78. Decision Fatigue in Midlife? How to Stop Second-Guessing Yourself

If you are agonizing over a major life decision right now—like whether to move an aging parent, pivot your career, or raise the prices in your business, you’re not alone. Midlife is packed with heavy choices, and if you're like me, you've written a dozen "pros and cons" lists that still haven't given you any peace.

In this episode, I am diving into why logical lists fail us when our nervous systems are disturbed. We explore how to listen to the quiet intuition in your body, why making the right choice might feel uncomfortable, and how to finally move forward.

What You’ll Learn:

✔ The Pro/Con Trap: Why analytical lists don't work when a decision creates a nervous system disturbance or challenges your self-image

✔ Safety vs. Growth: Why your brain tries to keep you in your comfort zone, and why feeling uncomfortable doesn't mean you made the wrong choice

✔ Decoding Post-Decision Regret: How to tell if you actually made a mistake, or if your self-image just needs time to catch up to the new reality

🎯 OMG Moment:

Your brain is wired to keep you in your comfort zone to keep you alive and safe, but sometimes the discomfort you feel isn't a warning sign. It's just the growing pains of becoming a more confident version of yourself.

Take Action Today:

• A few minutes of quiet: Sit in a comfortable chair for a few minutes with no technology to give your subconscious brain space to actually talk to you.
• Direct Your Mind Movie: Close your eyes and visualize the exact outcome you want—what you hear, see, and feel—leaving aside all practicalities and limitations. Find the Psycho Cybernetics book here.
• Book a Discovery Call: If you need an outside perspective to help untangle your thoughts, visit cherylpfischer.com/coaching to explore how coaching can help you confidently move forward.

Why This Episode Matters

Midlife demands that we make massive decisions for ourselves, our businesses, and our families. By learning to quiet the noise and tap into our physical intuition, we can make empowered choices that align with who we are becoming, even if it feels a little scary at first.

Take a little bit better care of yourself in midlife.

Grab your Vitamin G pixie sticks for detoxification and wellness at cherylpfischer.com/vitaming.

Transcript

Why Decisions Feel So Hard

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

I want to talk about decision making. And I don't mean pros and cons list or just make the decision already, because I don't think that's going to make you feel very good listening to that. I want to talk about what's really going on in our bodies, inside our brains, when we're trying to make a decision and move forward or we're trying to make a change. And I think this is going to make a difference for you. So let's talk about it. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast.

The Big Midlife Choice Overload

Cheryl Fischer 1:02

Oh my goodness. All the decisions that we have to make in this midlife period of time, and it could be about aging parents or aging family members. Where are they going to be? What would be the best for them? How can I help them? What do I need to do? It could be about your job or your career or your business. I have 10 more years that I'm going to work. What do I want to do? Do I want to make a change? What if I make a change? Is it too late? Or it could be about your kids who are going through teen, college, adulthood. How how do you work on your relationship with them? What do they need? There's so it could be about your body. Is this perimenopause? Is it menopause? What do I do? What do I need? There's so much. And I don't say that to stress you out. I say that so that you know that I get it. I'm right there with you. Not all of these things are going well for me in my life at this time. We all have struggles. And in this time, even if some of those decisions or some of those scenarios are easy, there's always something that we're wanting to do or change or make a decision about. And so many times we struggle with that. And so I'm a very analytical person. You may have heard me say before, I used to be a math and economics teacher. I have worked in the corporate world doing airline pricing, which is very analytical. So all the sort of organized number brain part of me likes a pro and con list. And if you like a pro and con list when trying to make a decision, I'm certainly not going to talk you out of that. And I think that doesn't quite get into the struggles that we really have with decision making.

What You Want Versus What Feels Safe

Cheryl Fischer 3:00

Because the reason we struggle often, often, often, when we're trying to make a decision about something is because the thing that we might actually really want, the decision to go and do it, or say yes instead of no, or say no instead of yes, whatever it is, the one that we really want, somewhere in our bodies, we usually know what we really want. But maybe we don't have a comfort level with that decision, the one that we really want. Maybe it creates some nervous system disturbance, it's changing our view of ourselves, or maybe there's some type of guilt related to how this will affect other people. There's often some discomfort related to the decision. And so we push all that down into ourselves, and we try to just high-level analytical it, pro, con. This one seems the best. I would say to you, your body, your brain, your heart probably knows the best decision. Well, easy for you to say that, Cheryl, but how do I read this message that my gut or my brain or my heart is telling me that's the problem? Yeah, that's the that's the challenge. Let's say it that way. So one of these examples is let's say you own your own business and you are setting prices. I'm going through this right now as I put together my new coaching program. I was sitting down figuring out the midlife recharge, which you're going to be hearing about. I'm super excited about it. And I was trying to figure out what's the right way to price this. It's a great product, super simple. It's going to make a huge difference. And so, what's appropriate? There's always going to be someone in terms of money or pricing that says that's too high. And there's also going to be people who say, well, that must not be valuable because I don't know why she's not charging more. Always. It's not about what anyone else says. And this is the same thing when you're dealing with aging parents, maybe. Let's take that example. Is it right to have them move into your house so you can be with them all the time? Is it right to have them in an assisted living center? Have you found the right one? Is it right to have some type of nursing care or personal care come into their home? What in the world is the right thing to do? Everyone will have an opinion. Every, well, maybe not everyone, right? A lot of people will say, it's always got to be this, it's always got to be that. How could you do this? How could you do that? And that part we have to let go.

Letting Go Of Other Opinions

Cheryl Fischer 6:18

What someone else says, we have to let go. Now, the exception to that would be if you have a spouse or a partner, or even a even a parent or a child that you really, you really want to be your partner in making this decision, then of course you should take into account what they're saying to you. And again, that's your choice. That's your choice. Just taking everybody's opinion, kind of surveying before you make a decision is how I used to make decisions. I always wanted all the input I could get, and it all went in the pro and con list. And then I sat with it for a while. Somewhere in your body, I say you already know what you want. And so the key is creating a level of comfort that allows you to choose that decision, to choose that outcome. Oftentimes, it's because the decision that you really want is gonna require you to grow a little bit, to change a little bit, to become maybe a healthier version of yourself, to become a more confident version of yourself, a more courageous version of yourself. It's gonna require a little bit of change and growth. And that feels uncomfortable. Of course, that feels uncomfortable. Your brain, our brains, are wired to keep us in our comfort zone. And that is good because your brain is keeping you alive and safe. And the goal then for us is to make sure that our brains, while keeping us alive and safe, aren't just keeping us on our couches in a snuggie. Alive and safe is not exactly the same thing as sitting still and never changing and never moving. So, how do we grow this self-definition, this self-image to get to the point where we have some comfort level with doing a higher price on a product that we know is worth it, in making a steadfast decision in some area of our life?

Growth, Self-Image, And The Comfort Zone

Cheryl Fischer 8:36

How do we get to a comfort level if that is going to require a stretch? The way I'm gonna say this is coming from the being profile that I use with my coaching clients, but it will make sense. These are words we use all the time. If you have a sense of a higher purpose and you have a very healthy relationship with understanding that you have a higher purpose, you are working towards something, that's gonna help. So a higher purpose means that you are drawn towards a future vision, some type of cause that's greater than what your immediate interests are. And having a healthy, healthy vision, a healthy relationship with this idea of higher purpose means that you are potentially willing to get a little bit of a little uncomfortable now. Take, have the fortitude to keep moving through that discomfort and to go ahead. You have something in your mind. And if you know someone who you consider quite charismatic, they often have this skill of having a vision and really speaking to it and going for it. But sometimes we have a little bit of an unhealthy situation going on here in terms of higher purpose because we are, again, wanting the comfort. It is not a bad thing. This is how we are wired, but we want personal comfort now. And this is especially interesting to think about in midlife because do I want to go out on a limb and force myself to grow a little bit and create something new in my professional life or my personal life, if I think that it's only going to be a few years before I then just retire and that's over? It depends on the situation, right? But if you have a vision, you have a purpose, you're going towards something, and you say, I want to be this, I always wanted to be this, and I know that now is my time. And I'm scared. I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared. That fact that you know you've always wanted this, there's something you're working towards, is going to help you be willing to move through the discomfort. The other thing that is interesting to think about is the idea of empowerment. And this one is a little buzzwordy sometimes. So we have to be careful with empowerment. I talk about empowering women all the time. Empowerment means you believe, you live as if you are absolutely able to fulfill your goals and you are happy to inspire others to fulfill theirs. That's what empowerment means. So when you have sort of a healthy relationship with empowerment, it means you mostly are taking actions toward fulfilling what you're going for, towards that higher purpose, in fact. And you feel like that is exactly how you want to live. You don't question everything about it. You may be questioned sometimes, but you you move forward because you feel like, absolutely, yes, I can. When we get into an unhealthy situation with empowerment, this is when we feel stuck. And isn't this where we end up with decisions, right? We feel frustrated. Maybe we even feel apathetic. Like, why should I bother trying to like change this? It's not gonna matter. Or we just can't see beyond whatever the immediate problem is. That's a lack of this healthy relationship with the idea of being empowered, that you have the power to affect what's going on with you. And these are things that you can absolutely grow and change. And I'm gonna say, if you have a reason to. If you have a reason to.

Higher Purpose And Real Empowerment

Cheryl Fischer 12:46

So the first thing that I would suggest you do when you're struggling with making a decision is to give yourself just kind of some quiet space in your comfy chair, nobody around, maybe like music that you love playing, and just think okay, what do I really want in this area? Is there something that I've always dreamed of? I've pictured, but I've no, come on, no, can't do that. That's not gonna happen. What do I really want? What have I dreamed of in this area? See what comes up. And you might need to do this a few times. You might need to sit down for 10 minutes every few days and just let yourself daydream. There might be something in there. And of course, this isn't necessary for every decision if you're deciding which company to go with in a job search or something. I don't know whether you need to do this, but it would help in every case, especially the big decisions. Is there something you always dreamed of in this area of your life? And if so, what would it look like to be there? Who would you be at that point? And by who would you be? How would you be spending your days? Even more importantly, what would you be telling yourself? What would you be proud of? What would you be thinking as you were doing it? Start letting yourself think about these things because oftentimes I find with my clients there are pieces of those thoughts already present in you. But we shove them down, we shove them aside, we don't want to pay attention. We rather be kind of stuck in our stress because then we don't have to make the decision. I bet you there's pieces already in there of what you really want. And sitting in that quiet, the other thing that I want you to think about is is there some push that you're getting towards one way of the decision or another? And this is intuition, you might call it gut feeling. This is the way I would describe it. People describe intuition in all different ways. This is your subconscious brain which runs things a huge percentage of the time and works off of beliefs that we've developed all through our life that we hold deep in there. It runs off of all of that. It's speaking to you. It's taken in maybe more input from your surroundings and your situations than you've even realized, because that is the case as well. And it's speaking to you and it's sending you in a direction. And sometimes it shows up as kind of a feeling in the gut. Sometimes it sometimes it shows up as sort of a feeling in the chest. If I think about one decision, I get kind of a like, ugh, not so great feeling in my chest. Maybe that's the wrong decision. Something's trying to talk to me about it. Maybe it's in in your head. Maybe it's something that just is, I just call it like niggling at you, like just this, yeah, something is not quite right. It's just in there like something. If you're watching this on video, it might be easier to follow. But something is just not quite right. That is your intuition talking to you. There is something that your body knows, and maybe it comes through faith, maybe it comes through prayer. Prayer is certainly a great way to stay quiet and allow input, if that's something that you believe in and like to do. If you can sit and absorb and pay attention to, and by the way, no phone, no podcast, no TV, all of that. Maybe just for a few minutes. Maybe just bring a piece of paper, jot down anything that comes to you, very, very low pressure. Try it again later. Same piece of paper, jot down anything that comes to you, even anything that occurs in your mind. When you ask yourself, how am I feeling about this decision? What do I really want in this area? Just let yourself think. It's pretty rare that we do that in life. Quite rare. We're always rushing, right? Or we're always distracting ourselves with the phone, the social media, the podcast. We're always doing something like that and keeping ourselves busy. I want you to let your brain talk to you. I want you to let your body talk to you. Because if you can find this higher purpose and you can feel a bit more attached to it, and you can figure out what your intuition is telling you is maybe this path versus that path, then maybe you can take a little step and you can start to picture what's going to happen. And some of this you're going to need a coach to help you with, or some person in your life that can serve that role. If it's me, go to CherylPFischer.com/ coaching. Let's talk about it. But oftentimes we do need someone else to help us. It is not a weakness on your part. It's we need someone outside of all the stuff going on in our bodies and our brains to help us to put all of these pieces together to help us to figure it out. I need that. I work with coaches

Quiet Time To Hear Intuition

Cheryl Fischer 18:39

as well. And there's a book by Maxwell Maltz called Psychocybernetics, that if you are intrigued by the idea of creating a vision and the idea of how powerful our brains are and the brain science behind it, he wrote a fascinating book. And he, I believe, is not living anymore, so I'm going to say was. He was actually a plastic surgeon. And he got interested in this idea of the power of our thoughts and our brain and our subconscious because he would see people whose appearance he would change through plastic surgery, and some of them would become completely new and different people, and some of them would still have all the same issues they had before. It changed nothing. So why was that? Fascinating. But one thing that he talks about is a mind movie, meaning practicing putting yourself in a movie that you picture in your mind of something that you want, and you leave aside all the practicalities, you leave aside the limitations, and you look through your own eyes. Let's say you always wanted to be a speaker, you are looking through your own eyes on a stage, speaking to a big group about whatever it is that you've always wanted to speak about. And you feel that and you hear it. What are the sounds? What does it look like? How does it feel? And you play this little movie for yourself in your mind during these few minutes that you sit there quietly. And I don't want to add to your day, however, taking a couple minutes. You can even take your smartwatch, you can put a timer for a couple minutes, super easy, and just quieting down with a piece of paper in your hand and asking yourself what you really want in this area of your life, patiently, without pressure, without stress, keeping your nervous system in a calm, parasymp, parasympathetic state, taking some deep breaths, maybe, you will be surprised and amazed about what comes out of that when you give yourself a chance. And so some decisions you're just gonna know. You're gonna feel it, you're gonna know. I carrying around, let's say, a glass of something to drink. And my intuition speaks to me quite loudly, and very often, actually, I don't know what this says about me. When I put the glass down near the edge of a piece of furniture, a table or a desk or something, if I put it down, I will get a intuition. Move that thing or it's gonna fall. I don't know if this has ever happened to you. And so if I listen, I pick it up, I move it closer to the center. If I don't listen, it falls every time, every time that has happened. Every time I get that intuition about, ooh, don't put that there, or maybe don't do it that way, or maybe go check on this. When I do it, it was the right thing to do. And so we what we want to do is practice hearing, sensing, feeling that, and paying attention to it and allowing it to be bigger, allowing it to talk to us about bigger things. It's pretty

Mind Movies And Calm Breathing

Cheryl Fischer 21:47

cool. And it will help you in making decisions that you actually feel good about, that you feel confident about, that you feel empowered about. And it takes time, it takes little steps. Little steps. So we're wrapping this up and you are in a situation where you've set prices for your business's products, or you have made a decision about your parents or your living situation or whatever it is, and you are just feeling so upset about it. Here's sort of the backside of the decision. You've already made the decision and you're questioning it. You can try the same process because it's not necessarily the best answer to say, well, if I made the decision and I feel super uncomfortable about it, let me just take it back and go the other way. Maybe it's just you're you're needing to grow. You're needing your self-image to catch up with this you who made this decision and is now doing this thing this way. And sitting quietly and asking yourself what you want this to look like, and asking yourself how it will look when your customers are doing this or your family is doing that, or you're doing this in your new house, or

Practising Intuition With Small Signals

Cheryl Fischer 22:58

whatever it is, and starting to get comfortable with that will allow you to do to grow into it. And the way you know that maybe you knew you do need to pull back the decision, or you do need to change the pricing, or you do need to do something different, is that you can't, you can't, there's a block, you can't move through, you can't get comfortable with it. You've tried, you've tried calmly, you've been just curious with yourself, and you can't, then that might be a sign that something you want to change something. But give it a little bit of time, give it a little bit of curiosity, and ask someone that you really trust, like a coach, to help you figure that out. I hope this episode has made a difference for you. I am excited to say, please make sure you've hit the follow button because coming up next week on Mind Your Midlife, I am talking to an organizational specialist, a decluttering specialist, and we had a pretty fascinating conversation about the things we deal with in midlife. So you will want to hear that. And in the meantime, midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself, just a little bit better on the inside and the outside. Makes a big difference.