Why We're So Afraid of Making the Wrong Decisions

In this episode of To All The Girls Out There, we're talking about something that quietly holds so many of us back: the fear of getting it wrong.

Whether it's making a big life decision, starting something new, speaking up, or simply worrying about looking stupid, the fear of making mistakes can keep us stuck for far longer than the mistake itself ever would.

We explore why we're so afraid of getting things wrong through the psychology of classical and operant conditioning, how our past experiences shape our relationship with mistakes, and why confidence might have less to do with always getting it right and more to do with trusting yourself when you don't.

We also discuss why overthinking and perfectionism can delay growth, how mistakes actually give us the information we need to make better decisions, and what it really means to build self-trust.

In this episode, we talk about:

✨ Why we're so afraid of making mistakes
✨ How classical and operant conditioning shape our fear of failure
✨ Why overthinking keeps us stuck
✨ The connection between confidence and getting it wrong
✨ How to change the meaning you attach to mistakes
✨ Practical ways to build self-trust and become a more confident decision-maker

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Transcript

To All The Girls (00:00)

Hey my loves, welcome back to another episode of To All the Girls Out There. As always, it is an honor to have you girls here with me today. Today I'm gonna be talking about being scared to get it wrong because a lot of us I know, especially my anxious girlies and my type A girlies, we are very scared.

of making the wrong decisions, making mistakes and getting it wrong and

It is lowkey holding us back. It is lowkey stopping us from achieving the things that we want to achieve. So the other day I was just sitting and I just had this epiphany and I was just like, wait a second, like

Most of us our biggest fear is getting something wrong. Like people who get things wrong and don't care, I feel like are the most confident people because it's like you're not really embarrassed when something goes wrong. And if you're not embarrassed then what does it matter? Like no one can really hold you down.

You know, and a lot of us we have this fear of looking dumb and this fear of looking stupid and

that fear and that feeling and meaning that we attach to making a mistake is what makes it so big. But when you think about those people who are like, okay, I got it wrong, whatever, they just get on with their life and they just appear so confident because they're not allowing that one thing to bring them down. You know, if you're okay with getting it wrong, who's really gonna stop you? Like who

No one can really tell you anything because it's like, Okay, I did get it wrong and what you know, whereas when someone says, you got it wrong and you're like, I know when you take that feeling and you just stay in that feeling and make yourself feel miserable, that's when it

becomes more of an issue, that's when it becomes a problem and that's when it brings us down.

Our fear of mistakes has been learned.

So we have some at some point in our lives learned that making mistakes and getting decisions wrong is something to be scared of. And this could have happened at some point in childhood, but I don't think we are what's the word? We're born fearing mistakes or fearing getting things wrong. Because think about it as a child.

when you copy and you try to talk and imitate someone, the likelihood is that you're getting it wrong. You're not saying it right all the time. When you're learning how to walk, you get up, you fall, you're not scared of getting it wrong. You're trying, you're getting up and trying. But somewhere down the line, we were taught that, you know, mistakes is something to fear, something wrong. And there is a number of reasons that this may happen but

A concept that I want to bring in to help explain it is called conditioning. And in psychology, there are two types of conditioning. You have classical conditioning, operant conditioning. There are more, but I'm just gonna get into these two to help explain a potential reason of why we have learnt to fear mistakes. So classical conditioning, right, was a concept

It's developed that the fact that we learn behavior by associating it with something. So we have a psychologist called Pavlov. He did an experiment on dogs, right? Where he would so he would like present food to a dog and a dog's natural response to the food is to salivate. The dog will produce saliva because you know seeing the

Food, cool, or smelling the food. And then let's say he rings a bell. The dog's normal response to a bell, he doesn't really react. It's like neutral. There's no response to it because it's just like a bell. What he started doing was is he paired the bell with the food repeatedly, not just once, he repeatedly did this. Eventually, what happened was.

The dog associated the sound of the bell with food. So what happened was when Pavlov started ringing the bell without the food, the dog would salivate. So he has now conditioned his response to a bell which he had no response to before, but now his response is to salivate because he has associated food with the bell.

And this can be applied to us as humans. It is used a lot if you are in if you have read maybe like Atomic Habits, James Clear, this is something that is mentioned in it a lot. classical conditioning can be used to explain so many more behaviours and I'll probably be using it again in the future. So make sure to remember

w the way that this applies to our fear of making mistakes is is we associate making a mistake with embarrassment or with failure, you know, and it's something that we have learned, whether it be from school, whether it be at home, parents, family members, friends, something that

We have had experiences with where getting a decision wrong is associated with something negative, like I said, embarrassment. For example, getting criticized by teachers. You know, if you fail a test and it's such a big thing. laughed at by your classmates for getting something wrong, judged by your family members and

When we have these experiences and we're associating it, our brain now thinks, right, making a mistake means that this is gonna happen. Making a mistake means that I'm gonna be laughed at. Making a mistake is embarrassing. So your association is mistake equals shame. Mistake equals looking stupid.

And that is something that has been learned over time. Another one is operant conditioning. So operant conditioning is the notion that we learn behavior via consequence. So the experiment that was done was this was so that was done on this is kind of complicated. Well not complicated but

to make it brief. I think it was done on mice? Either mice or rats. Anyway, they were put into a box and

The likelihood of them repeating a behavior came down to consequence, whether that be positive or negative consequence. So for example, let's say every time they pressed the lever, food came out. They would repeatedly press that lever because they would get a reward of food. So the behavior was increased because it was there was a reward that came from it.

Or it can happen where a behaviour is increased to avoid a negative consequence. So for example, when they're put in a box and there's loud route loud noise, loud frequencies that really annoy them and irritate them, they wanna get out. Every time they pull the lever they get to leave the box. Every time they pull the lever, they get to free themselves from that discomfort. So

They continue to do this behavior which is pressing the lever because they know that it frees them from that discomfort, from that uncomfortable feeling, from that noise. So it's learning through negative consequences or positive consequences. And then of course you also have punishment, which is reducing a behaviour in order to avoid

a consequence.

In this case, I think it was they didn't press the lever when they knew that they were gonna get an electric shock from it. If they pressed the lever and they they got an electric shock from it, they wouldn't do it again because they don't want that feeling. So it's reducing a behaviour to avoid a feeling. So for example, how this can play out in

in our fear of making the wrong decision is

getting rewarded when you get things right, which obviously makes sense. Of of course you're gonna reward someone for getting things right. But at the same time you're getting punished when getting things wrong, getting things wrong. So for example, you're getting praised for good grades, but you get criticized when you make a wrong decision when you make a mistake or when you get something wrong in a test. There are consequences for failing a test.

And so what happens is is your brain learns to avoid mistakes, getting something right, which of course is a good thing that you want to repeat the behaviour. but then also

Avoiding getting things wrong, it can be become destructive, right? You might think, of course, you would want to get things right. Why would you praise getting something wrong? Here's the thing when you fear making mistakes, you are unable to learn. You don't really learn from everything anything because you are so focused on trying.

to get it right and a lot of the times we don't realise that we're just delaying our journey to making the best decisions, learning how to make good decisions, learning how to grow.

Think about it, like sometimes we overthink a decision, right? It's like, okay, I want this but I I also I don't know if I wanna do this and I don't know if I wanna do that. Right? You're overthinking the decision, you can't make up your mind and you're just all over the place.

If you don't just make a decision, it's gonna take a lot longer to know what the right decision is. Because you've not made a decision at all. At least if you make a decision, you're gonna the quicker you know if it was the right or wrong one, the quicker you can take action. But if you do all of this, if you try to complicate it, write everything down, make everything so much more bigger than it is.

you are going to delay knowing whether it was the right decision or the wrong decision or not. Because we can't predict the future. We don't know what's gonna happen. We can only use the information that we have. Once you make that decision, f at least from there you know, okay, cool, this was the wrong one. I can move. You know but the longer you avoid making a decision, the longer you delay getting closer to the right one. The way I see it right is when we're

making mistakes when we're making decisions when we allow ourselves to get it wrong we learn in two ways. First, we learn about ourselves. We learn about our decision making process. For example, let's say I'm struggling to make a decision right now. If I just say, you know what, this is what I'm picking, I can then learn

How did I feel when I made that decision?

Was I hesitant in the beginning? How did I feel towards each decision? Why did I pick that? For example, let's say I'm someone who's trying to work on my intuition and being able to make decisions a lot faster, right? I'm not gonna be able to get better at that if I don't sit here and make the decisions. Once I've done that, I can sit here and learn how it felt in the time to make the wrong decision.

compared to how it felt to make the right one. The more, the more, the more I do it, the more I learn. This is how I feel when I make the wrong decision. This is the feeling that I'm avoiding next time. You learn and you learn what you do differently next time when you made that decision. And you start to trust yourself more. But you can't do that if you don't allow yourself to make the decision in the first place. The other thing

you learn is you learn about the decision itself. If it's a big decision, you learn what worked and you learn what didn't work. And a lot of the times, like I said, it's things that we fear, whether that's a business decision, whether that's a school decision. I remember some years ago I didn't know

what like sixth form I wanted to go to, the decision was like whatever and then after I had a knowing I went, I decided the sixth form. Hated my sixth form. But at least now I I know the feeling that I felt when I picked that sixth form.

And now I know next time when I'm making a big decision like that, this is the feeling that I'm looking for. this is what worked out. This is what didn't work out. Next time when it comes to picking the decision, I know what to look out for next time.

or like I said, when you're working on something, let's say it's an exam, if you messed up and you got a question wrong, at least now you know what to do next time. A business. If you made the wrong business idea, fine you got it wrong, but now you know what to do for next time. Because if you didn't make that decision, you're just gonna delay.

Getting that information. That's all it does. It slows you down from receiving the information that's going to help you to move forward. Experience gives you information.

F for example me, I was slash am can be very indecisive. Okay? I'm not even gonna sit here and act like I've got it all under control. No, this is why I've made this observation recently. I am very indecisive. Well was I'm getting there now. And I'll be overthinking random things, you know, like the smallest things, for example

I wanna buy a football T shirt, right? And I was in two minds, like, do I get this player that I really want or do I get my name?

Anyway, I had to quickly just come to a decision. I feel like the rational decision is get my name, why would I get a player first? But my decision is to get a player and I have to sit in that. I haven't bought it yet, but that's what I'm gonna do. Whatever happens, how I feel after that, we'll see. But the player is what I want, so I'm going for that.

But I was here overthinking every single outcome. Like this is so mundane. It's not that deep. Just get a t shirt, like. But I'm overthinking it because it's like, well, if I get like the player, what if everyone thinks this about the player? What if but then my name is like it's more generic? Like why would you have it? Or what if this player leaves the team? All of these things and it's just like

just overthinking it when it's deep down you know what you want but it's so hard to listen to that voice because you're in the logic, you're in the head, you're so scared of getting it wrong. If I get it wrong, if later I regret it, at least I know. I'm training myself to become a better decision maker by actually allowing myself to know, to understand how it is that I feel when I make these decisions.

But I deep the more I overthink, the more I do that, the less I train myself to be able to understand how did I feel when I made that decision? What led me to making that decision? What can I do next time to become a better decision maker? If not, I'm just stunting my growth. And I feel like that's what I've been doing. So now I have to force myself. I just came to the realization that

I will never become someone who's good at making decisions if I'm too scared to make them.

You become better at doing something by doing the thing right. And at the end of the day, no decision is still a decision.

I feel like the only way we get closer to the right answer, the only way we get closer to

Being okay with making the mistakes or being okay with being better at decision making is to make decisions. And I know it can sound all like all easy in theory. I know it's a lot easier said than done because it's like

No one wants to feel embarrassed. No one wants to make mistakes. Trust me, I get that. I understand. But just deep it like

I just feel like if you make mistakes and you're okay with that, then that's it. You're so unshakeable because it's like you can't really tell me anything else. I I I made a mistake, so what I'll bounce back next time, you know?

'Cause we don't learn by waiting. You know. The fear of getting it wrong is only gonna keep us in the exact same place. So we have to move. Sometimes we'll get it right, sometimes we'll get it wrong. But you know, we're gonna learn. And

It's only stopping us from moving forward.

And if we look at conditionings as an explanation for why we have learnt, you know, our fear of mistakes, then perhaps we can unlearn

the meaning of mistakes and change that meaning that we have given to mistakes. So instead of thinking, I failed or I embarrassed myself and I looked dumb and whatnot, you can change your thinking to, Wow, at least I tried or now I've got information for next time. I'm only what I'm one step closer now to where I was before. We can recondition our response.

And of course you have to put the reps in because it has to happen over time. But let's take classical conditioning, for example. We can change our association. Rather than thinking, mistake is equated to shame. You can associate mistake with learning. Mistake equals growing. So your brain thinks ding ding ding. mistake.

This is a chance for me to learn something new rather than mistake, no, I should be so ashamed of myself. This is so embarrassing.

Changing that conditioning could perhaps help us to think differently when we do get something wrong, when we do make a decision, and it might make it that step easier to be okay and be comfortable with making decisions because we haven't associated it with shame, with embarrassment, with as something bad, you know? And if we take the operant conditioning.

Stop punishing ourselves for getting something wrong. Stop speaking to yourself with criticism. Start speaking to yourself in a positive way. Reward yourself for your courage or laugh instead of criticizing yourself. Don't punish yourself or avoid making a mistake because.

a mistake is a negative consequence. Change your viewing of a mistake. Like I said, if a mistake is seen as a good thing in your head, making it making a decision won't be something you avoid because a mistake isn't seen as a good thing to you. Again, if you do make a decision as well and you do get it wrong, if you change the way you speak to yourself,

Instead of punishing yourself for getting it wrong, you decide that, hey, I'm actually gonna reward myself for doing it That can also change your relationship with making decisions, with getting things wrong. You know, at the end of the day, every mistake you make teaches you something, it gets you closer to something, you learn about something, and I know sometimes it can be hard to hear.

Because it's like

you know everyone you just want to get it right. In theory in the ideal world you want to get it right first time But the thing is is you don't always know, we don't always know. And when you avoid making a decision altogether, you are just making it harder for yourself to get the right one. But having those experiences, it's giving you clarity, it's opening your eyes, you're getting closer and closer. Think of it as

At first before you make decisions you have like this blurry vision and the more mistakes you make, the clearer it's becoming, the more H D the vision is, the more out the more in focus your image is becoming. That is what putting in the reps in does. That's what making the decisions, learning to make what's the word? Learning to make mistakes and make decisions

does for you because we spend so much time thinking about being embarrassed we spend so much time thinking about what other people are gonna think people are gonna think I'm so dumb you know or I've made this wrong decision and stuff but we can't control what other people think we can't control whether they're gonna think we're silly or not we can't control

what they're gonna say to us or not, right? But we can control how we think, we can control the associations we make with mistakes. And I think that's the important thing. Take control over your mind. Decide to associate making wrong decisions with so as something positive, as gaining information that's helping you get closer to your goals. Confidence grows when you change

what the mistakes mean to you

it was just an epiphany that came to me. Like when you're comfortable with it, that's it. But I've been speaking a lot about theory, so it's time for our scenario to put this into perspective for you guys. So you guys can see yourself and understand. Or shall I say we can see ourselves and understand. So we have Zara.

And Zara has wanted to start selling handmade jewellery online for almost a year. She's got the products ready, the website is finished, and the photos are edited. Everything is ready to go. But every time she's about to press publish, she thinks, What if no one buys it? What if people think it's rubbish? What if everyone laughs at me? So instead of launching, she tweaks the website, changes the logo, orders different packaging,

watches another YouTube video, researches another marketing strategy. Sorry, I'm laughing because I can already see myself in this. Anyway, weeks then turn into months and then one day she sees someone else online selling almost the exact same style of jewellery as her. The photos aren't even that good. The branding isn't as polished, but they're getting orders. And immediately Zara thinks mine was better.

I should have done it.

See, on the surface, it looks like Zara is trying to protect her business, right? Like she's being a perfectionist. But underneath it, we could argue that Zara's just trying to avoid looking stupid. She doesn't want to look dumb. She doesn't want her business to fail. You don't want to post online and not get the likes and not get the views.

You don't want to post and not get the sales. These things are embarrassing, right? Making the wrong decision, making the mistakes, those are the things that you're avoiding. You don't want that.

She thinks that if she launches and people don't like it, that means she failed. So doing nothing for her feels a lot safer than risking being wrong, than making those decisions to actually take action, you know. The issue is she

doesn't find out whether people liked her products or not.

So she's mistaken that waiting and overthinking and trying to, you know, make sure she has the best outcome for progress. She thinks that all of that stuff is her pro making progress, but waiting gave her no new information that she could have gained by making those decisions, even if it didn't work out the way that she wanted it to, right?

So imagine now Zara launches her product anyway. She launched it and then the first week she gets one order. Or even she got no orders, yeah. Someone might message her saying, my gosh, I love your jewellery, but I would have loved it in silver

Or someone else says to her, your website is a bit confusing. Or there's one product that she put up and it doesn't even sell at all. Zara before would have looked at it and said, See, I knew it wasn't good enough. I knew I should have waited. I knew I should have done this. But now she can look at it and say, my gosh, this is great. Now I know. Now she knows that there's demand for silver. Ding ding ding. She can go and

launch silver jewellery. Someone said her website's confusing. Ding ding ding. I need to make a better website. Her prices might need adjusting. All these different things is now information.

This is not working, I need to try something different.

But when she didn't try, when she didn't make that decision, none of that information was available for her. And it would have never been if she didn't try, right? She only got that information because she was willing to get it wrong. The thing is here,

The mistake was her not giving herself the chance and the opportunity to learn. She didn't need more confidence to launch. She just needed to stop treating her mistakes as evidence that she was unworthy of evidence that she couldn't do it. Because as a result, her making that decision to launch gave her information

And do you see what I mean? One person can look at that and think, I have failed. because I didn't get the results that I wanted. I didn't get the sales. I didn't get the likes. I didn't get the interaction. whereas another person will look at it as

Well, I didn't necessarily get what I want, but what I got is was information on what didn't work. I know that this post didn't do well. I know that this is not working, so I need to switch something out. They've made the association instead of I've made a mistake, I failed, okay, this didn't work.

Now I'm one step closer to working out something that might actually work. Avoiding that decision prevents you from getting that information.

So ultimately, guys, take the risks, man. We have to learn from this. I have to learn from this. We have to be okay with getting it wrong. As scary as it sounds, I know some things are riskier than others, but you're just never gonna know, right? Until you do. So and we do damage control from there. I have another scenario. I have Hannah.

And Hannah has to present an idea during a team meeting at work. She's prepared all week. She knows her topic. But halfway through she completely loses her train of thought. There's about five seconds of silence. Someone awkwardly smiles. like a loser She finally remembers that she was going to say snap. She finally remembers what she was going to say and finishes the presentation.

When she gets home, she can't stop replaying those five seconds. So she's thinking, Ugh, that was so embarrassing. Everyone probably thinks I'm incompetent. Why do I always do this? And for the next few weeks she's just avoiding speaking up in meetings, even when she has ideas. What's happening here?

The presentation itself wasn't the problem. The silence only lasted five seconds. The problem was the meaning that Hannah had attached to it. Cause she learned that somewhere along the way that making mistakes is equivalent to looking stupid. So when she avoids presentations, her brain isn't necessarily going isn't protecting her from the presentations itself.

But it's protecting her from the shame that the presentations might bring, right? So let's say Hannah had the exact same presentation, right? And she's the same thing happens. She still loses her train of thought. She still has you know, those five seconds of silence. Someone still smiles, whatever. She still feels embarrassed. Cool. She still wishes that it had gone better. Fine.

Those are emotions that she felt, right? None of that changes magically, But instead of her going home and thinking, I'm so crap at presenting, or everyone thinks I'm so rubbish, she realizes that, okay, wait. I might have been rushing that presentation. I skipped lunch before that presentation as well because I was really nervous. And

When I did the presentation, I memorized everything word for word. I didn't just pick out the key points and let myself roll. So using that information that she has, next time, let me try to slow down. Let me maybe just bring cue cards instead of just remembering everything. Pause instead of panicking or eat before the presentation. But the

The most important thing she doesn't do is avoid speaking in the next meeting. Even though she's still nervous because she knows that if she stops presenting, she'll never become someone who's confident at presenting. She will never learn. She'll never train that muscle. The first few sessions are gonna feel uncomfortable. It's gonna feel uncomfortable. Like it's not about not feeling uncomfortable. It's about doing it in the discomfort.

then eventually it will become natural,

She might not be good, she might still get the laugh, she might look silly. But think about it, if you never go back to the gym because you felt sore after your first workout, you'll never get stronger, Confidence works the same way. Every presentation is another repetition. It's another opportunity to strengthen that muscle for it to become natural for you to grow.

You're not trying to practice being perfect. She isn't trying to practice being perfect. But at the end of the day her confidence isn't growing because she stopped making mistakes. It's growing because she stopped letting every mistake become evidence that there was something wrong with her.

And I know the world is not gonna make it easy. It's so easy for me to sit here and say, hey, be confident in getting it wrong. Learn to trust yourself. There are gonna be people who are going to make it so hard for you because there are people who will laugh.

Naysayers, people are gonna look at you like you're making the silly decision when you get it wrong. I told you so. There is nothing that angers me more than those I told you so people. Social media again, I've mentioned it I I feel like I mention it all the time, but it is something that's big in us in our lives now. Mistakes.

They make mistakes public and people are so quick to talk. People are going to talk like that's inevitable. It's going to be hard because you have your fair share. And trust me, I have plenty of that in my life, especially in this current phase. Plenty of people who are going to nay say and make you feel crap about making the wrong decision.

We're not gonna be about we're not gonna be around the bush and act like it's not gonna happen because it will. But I think that is the thing I was saying about that confidence, right? It's not about the fact that

It's not really about just you know, I I think I'm good at making decisions and I trust myself to get it wrong and I'm happy now when I get decisions wrong. It's also being able to cut out that noise and having such a strong self concept and self trust that even when people are laughing at you for getting wrong, even when people are telling you I told you so, you can sit here and say, Well, I trust myself

I got it wrong, but I know that I can move forward. I got it wrong, but I'm actually proud of myself for making that decision. Especially if you're someone, if you're one of those girls out there who struggle to make a decision all the time and are so scared of getting it wrong all the time, and you're always looking to others or scared of displeasing others and you finally get up and you make a decision fast.

And that decision wasn't the best decision and people get onto you, you should be so proud of yourself, regardless of what everyone is saying, because you made a fast decision when you know that that's something that you usually don't do. Yes, you might feel the shame, you might feel weird, especially when people are making you feel crap and you know that usually you would take time to make a decision, but you should be proud at the fact that you what's the word? You trained that muscle.

It's like you going to the gym and

Coming back sore and someone telling you, well, you know, see look,

Now your muscles are hurting. You should have went. Now your muscles are hurting. But at least you got up and you went. And you know that delayed if you think about the concept of delayed gratification in the future, you are going to be rewarded for that mistake because you have learnt something from it. Right? You need to be able to back yourself and have the confidence. And I say you, but I should be saying we. We should be able

To have that confidence in ourselves to know that even when everyone around us is telling us no, we know ourselves, and when we have that, there's no one that can bring us down, there's no one that can tear us down, and even if they do, we can get right back up because we know ourselves, and we have our confidence in ourselves, we can get up.

And keep pushing every single day. We can learn from it. We can laugh about it. We can comfort ourselves and keep our head up. Our confidence isn't tested when everything goes right. Our confidence is tested when it goes wrong and how we respond to things going wrong.

We can be unshakable. We can get there. But we have to take the steps and we have to be okay sitting in the discomfort. And I know it's hard. Over the past two years, I've made a lot of decisions that went against what a lot of people have told me to make. And I don't know if the decisions are right. I'm still trying to figure it out. I've learnt a lot of things. I've cried a lot, but

These this is taking the steps to strengthen that muscle, and I'm saying that because I am a girl who always followed what everyone else has told me to do. I've always wanted to get it right. And I want you to know that it's not an easy journey. I'm still on the journey, and believe me, it is hard as heck. Like it's not something that I'm gonna sit here and say, my gosh, it's you know, you just become so confident. I definitely hundred thousand percent think I've

skyrocketed in confidence since making those decisions. But to sit here and say it's been easy, no, it's been ridiculously hard and I've have been and still go through a mental battle in my head and I'm still yet to come out on the other side of it.

But this is me holding your hand to say you can do it. Take it from someone who's always been scared to get it wrong. You can. You can sit here and start to make the decision. And I'm saying this to myself too. I can continue to still make difficult decisions and there is room to get it wrong. There is room for growth.

Just keep your head up high and we will get on the get to the other side of it.

Okay, so changing our relationship with mistakes, what are the things that we can do to actually actively change our relationship with mistakes? Like I've said and I've been saying, you're gonna hate me for this, but the best way to change your relationship with mistakes is to make mistakes.

The best way to become better at making decisions is to make decisions, right? Like

I know it can sound woo woo, I mean no shizzle Sherlock, but I have to put it out there because

That's all I can say really, like Whenever my sister I should start doing this myself. Whenever my sister comes to me for a decision, right, recently, what I do is is I do a three two one countdown. So she'll be like, Should I buy this or should I buy this? And the thing is, is I am a believer that when it comes to a lot of decisions, deep down we know and it's about getting to the root of it.

And it's like a lot of the time I'm like there's one that you know you look you want more but she's like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. So what I do is is I go, I'm gonna count down to one. After just say one. That's your decision, you have to stick with it. So for example,

Should I buy crisp or donuts? Three, two, one, and she has to say it. She has to say something. and then bam, that's the decision. That again is training your your that muscle is training yourself to become better at making decisions, whether you got it right or wrong. You might get the crisps and think, ugh, that was so crap. For example, my gosh, me.

I don't know what it is, but every time I go out to eat with my friends, I'm always the one to get the wrong thing. My food is never nice. It's so frustrating. Every time I I just go out and I feel like, I've wasted my money. Like I've spent however much money on this and my food is trash. But I'm learning every single time. Where did I go wrong? Well, am I learning if I keep making the wrong mistake? But

I think the thing is is a lot of the time when I make those decisions I'm overthinking it. I'm overthinking it. I'm scared to you know, waste my money essentially, you know, 'cause times are tough out here. And I will end up making a decision that, you know, is not the best. And I'm scared. Whereas like

Now I know next time I go to eat I'm just picking what I want. Like the last time actually I went to eat out, I just picked I was like, I looked, it still did take a little bit long, not extremely long, but shorter than before, I picked something and my decision wasn't even that bad. And I think just getting up and saying, Hey, you know what? I want this Bish Bash Bosh Bob's your uncle, you know, and training yourself to make those decisions. But

look out for certain things when you do. So if you're someone who's let's say trying to train your intuition or want to become a better decision maker, let's say you do the three two one thing and you make a decision. Pay attention to your responses and how you felt when doing that. So for example, let's say the crisp and donuts. When you said crisp, how did you feel when you actually said crisp? Even if it felt weird, stick to that decision

But I'm saying next time you know, okay, I had this like weird feeling when I when I said crisp compared to when I said donuts. It might seem not that deep, but it is, trust me. When you deep okay, wait, I I just felt weird. I just felt like I said crisp because of this. Pay attention to it. Did you make that decision, because of like logic? Did you make it from overthinking and stuff like that? And then notice how you speak to yourself.

after you've made the decision, if you got crisps and you didn't necessarily you're like, maybe I should have got donuts, how did you speak to yourself after? Are you com constantly complaining? Do you think, you're so silly, like or is it just like, you know what?

just observe how it is that you speak to yourself 'cause then from there you know what you might need to change or your ways, your patterns of thinking are, you know what? Now I know how I felt when I did this, next time I'm just gonna go for this. Because next time, crisps might actually be the right answer. You might actually want crisps more than Donuts. So it's important to understand the feeling and

understanding you and your decision making process, what differs when you make the right decision compared to when you make the wrong one, and notice that the other thing is that you can do to start changing your relationship with mistakes is challenge the meaning you've attached to mistakes. So for example, we spoke about this in when I mentioned classical conditioning.

learn to associate making mistakes or making decisions with learning something new. So, for example, next time we make a decision and we catch ourselves say doing something wrong or like not it not going in the way that we want it to, and it doesn't go the way that we want it to, and we catch ourselves.

you know, feeling embarrassment or feeling shame around it. what we should do, next time is

Thank our brain because our brain is trying to protect us. It's feeling that shame out of protection. It wants us to avoid doing the thing to protect us. Right? So thank it. I know it sounds woo woo, I know it sounds weird. And it's just like why the hell Like trust me. Thank your brain.

I understand that you're trying to protect me.

But I wanna now think about what I've learnt from this and what I can learn from this.

And remember the important thing about classical conditioning is the behaviour has to repeat. So it's not just one time you make a mistake and you go, Okay, what can I learn from this? It happens over time. You do it again and again and again and again. Every time you make a mistake, catch yourself. It's habitual. Your conditioning is to go to embarrassment, is to go to avoidance. So now you have to catch it when you do it.

you are going to do it. Like I said, you've been conditioned to do so. So when you do it, catch yourself. Thank yourself, thank your brain for doing so, and then say, Okay, what can I learn from this? Excitement. my gosh. Great, this is a learning opportunity. Eventually when you start making mistakes, what's your first what is the first thing you think? my gosh.

What can I learn for this? my gosh, I can't wait to learn something new. It sounds so weird and like I said, like in theory, but when you actually get up and you continuously do this, you can change the conditioning of your brain. Naturally, the same way you naturally associate it with embarrassment, fear, and avoidance, you can naturally associate it with growth, learning, opportunities.

And hopefully come out on the other side of this with excitement in making decisions and training ourselves in becoming better decision makers. And then another thing is celebrating courage, not just the perfection. So again, now we're gonna take our operant conditioning. Next time you make a decision.

you make it first or you make yours a decision. Reward yourself for trying.

So next time you make a decision, even if you get yourself even if you get it wrong, praise yourself. Give yourself praise. Wow Fatima, that was amazing of you. I'm so proud of you for making a decision. Yeah. Write it down in your journal even. And if you want, give yourself a physical reward. Why not buy yourself something or treat yourself to something? Because today you made a decision despite the fact that you feel like you got it wrong, you have

took the steps to actually become better at it, associate it with something good.

Again, you want to avoid the punishment. That is something that you can also do with the classical conditioning by retraining your mind to making it something good. But reward yourself for every time you make a decision. You're not rewarding yourself for the mistake. You're rewarding yourself for the courage of making a decision that you don't know how it's going to go.

And the other thing

that we can do to start changing our relationship with mistakes is just laugh more, learn to laugh more and not to take things as serious. I remember like when I was younger and like my sister would do embarrassing things. I remember one time she was angry at me, right? And she took my phone and messaged someone on my Snapchat, like when I had Snapchat and just

said, I'm so stupid, I'm so dumb and she went and posted a silly slip of me on my Snapchat story. my gosh. Anyway, it was just so bad 'cause she was like frustrated at me. And I remember just like I was so stressed. I was like to my dad, my gosh, I can't believe she did this. Like Ugh Thankfully like I noticed like five, ten minutes after, but that's still long enough. And I was just so Ugh. And like

one thing that he said to me and he always say he would just be like learn to laugh it off like

learn to make it not a big deal and I know it can sound like you're it can just sound like a little bit silly and small right but a situation is really only as big as you make the situation. If something like that happens you I can only feel embarrassed if I allow myself to feel embarrassed. You can sit there and say to me

do you remember that time your sister did that? Yeah, of course it might feel uneasy. But if I sit there and laugh it off, that person doesn't have as much power as they would have had if I actually sat there and felt embarrassed and crap. And that goes back to the thing I was saying about confidence in the beginning of like when you are able to kind of like laugh things off, be okay with getting things wrong, be okay with not having it all down or okay with not being perfect.

There's not much that people can do to tear you down. I know the harder times is when something really matters to you and you know people trigger you in those areas. No one's perfect. But what I'm trying to say is is

when you are comfortable being in those positions of discomfort, of embarrassment, of not getting it right, of being wrong.

you basically become unshakable because no one can really bring you down, no one can really embarrass you because you're already comfortable. You're already confident in yourself. And there's not much that they can do to bring down that confidence, to chip away at it, because it is so strong, right?

And I just think that

Taking those steps to become a more confident person, being okay with not getting it right all the time is such a big factor in that. Being okay with not being right and making mistakes and just being able to laugh things off, it makes things way more easier and I think it's something that

Even now talking about it, I'm like, Yeah, I need to start doing this more. Like having trying to want to have control the time and getting things right. It might actually be the thing that's contributing to misery, like

Hmm, I might need to sit down and journal about this. But anyway, leaving you guys with a couple of reflection questions. I'm gonna leave you guys with two because I don't want to bombard you. But have a look at the show notes. because I'll put some more in there. But I'm gonna leave you with the main two that I think are the most important. But if you look at the show notes, take the ones that resonate with you or do all of them if you want. some of the things to think about is

What am I actually afraid will happen if I get something wrong or make the wrong decision? And what is the worst case scenario I'm imagining? Cause

Sometimes the worst case scenario is not that deep. Everyone looks at you and thinks you're dumb Okay, they have to get up and go to work in the morning or go to school in the morning or get on with their life. They have their own stuff going on. They probably have a million gazillion embarrassing moments in their life. Anyway, just think about what is the worst case scenario for you and what are you afraid of. Get to the bottom of that. And sit with it as well. I think sometimes when we think of these prompts we think we need the answer straight away.

sit with it and allow the answer to come to you.

and the second one I have for you guys is where did I learn that mistakes were some guys I don't know if you can hear that but my stomach's rumbling and I'm so sorry I need to go eat. anyway where did I learn that mistakes were something to fear and what belief would I like to replace that with somewhere down the line we may have been conditioned and learned about

what mistakes mean to us. There's association that we have made with mistakes and my association with mistakes could differ from your association with mistakes. So I do urge you to again sit with it, reflect and Yeah, get into the nitty gritty. We're all about learning about ourselves and holding up a mirror. But yeah, I just want you guys to know that the fear of getting it wrong

can keep you stuck in the same place for years. I think it has I think it's done it to me. Could definitely probably has done it to you if you are anything like me or even if you're not.

You know, it's so common. But just remember every mistake you avoid is also a lesson that you never get to learn. Sometimes the fastest way to become the person you want is to give yourself the permission to get it wrong. And yeah, with that being said, my beautiful, thank you for listening to me. My stomach needs to be fueled and I think I've spoken a lot.

It's dry, so I also need to drink water. But love you guys so much. Thank you for listening. I hope you've learned a lot. and I just want to leave you guys with a reminder that the longer you spend trying to avoid getting it wrong, the longer you will delay becoming someone who knows how to get it right.

Anyway, I'll just leave you with that. See you guys. Bye.