minnie

TG and Judy have spurred me to get off my arse and post something I've been meaning to for ages.

From Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers. (I've had to edit it a bit as there are diagrams I can't post.)

One of the biggest fears that keeps us from moving ahead is our difficulty in making decisions. As one of my students lamented, "Sometimes I feel like the proverbial donkey between two bales of hay - unable to decide which one I want, and, in the meantime, starving to death." The irony, of course, is that by not choosing, we are choosing - to starve. We are choosing to deprive ourselves of what makes life a delicious feast.

The problem is that we have been taught "Be careful! You might make a wrong decision!" A wrong decision! Just the sound of that can bring terror to our hearts. We are afraid that the wrong decision will deprive us of something - money, friends, lovers, status or whatever the right decision is supposed to bring us.

Closely tied to this is our panic over making mistakes. For some reason we feel that we should be perfect, and forget that we learn throught our mistakes. Our need to be perfect and our need to control the outcome of events work together to keep us petrified when we think about making a change or attempting a new challenge.

If the above describes you, I am going to demonstrate that you are worrying needlessly. There really is nothing to lose, only something to gain, whatever the choices you make or the actions you take in life. As I stated earlier, all you have to do to change your world is to change the way you think about it. This concept works beautifully here. You can actually shift your thinking in such a way as to make a wrong decision or mistake an impossibility. Let's begin with decision making.

Suppose you are at a Choice Point in your life. If you are like most of us, you have been taught to use the No-win model as you think about the decision to be made. The model looks like this:

................... Wrong?
................... Right?
Choice Point /
.................. \
................... Right?
................... Wrong?

Your heart feel heavy about the choice you have to make. You feel somewhat paralyzed as you think about the consequences in life-or-death terms. You stand at the threshold of the decision, lamenting and obsessing: "Should I do this or should I do that? What if I go this way and that happens? What if it doesn't work out the way I plan? What if...?

The "what if"s are out in full force. The internal Chatterbox is at it again. You look at the unknown and try to predict the future; you try to take control of outside forces. Both are impossible, At this point you may notice you are driving yourself crazy.

After the decision is made, the No-Win model makes you constantly reassess the situation, hoping you didn't make a mistake. You keep looking back and berating yourself with "If only I had...." You waste valuable energy and you also make youself miserable.

You gain relief if the outcome is as you hoped it would be - but only temporarily. As you breathe a sigh of relief, you are already worrying that the situation might reverse itself and that it might ultimately prove to be the wrong decision. Furthermore, you are already fearful about the next decison you have to make, because you will have to go through the whole agonizing process again. Look familiar? Crazy, isn't it? Clearly, this is a No-Win situation. Bot there is another way - the No-Lose Model.

Go back and look at the Choice Point again. This time, the situation looks like this:


...................
................... Right!
Choice Point /
.................. \
................... Right!
...................

(Minnie note. This is where the diagram breaks down. There is the word "goodies" down each of the arrows.)

Notice that what lies ahead are simply two paths - A and B - both of which are right!

Each path has nothing but "goodies" along the way. You are clearly facing a no-lose situation. And what are the goodies? They are opportunities to experience life in a new way, to learn and grow, to find out who you are and who you would really like to be and what you would like to do in this life. Each path is strewn with opportunities - despite the outcome.
...........

THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU CAN HANDLE ANYTHING THAT COMES YOUR WAY IS THE KEY TO ALLOWING YOURSELF TO TAKE RISKS.

minnie

The other great thing I learned about making decisions and not regretting them is knowing that it is only with hindsight that I can learn whether or not to make the same one if ever I am in that situation again. So, it is only because of information I learn after the event that I can know whether it was a good one or not, even if it is just the knowledge that it didn't work. I can't know that in advance.

Tie that in with what I posted above and it is truly a recipe for a regret-free life.

denny57

If you're talking about not beating yourself up for the decisions you make, I'm all for it. I believe we do make right and wrong decisions, it's how we deal with what follows that matters. Also key is not thinking it to death. Trusting my gut. I have made plenty of wrong decisions. Plenty more right ones. Maybe it's just semantics for me.

splendra

I like it (((minnie)))

Minx1969

Minnie,

great post..I've read the book and I highly recommend it..

Jazzman

I treat decisions about job changes this way: Why not? So far it's worked for me. I treat relationship decisions differently. Three times in my life I have found myself absolutely miserable, (honest assessment and not based on denial). I would tend to hold on to miserable relationships MUCH longer than I would hold onto miserable jobs. At 46 years old it's boiled down to one simple thought process: Change is consistent, so I might as well embrace it. Life's too short. Shoot for happy.

Take all the time you need to decide if you're honestly happy, but not the rest of your life.



edit* Forgot to add, I don't think there is such a thing as a wrong decision.

minnie

I have made tons of decisons that haven't worked out. Quite few have had truly life-altering consequences where my life could never be the same again. And the torment and anguish I had before and after were almost intolerable.

But since I read that book quite a few years ago (and a long time before I even met the guy that led me into recovery), I have total peace and freedom in my decision-making. Making a decision simply means I travel a different path, sometimes for a while, sometimes forever. I don't mean that I make quick decisions, I mean that I don't fret about them. Even at my most depressed where I couldn't even choose what I wanted for my dinner, I didn't stress too much about the decision. (Of course, I was somewhat concerned about my mental health, but that's another topic!)

And yes, trusting my gut has been central to that. My subconscious makes all my best decisions.

gelfling

Magnificent post...I like the idea of looking at decision making that way. I always think that if I do make the wrong decision for the moment, I can still learn from it. I'd also like to think that if I do booboo, I've come far enough in my recovery to know how to cope with it without going totally nuts.

ASpouse

I will re-read this tomorrow when my brain can grasp it! Right now I am too overwrought about a decision I made today ...... ie, the chatterbox in me is bugging me to death.

Thanks minnie, you have given me much food for thought.

denny57

Hope you find some peace as the night goes on.

ASpouse

Thanks Denny, I think tomorrow will be better. It's a matter of acceptance now, something that's always been difficult for me, but it's getting easier.

equus

I can ummm and arrrr about decisions if I know I have the time to, but then when finally I make my choice I tend to be happy with it. I sold my last house and bought this one thinking the market would drop where I lived before - it probably cost me 10K because I was wrong. However when I took the decisions I knew that may be the case and had figured either I try or I don't and I wanted to try. I don't feel any regret.

I ummm and arrr about work but right now I'm glad I'm still there - there's a lsat job for me to do and I at least have a chance of doing it, I'm glad for the chance even though I know I might not succeed.

All this is in contrast with last year when D was ill and every day seemed to bring choices I felt ill equipped to make. I think maybe the answer to that is to accept I didn't know enough to be clear and that whatever happened I had to choose what to do. That constant feeling hurt lots and I'm glad it's not a permanent theme in my life in general.

megamysterioso

Thanks for sharing this post Minnie. Following that logic can alleviate so much unnecessary stress and strain that we put ourselves through when trying to "predict the future." Truly a great read and words to live by.

kmagk

Thanks Minnie, I appreciated your post and am trying to let it sink in.

Vicky R

thanks for that Minnie , yeah it's a great quote. That book actually helped me to get out of a dangerous situation ! at the time I was more afraid of relatively safe risks than dangerous ones and her book served to open my mind to the different options at the time . It's good to be reminded of it too , might dig it out again , she's done some other good stuff too ,

lol Vicky x

LaTeeDa

I love this! I spent all day yesterday on an interview panel. We were interviewing mostly in-house candidates for a management position. Sort of "entry-level" management. The first step from staff to management. Anyway, one of the questions we had was about making "on the spot" decisions, without the benefit of prior approval or input from one's supervisor. There were ten candidates for the position, and 8 of them answered the question with some form of "I would check with my supervisor" even though the question specifically precluded that. ????? Just goes to show how big the fear of making a decision can be. Some people can't even do it in a hypothetical way.

prodigal

Great post! I am so guilty of the sh** or get off the pot syndrome. I will spend literally years angsting about WHEN to make a decision, HOW to proceed, plan, plan, and then plan some more. Then I'll finally make a decision and spend a few years beating myself up because my decision was WRONG (read that to mean it didn't work out as I planned it!).

I have hung on, seemingly forever, to dead-end, meaningless, unfulfilling, just plain worthless relationships. Then, after I FINALLY left, I would start to romanticize all the "good" times, and all the "wonderful" attributes my partner had. If that isn't masochism, I don't know what is! Okay, grieve the loss of whatever it is and then get on with living!

Dealing with decisions, and life, in this manner has allowed me to remain in the victim role. I truly believe that if I simply listened to my gut instincts, I would have fared far better many times.

I have a $100 gift certificate for Amazon. I believe I'll buy drop by their site and buy that book.

minnie

Prod - I re-read the book last night after I posted this. Well, I kind of skimmed it as it was late. But I read enough to realise that it is truly a recovery book - the first one I ever bought, 7 or more years ago and 5 years before I'd even heard of Al-anon. I got it because I had hit the sales wall where the phone looked like it weighed about 300lbs. It didn't really help with that, but it did help me (slowly) come to the realisation that I was in the wrong job altogether, which was far more important.

This time round, I understood it. And I realised that the last chapter on Higher Self was probably where the idea of my HP first germinated. See? We never know what gets stored away and utilised at a later dater when we read stuff that's good for us.

brdlvr2

Thanks Minnie. I really, really needed to read this today. I've come to another cross roads and am feeling not very good about what my heart is telling me to do about a relationship. I'm going to check that book out too.

Ceridwen

thank you for this post - I often get paralysed by decision making - afraid that I will make the wrong decision, however for a long time I have been working on not looking back on decisions I made in the past as "wrong" - I now view them as "they were right at the time given the information I had to hand, even if I can no longer remember why I made that choice" and I now very rarely look back with an "if only I'd chosen to do X instead of y" after-all I only actually know the consequences of the decision I made, the consequences of any alternatives really are a mystery even with hindsight.

I just have to apply this to decisions I'm making NOW, and practice that sometimes making a decision (ANY decision) is better than being paralysed by indecision.

I think I'll get that book too

edited for spelling (twice - i'm having a bad day!)