Ready to Make Some Bad Decisions?
Decisions, decisions… Researchers estimate that we make around 35,000 decisions a day (it certainly feels like that by the time I’m choosing what to make for tea 🤣).
Of course, many of those are subconscious. A perhaps more useful figure comes from research by Noom (the psychology-based dieting app), which suggests we make 122 informed choices every day. And 87% of us change our mind twice per decision, with 11% of us admitting to changing our minds five or more times.
We’ve all been that 11% 🤣
Particularly when it comes to big, life-changing decisions, such as:
Shall I change job or career?
Will I move? Where to?
Should I commit to - or end - this relationship?
And, of course, Do I put cream on this scone first, or jam?*
Earlier this year I was coaching a beautiful human on one such life-changing decision. They’d been changing their mind about this particular issue for 12 looooong years, never fully committing one way or the other.
Whenever they thought they’d made their decision, they started doubting themselves - full of regret and wondering what they were missing out on. Wondering if they were making the wrong decision.
The Fork in the Road
When we’re at a fork in the road and choose one path, we also choose not to take the other paths available to us at that time.
As I’m inordinately fond of asking clients:
If you say ‘yes’ to this, what are you saying ‘no’ to?
Let’s not shy away from the simple truth that we can’t have everything.
With life’s big decisions, it’s important to spend time reflecting on this so that you can choose with intention.
But after reflection, action must come.
You must make a choice. You must say yes to something - because not choosing is a choice in itself. A choice that leaves you living life by default, or treading water in the messy middle, neither here nor there, not truly living in the moment.
Make a decision, and jump in with both feet, giving it all you’ve got.
“But What If I Make the Wrong Decision?”
“But what if I make the wrong decision?” you may ask - thinking regretfully of all the duff decisions you’ve made in your life, all the times you wish you’d chosen another path.
Here’s the thing: I don’t believe in wrong decisions.
I believe that we, all of us, make the very best decision we can at the time, given what we know, how we’re feeling, what’s happening around us, what we’ve experienced in the past, our mindset in the moment, our energy levels, and our mental state.
Sure, we might look back later and think, what was I thinking?!
I’ll tell you what you were thinking.
You were thinking: What’s the best decision I can make right now?
And you made it.
And it might have turned into a shitshow - but you didn’t make that decision with the intention of it turning into a shitshow. You did your bloody best.
I believe there are no bad decisions, only bad outcomes.
And sometimes… well, shit just happens.
Maybe you can go back to the fork in the road and choose another path.
Maybe you can’t.
Either way, you’ve learned something.
You’ve grown.
You’ve lived.
With love (and decisiveness),
Mia
*Talking of baked goods, I once found this YouTube video in which Anne Hathaway demonstrates how to eat a cupcake in a way that may genuinely change your life.
You’re welcome.
If you’d like more reflections like this, I share them in my weekly e-letter - little love letters with stories, questions to sit with, and gentle reminders to step off the hamster wheel. You can join below👇 .
