and different energies around them. So I would encourage you in your own life, to, whether or not you're thinking about decisions or whatever it is, one is just I always go back to just be really, really aware of the language, be aware of the words you say.

Fiona Kane:

And when you're making decisions, like so many of us, we get caught.

Fiona Kane:

Well, what if people will laugh at me? Or what will people say? Or what if I get it wrong? Well, what if, in most cases, getting it wrong is not the end of the world? In the majority of cases, getting it wrong is just learning another way of not doing it that way. That that didn't work, we'll try it a different way. Or that didn't work, we'll try something different. And you know, I think that one of the uh, one of the things, that, uh, powerful things that some people do when they're, when they do courses and things like that is they actually start with people with. Okay, let's start and imagine that you've passed away and you're actually at your funeral service or your wake, or whatever you call it, right, and you're at this wake and you're hearing what people say about you, right? And you're hearing what's happening there.

Fiona Kane:

Okay, at this point, did it matter that you took the wrong turn? Did it matter that you made a career decision that you later on regretted and so you changed it to something else? Did it matter that you kind of fell over and made a fool of yourself or whatever? Probably not right. So we do put a lot of weight into things that really shouldn't have that much weight. And the truth is that if we're afraid to get it wrong, if we're afraid to be wrong, if we're afraid to make a mistake, if we're afraid to look silly, we will never achieve anything.

Fiona Kane:

And all the people that do achieve great things, they are willing to look silly first. All of the people like what's his name? Is it Tony Hawk who does the skateboarding? I think it is. He's probably an older one. I'm sure there's much younger people now. But whoever these people are right. People who do motorsports, they do any kind of sports Actually. They do singing, they play the guitar, whatever it is. These people have been willing to do it wrong a lot of the time and do it badly and literally fall over and make a fool of themselves and look silly and all of the rest of it. And they've been willing to do that over and make a fool of themselves and look silly and all the rest of it. And they've been willing to do that over and over and over again until they get better at it. And eventually they get better at it and they become experts. And then people actually pay them to do it or pay them to watch them sing or whatever it is right. But how did they do that? They weren't just born with it. They might have been. Obviously, people are born with certain kind of more natural talents than others, but they still weren't born being able to do the thing right. They're able to do the thing because they practiced it lots and lots and lots of times and they got good at it because they practiced it.

Fiona Kane:

So just be aware that when we get caught in that rumination and when we get caught in that decision-making thing. For most decisions it is not worth. You know, you spend the two years that you spent thinking about it. You could have tried one path, tried the other and be off on the third. Or, you know, you cook them with gas because you figured out which way works and which way doesn't and you're doing it right, you're doing the thing. So don't waste your life on not doing the thing, on not exploring, because really that's what it is it's an exploration. So it's an experiment. It's an exploration, right? It's an adventure, and life is all of those things. And if we use that language and see it as that way and see it as a place to experiment and try different things and see what fits and see what works and see what we're good at and see what we're not good at, because that's the other thing you don't know your strengths and what you can do and what you can't do and all those things, until you try and do it.

Fiona Kane:

You go out and you do it and that's how you find out. I've had this same conversation where I've talked about people kind of like navel gazing and wondering who am I? And the truth is, you find out who you are by going out in the world and by being right. You go out in the world and you do stuff. You go out in the world and you be around people. You go out in the world and you actively get involved. And that's actually how you find out who you are, because you find out what your personality is like. You find out what your strengths are. You find out what your weaknesses are. There might be some weaknesses you can strengthen and there might be some weaknesses. The only way you strengthen them is by just avoiding those and hiring someone else to do that thing, or letting someone else do that thing and you do something different. But whatever it is, you find out what that is. But you don't find out what that is by sitting down, wondering and worrying about it and thinking what if, what if? And you could do the what ifs forever. I could sit here and spend years what if-ing about everything.

Fiona Kane:

It doesn't change the outcome. The outcome is we're all going to be dead one day. That's the outcome. Right In between now and then is our time to be alive. It doesn't change the fact that you might fall over and make a fool of yourself. It doesn't change the fact that life is full of all of the changes. You're going to gain friends, you're going to lose friends. You're going to have love. You're going to lose love. You're going to have grief, you're going to have happiness. All of that's going to happen in life, no matter what. But if you go out and you're actually prepared to do the experiment and the exploration and all of those things and go out and just be part of life and get involved in life, at least you get to live yours right. And also, that's whenever you read if you've ever read anyone's book, any autobiographies or any watch the movie or anything about people who've achieved great things.

Fiona Kane:

There's one thing they all have in common they just get in there and get stuff done, don't they right? They just make it happen. They make it happen because they do it. They just get in there and get stuff done, don't they right? They just make it happen. They make it happen because they do it. They don't make it happen because they perseverate about it. They make it happen because they do it. So I'm not saying never stop and think about things, never listen to your intuition, never weigh things up. Absolutely do those things, but don't spend so many years on your life, or perseverating on something that you should just be doing and trialing, like just do the experiment, figure out. You know that didn't work, that didn't work. I'll try this way now, right, because I think that in most cases, there's more to be lost by perseverating on things and by worrying about things than there is by actually doing things, moving forward. Even if the moving forward is doing small steps, the moving forward could be okay. I'm going to start this thing, I'm going to learn this thing, I'm going to try this thing. I'm going to book to talk to this person because this person is an expert on the thing, so maybe I'm going to ask them about the risk reward, whatever.

Fiona Kane:

But most people they don't get to the end of their life and regret what they have done. Sometimes we regret some things, but largely the reports I hear back is that people regret things that they haven't done, they haven't said. So I regret that I never tried the thing because I was too scared or I didn't tell people I loved them, or I didn't speak my mind, or I didn't stand up for myself or whatever it was. That's what people regret. So keep in mind the fact that it is really important that if you find yourself someone who's ruminating on things, at some point you just have to make a choice. So just make one. Just make one and don't call it a decision, call it an experiment, because if you change it, sometimes a lot of achieving stuff in life I've come to understand is these life hacks.

Fiona Kane:

These life hacks are about changing up here. They're about changing our neural pathways and changing the way we think. And sometimes that's just like taking out certain trigger words or understanding there's certain trigger words so that you play around with it and you play around with the language, and you play around with the language in a way that makes something feel possible for you when maybe it didn't feel possible before. Because when you say you have to do this, you have to get it exactly right and you have to be a perfectionist and all things I've talked about perfection lots of times, perfection just gets in the way because you can't do it, so it's never going to happen. But when you just say, hey, I'm going to experiment, I'm going to try this thing, I'm going to explore this thing, right, so I'm going to explore possibilities, right, that's very different to say I'm going to make this momentous decision and so many things in life aren't momentous decisions. Some things are, but many things aren't.

Fiona Kane:

And a lot of us waste so much time in the weeds of all of these much less important decisions. And the truth is, if you get good at making these decisions and figuring it out and figuring out how to reassess when you go wrong or just change gears, if things change or change things up, whatever happens in life, then the more that you'll understand that the big decisions you can make as well, because you'll actually have more faith in yourself. Because one of the biggest things is like what if? What if I fail? What if it's too hard for me? What if I can't do it? But there's always another solution. And so that's the other thing too is that the people who do well in life, the people who succeed, that the reason they do well is because they know there's always a solution right. So they're just of the mindset that, no matter what happens, there's always a solution.

Fiona Kane:

And I think if you are of that mindset, you are more likely to go and try different things, whereas if you get caught up but what if? And I won't be able to. And the truth is, if you look back in life, even the times that were awful, and the times that you were stuck and the times you didn't know what to do, or the times you made mistakes. Well, you're still here, right. So you figured something out, so you plotted your way through it, so you figured it out in the end, right, and that's the truth is. We do. The truth is we figure it out. And the truth is that even the worst things that happen, we figure them out, and we figure them out because we have to. So sometimes that's the other thing too, because you think, oh, I don't know how I'd ever cope if this happened to me. And then you do because it happens and because you have to.

Fiona Kane:

So you can't really prepare for it, though, you just can't. You know, and it's like I've talked about it before my mother passed away four years ago, and I've talked about it on this podcast on and off, because it was very significant for me, as it is for everybody, if not most, most people. When your mother passes and you know, I could have done all this, and I sort of did to a certain degree with preparation of how am I going to feel, how's it going to be, you can't deal with it until it's in front of you, right, it's in front of you. Then you deal with it and then what you do? You have the emotions, you have the grief, you do what you need to do and it doesn't mean and I'm not saying four years down the track, I'm completely over it, and I'm not ever I don't ever cry or I'm not ever sad, but I've survived, I'm okay, and I have some really sad moments and I have some really happy moments. I'm not in as bad a place as I was four years ago when it happened. So you know, we do get, we do. You do get sort of more used to it. You get just more used to living without the person. I suppose that's the thing. It's not quite four years, it's like three and a half, I think, uh.

Fiona Kane:

But you know, the thing is you survive the thing because you have the thing happen and you and you survive it, right, the only way you know you're going to survive it is because you do it and anything difficult that's happened. You know, I've. I've been, I've sat, been sacked before, lost my job. I I've had all sorts of issues with finances and with relationships and different things in my life, and how did I survive them? Well, you kind of have to, because the thing happens. And then what do you do? Are you just going to go and climb in bed and say, well, okay, that's it, life is done, or are you just going to get on with it? And really, we just have to get on with it, right? So it's the fact that we just need to get on with it in life. And sometimes you know, even when someone dies, the sun still comes up the next day, right, sun still comes up, you still need to have a shower, you still need to eat, life still happens, you still need to pay the bills, right? No-transcript, you survive it. You learn how to figure it out.

Fiona Kane:

And so when we get caught up in decisions and caught up in using really big language around decisions like it's the end of life for most decisions which are not anything that dramatic we really hold ourselves back and we really make life difficult for ourselves. So I actually really like George Mack's language around this. I really like the fact that he calls a decision an experiment, because an experiment is exactly what it is and I think in life, if we thought more in terms of being curious, having an experiment around things and trying things and exploring things. I think, if we use that kind of language, that helps us to understand what life is all about, because life is all about those things and the truth is that things are changing all the time and technology is changing all the time and whatever. So no one can know all things and be prepared for all things that might happen in the future, because we don't know what's going to happen in the future. So we experiment, we explore, we change track. When we need to change track, train change track, both I think both probably are valid, but you know, we just you know do what you need to do and we respond to situations as they arise. But I just really love that language and I think so much of life is about the language hack, of using language that doesn't freak you out and and understanding that you are much more resilient than what you believe that you are and you can deal with stuff.

Fiona Kane:

But the only way you can is by doing it. You do it, you survive it and you know you can survive it. And you do it and make mistakes, but you know you can come back from them. So you know you go through something hard, you go through something difficult, but you come out to the other side and the only way we really know, as human beings, that we can do that is one is by looking at what other people do, but the other is actually literally by doing it ourselves and finding out that we can do it. So you get trust in yourself. I've talked about this a lot. When we show up for ourselves on a regular basis, we trust ourselves, and so we're only going to trust ourselves and trust in ourselves and trust in our ability when we use them, and you're only going to use them when you go and do life, and life is about a whole bunch of little decisions. So, rather than call them all decisions and have this big language around it, if that is holding you back, change the language up and it might make all the difference for you.

Fiona Kane:

So I hope that was really really useful and please refer back to Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson. It's his podcast I'm referring to and it was his interview that he did with George Mack, so it's worth checking that out. It was really, really I found it really beneficial and I don't know if he's spoken to him before, but the time I'm recording this is actually March 2025. So if there's more than one interview, it's that what I'm talking about, but I'm sure any he's done will be really, really useful and helpful.

Fiona Kane:

So thank you for listening or watching. I hope that you learned something today and please again, can you please like, subscribe and share? 80% of people who watch and listen to this podcast are not subscribed, and that makes a big difference to how many people I get in front of, how many people get to see and listen to this podcast and benefit from any of the things that I'm teaching about and learning about and exploring in my podcast. So I really appreciate if you can like, subscribe, share and also if people do reviews that makes a big difference as well ratings and reviews. So I would really appreciate all of that. I hope you have a lovely week and I'll see you all again next week. Thank you, Bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Fiona Kane

Host