Stop Letting Indecision Hold Back Your Career Change

Struggling to make a decision about changing careers?
In episode 5 of The Career Change Studio, I unpack why so many people feel indecisive when they start contemplating change in their careers  and how you can start thinking differently about it. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why indecision shows up during a career change and why it’s a normal part of the process
• How indecisions can actually be a choice!  
• How your brain’s programming can argue to keep you stuck in your “comfort zone” and how this can ultimately create more discomfort over time.
• A simple thing you can do today to challenge your perception that you are indecisive.

Being indecisive isn’t a fixed personality trait, it’s a behaviour pattern you can change. 

If you want personalised support to make clearer, more confident career decisions, you can get in touch to explore 1:1 Career Change coaching with me.

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/
Free Coaching Consultation: https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free clarity call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Transcript

Hello, in today’s episode of The Career Change Studio I want to talk about indecision because so many clients start by saying to me “I’m really indecisive” or “I’m not good at making decisions” or “I don’t know how to make decisions”. So I really want to delve into that today and really address ‘indecision’ as a thing and help you move past this. Because ultimately to move forward with changes in our careers, we've got to start making some decisions.

I want to address 2 things today:

1. Why you are feeling indecisive
2. How you can start being more decisive

WHY YOU ARE FEELING INDECISIVE

So if you’re thinking about making a change in your career, it probably means that you’ve started thinking about multiple options - all the different avenues that you could go down. 

And you might be playing those scenarios or possible paths over and over in your head.

It means there are thoughts going round and round in circles and it can be exhausting.

It uses up so much mental energy!

 It can often mean that you can’t concentrate on work or be present with your partner, friends or family because it’s constantly there - a constant hum..that needs your attention

And if people ask you want you want do… or if you ask yourself…you say “I don’t know”

And you can sit in that state - the not knowing - for weeks or months or even years.

You might even feel like you are taking ‘action’ of sorts because you are asking lots of other people for their opinions on what you should do, 

You might even be doing lots of unfocused research - searching online or LinkedIn - hoping that the answer will magically appear…

and all the time that you’re asking others or scrolling and searching means that you don’t have to make a decision.

Some people might actually already know deep down what they want to do…they are just afraid of what that means and if they admit what they really want to do they will have to take scary action and they’re not ready for that….

Or even if you really don’t know …..staying in the ‘not knowing’ feels safer… because once you make decisions and then inevitably have to take some sort of action that feels scary

The reality is sitting in indecision feels safer -  Because it’s familiar. 

Don’t worry if this is where you are - you don’t have to feel bad about the fact that you’re spinning in indecision. It is helpful to understand why you are there so that you can start taking steps to change it.

The reality is that our brains are hard wired to seek comfort and avoid pain. The amygdala is the part of your brain that’s often nicknamed the security guard, scanning for danger or anything it perceives as likely to cause danger or pain. So if you think of it as an over-zealous jobsworth - what it’s doing is flagging up anything that is new or different. It likes predictability, it likes it when you can be coasting along on autopilot without thinking too hard (as this requires less effort and our brain is programmed to minimise effort) so that means the security guard is going to protect your comfort zone and try and keep you there.

If you think of this primitive programming as once being super useful, let’s say when we were living in caves, any change, any move out of that cave - away from what was familiar and known was risky - potentially life threatening - going out of the cave could involve a meeting with a hungry sabre tooth tiger.

But what often happens now is our brain sets off the same alerts and fear responses when we’re doing anything outside of our comfort zone, and the reality is that in our modern world, for most of us that isn’t actually life threatening - it’s discomfort not danger. 

So just recognising what your brain is programmed to do can be important. 

Because this means nothing has gone wrong if you find yourself stuck firmly in your comfort zone. 

It is just your brain acting like a normal human brain - trying to keep you ‘safe’. Prioritising that safety over the uncertainty of change.

And then we get to question how necessary this fear response is for the changes we are actually facing.

The first thing to do when you find yourself feeling stuck in your “Comfort Zone” is to really question how comfortable that Comfort Zone really is.

For most clients I work with - they are working with me because what was once a comfort zone is now not only extremely uncomfortable, it is making them really unhappy.

Being in a job that no longer fits is really affecting how they feel about themselves, its’ affecting their self worth, eroding their confidence - the unhappiness is seeping into all other areas of their lives

In their relationships with their partner, their families, their friends.

They are taking out their frustrations on those closest to them. They are finding it hard to feel present.

They are constantly questioning themselves and this is affecting how they show up in other areas of their lives.

They don’t feel like themselves anymore. They are feeling overwhelmed. And so they start dropping the things that help them feel like them - stopping exercising, eating badly, no longer making time for friends or hobbies… just feeling so exhausted at the end of the day they have no energy so they feel like they can only come home from work and collapse on the sofa.

It can affect people’s sleep, and their anxiety increases…

Ultimately it can lead to all sorts of mental health challenges…. Sometimes they’ll start to feel burnt out at work or even get to the point where full medical burn out causes their body to say - no, stop, no more and they might even get confined to bed for weeks, even months.

If any of this resonates with you, I really want you to think about this - if your comfort zone is no longer comfortable, and actually for you it might be a place of pain or unhappiness, you have to get real about overriding your brain’s primitive programming.

When your brain tries to tell you staying in the familiar, the ‘known’ is safer or easier than making a decision and making changes - you have to be ready with your counter argument.

You have to be ready to acknowledge that change is not going to take you OUT of your comfort zone, you are already out of there, already uncomfortable - the risk isn’t as great as your brain is offering.

So what you’re actually choosing between is staying where you are - and the CERTAINTY of being uncomfortable, or in pain if that is where things have got for you - and yes uncertainty of change but with a really high chance of that feeling so much better than the PAIN/DISCOMFORT you are in now.

You already know staying where you are isn’t serving you now and definitely won’t be serving you in the long term.

Ask yourself, these questions:

Why am I actually looking to make changes in the first place? What am I feeling that isn’t working for me anymore?

And what happens if I don’t make any changes - what is CERTAIN about staying here? How will it make me feel?

What will the impact of that be on me? 

How will it affect me emotionally?

How will it affect my health (physical and mental)? 

How will it affect my relationships?

Based on this you can make a decision right now. Because choosing to stay in indecision is actually a choice,a false belief that you are choosing safety.

So are you choosing to stay in indecision because it is familiar or  you want or need to make changes?

Congratulations you made a decision, see you’re better at this than you thought.

So if you decided yes - I want to make changes as it will take me away from the certainty of pain and discomfort I’m in now, let’s look at how

2. HOW YOU CAN BE LESS INDECISIVE

STOP TELLING YOURSELF YOU ARE INDECISIVE

So the first thing you need to do, is a simple one thing really. You have to stop telling yourself that you are indecisive. When you tell yourself that, in this definitive way “I AM INDECISIVE” - it sounds and feels, very final, very complete. Like this is just part of your personality that will never change.

But here’s the thing, there are loads of parts of our personality that are just ideas - thoughts we have about ourselves, thoughts we share with other people about us, ideas that other people have of us - but they are not set in stone anywhere - and mostly our brain tries to prove these narratives true. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

What you are saying to yourself when you say “I’m indecisive” is 

I’m not good at making decisions

I don’t know how to make decisions

I don’t trust myself to make decisions

So your brain will go, OK so I don’t have to try because I’m not good. So it doesn’t try, it doesn’t practice, it doesn’t get better. There’s no space for it to attempt decisions

Think of it like this, if you were talking to a child - let’s say a 6 year old girl - and you were asking them what they wanted for their dinner - then before they had a chance to answer you told them ‘ actually you’re not good at making decisions, you’re indecisive” 

And then next time they were trying to pick a book to read, you’d say to them - ‘you can’t, you’re indecisive?

Or they were picking what to wear in the morning, instead of encouraging them you said ‘no, you’re too indecisive”

What do you think would happen? 

They would start to think that they weren’t capable of making a decision.

They would believe that they didn’t have what it takes

They would rely on someone else to decide for them

Or they’d enter a state of paralysis and not make a decision

They might end up with an outfit that didn’t fit properly or was uncomfortable because they let someone else choose or they’d end up with a book they didn’t like reading …. Or no book at all because they were overwhelmed by the choice

And over time, they’d stop trying to make decisions… because their confidence would not only be eroded  BUT crucially they would never have developed the skills to enable them to make a decision.

They would never have determined their personal criteria to help them make decisions

They wouldn’t have pondered - what do I like about certain books? What book am I in the mood for now? What type of book do I want to read when I’m sad, or happy or tired?

They wouldn’t have learnt how to flex those decision making muscles.

And that is exactly what you are doing to yourself if you are constantly telling yourself you are indecisive. You are not allowing yourself to get better at making decisions

You are not allowing yourself to determine your personal criteria for decision making

You are shutting yourself down. And I used the image of a young girl deliberately because we see them as impressionable and that is how you are - even as an adult ….

You are listening to yourself and being shaped by what you are telling yourself you are capable of.

So from today instead of “I’m too indecisive” = I want you to try and say this to yourself instead “I am working on figuring it out”

Next time someone asks you want you want to do next, or your asking yourself and you either say to them or to yourself “I’m indecisive” - pause, rephrase it and say “Actually, that’s not true of me anymore….I’m actually working on figuring this out”

This opens your brain up, allows you to think of options, allows you to explore what you might want or need…. Gives you permission to start figuring things out.

CREATE A CRITERIA FOR MAKING YOUR DECISION

And how are you going to figure it out? You are going to create a criteria for how you make this decision. You are going to get honest with yourself. Even if you don’t have all the answers - I bet you do know some things.

So start there - right down what you do know. Your brain will try and take you to everything that you don’t know. Don’t let it - write down everything that you do know that might help you make this decision. 

Then based on those things, what else do you want or need to find out?

You don’t have to start with all the answers, your first step can be questions. What questions do I need to ask of myself or others, to get the answers I need to start making at least the first decision.

And remember, we often think that life changes are down to these big decisions - when actually they are lots of small decisions, that all help us create a clearer criteria for how we want to live and work that ultimately add up to a larger decision

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So I hope that you found that useful and it’s helped you think slightly differently about indecision.

It’s not a permanent personality trait - it's a temporary set of behaviours that you can change.

And if you want help making all those smaller decisions that will help you change your working life come and talk to me, because that’s what I do with my career change coaching clients all the time. Help them figure out what they really want and how to go and get it. You might really benefit from that 1-2-1 coaching support

Right, it’s been a pleasure. As always all feedback about the podcast is welcome. Let me know what' s sparking new ways of thinking, what's inspiring you and if there are topics you’d like to hear more about.

Until next week, Bye for now