The ability to think for yourself is one of the greatest gifts you can have.
Driven solely by needs, decision-making is very easy. If you're thirsty, you need to drink something or you'll de-hydrate. If you're hungry, get food or starve. If you're cold, you need to find warmth or freeze to death. If you're cold and wet, you need to find shelter. Driven by basic human needs, it's simple to make those kinds of choices.
But what happens when you have choices? What happens when what you want is opposed to what you need. What happens when you are trying to determine the best course of action to take but have several options to choose from? How does decision-making enter into it then?
Your mind juggles with each possibility, maybe having some idea of how each choice or decision will play out, but there is still uncertainty. You’re frozen. Your mindset tells you it's important not to make a mistake, so you're frightened in case you do.
What can you do?
Sometime in the past you may have made a decision that didn’t end well or didn’t work out for you. It may have been a knee jerk reaction to something trivial that didn't pan out. You may have walked away from the situation shaking your head telling yourself “I’ll never do that again.”
But guess what? Life is all about making decisions, making choices and some of them may not work out as well as we have hoped.
One of the most exciting things about being human is that your experience of living will always have an unknown factor. No matter how much you may wish to control yourself and your environment, there will occasionally be a random action outside of your control that will affect your outcome. As my old dance instructor used to say, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.”
You are not a god. No-one can predict every little outcome that jumps out randomly at you as a result of your actions. There are always too many variables that you cannot control. Failing to act because of fear of making a mistake can paralyze you and that paralysis can have far-reaching effects and unexpected and unwanted consequences. It's not the mistake itself that causes the problem, it's the fear of making another one that limits your life and your options. Understanding and accepting this idea will allow you more freedom to make decisions and live your life more freely and fully.
So ask yourself, what do you want to accomplish in your life? What is close to your heart? What image of your future keeps you inspired. What is driving you to want to attain it?
How happy do you imagine you’d be once you can pursue what you truly want in life? Would you feel confident then?
A Life Coach can help you learn to stop second guessing yourself, giving you confidence in your own decision-making. If you'd like to talk about this, give me a call.
Contact: David Gillman - The Mindset Mechanic
Mob: 0481152683
Email: david@keystonecoaching.net Website: www.keystonecoaching.net
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