Adventurous Mom

Posts Tagged ‘decisions’

Do you ever get par­a­lyzed with mak­ing a deci­sion?  Is it dif­fi­cult for you to decide when hard choices con­front you?  You get scared and you get fear­ful, so instead you do nothing?

Well, inde­ci­sion is some­times a curse that befalls us all.  We then pro­cras­ti­nate and then get noth­ing done.  Napoleon Hill sum­ma­rizes this par­a­digm in his book Think and Grow Rich and why it is dam­ag­ing to our suc­cess. “ACCURATE analy­sis of over 25,000 men and women who had expe­ri­enced fail­ure, dis­closed the fact that LACK OF DECISION was near the head of the list of the 30 major causes of FAILURE.”

We argue to our­selves that we need more time to think about it, and then we take more time, but often the deci­sion gets cloudier the longer we think about things.

There are sev­eral types of per­son­al­i­ties that strug­gle with inde­ci­sion.  There are those that make choices quickly think­ing they have all of the infor­ma­tion they need, only to back pedal on their deci­sion days or even hours after mak­ing it.  This is quite frus­trat­ing, even for these peo­ple because they have a dif­fi­cult time get­ting things done, they have to undo and redo.  Energy and time is wasted for their lack of decision.

The other per­son­al­ity type is those that fear any kind of deci­sion at all.  I call these peo­ple Ana­lytic Paralytics…frozen with infor­ma­tion over­load.  At some point in our lives most peo­ple hit this cross­road, espe­cially when big deci­sions need to be made. We want so badly not to make mis­takes, so we gather and gather and hunt for infor­ma­tion.  We ask ques­tions, we seek advice, we get opinions….but the more infor­ma­tion we gather, the more dif­fi­cult it becomes to decide!

Inde­ci­sion is par­a­lyz­ing, it keeps us from our goals and our dreams!  One thing for cer­tain is that it will be unlikely that any one per­son will have 100% of the knowl­edge nec­es­sary to make a good deci­sion, it’s just impos­si­ble!  So, you are doomed to make bad deci­sions in your life, and that’s okay.  Keep­ing this in mind, how bad might some of your deci­sions become?

Most deci­sions that we make are not irre­versible, we can change them back if need be.  I would even go as far as to say that 90% of the deci­sions we make are totally irre­versible.  If we decide we are not sat­is­fied with the out­come of our deci­sion, we can change it.  So for the bulk of our deci­sions, they likely have lit­tle to no con­se­quence, and are eas­ily fix­able if some­thing goes wrong.

For the 10% of dif­fi­cult deci­sions that may not be irre­versible, we can ask our­selves these series of questions:

1. Do I have choices?  What are my choices? (A good teacher once told me one option is not a choice, it’s a con­se­quence, two make a dilemma, and three make a choice.)
2. Am I lean­ing toward one decision/choice and how do I feel about that choice? (Keep­ing in mind that fear is a healthy emo­tion sur­round­ing change and decision.)
3. What do I have to gain if I make this choice? And what do I have to lose?
4. If I lose, how dif­fi­cult will it be for me to recover?
5. Lastly, what do I really want?

Going through a deci­sion rubric such as this really brings down one’s fear lev­els regard­ing deci­sion mak­ing.  Our Ego mind is so quick to judge us! (How dare it!) It puts up the fear as safe­guards to doing any­thing out­side of your com­fort level.  But it inad­ver­tently sab­o­tages our suc­cess (are you going to let this hap­pen? How dare it!)

Lastly, don’t let your inde­ci­sion be the rea­son why you fail as Napoleon Hill points out.  Make a deci­sion, stick with it for a while, and if it doesn’t serve you, then change!  What do you really have to lose?

Join on in the con­ver­sa­tion and leave a com­ment below!!

For now, Many Adven­tures to You!

Maken­zie

It started the Thurs­day before New Years, a last minute trip to take the kids to the snow.  We promised them we would do a snow trip dur­ing Win­ter break, and so I found a cheap Hotel (not cheap as in dive…but cheap as in $49!) in Reno, and we set sail to the biggest lit­tle city in the world.  Luck­ily, there is a Cir­cus Cir­cus there for the kids to immerse them­selves in what I call “gam­bling for kids” or the arcade.  To be hon­est, it was my hus­band that was the big roller here.  You should have seen the streams of tick­ets that guy won!

Reno was fan­tas­tic and the kids had a blast…  here is “Fluffy the snowman”:

we decided to make our snow day a snowman-challenge mak­ing day.  I just hope that the Snow­man doesn’t real­ize the kids were call­ing him Fluffy, I am sure he would have pre­ferred to be called “Ice­Man” or some­thing like that.

On our way home from Reno,  I get the con­fir­ma­tion that we will be need­ing to drive to Los Ange­les the next day.  I was get­ting rid of my Range Rover, and the buyer was in LA.  The Range Rover was a casu­alty of my deci­sion to retire.  Not being active in the busi­ness any­more did not neces­si­tate the need for the  vehi­cle  and the tax issues would get sticky, so it had to go.  Plus, I was unwill­ing to drop $925/mo on a car pay­ment from my per­sonal funds ugh! Cer­tain logic ruled in this instance.

We spent one night in our own beds, and the next morn­ing, on the road again for five hours to LA.  The accom­mo­da­tions were not as nice, the hotel was 2xs the cost and there were no blink­ing lights or danc­ing clowns.  Yet, as always, we man­aged to have fun, and made our way to Her­mosa Beach the next day to bask in the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia sun.  70 degrees, warm sand, surfers in the water, it was a typ­i­cal SoCal win­ter.  Ahhh, I love the sun.

The hand-off of the Range Rover occurred seam­lessly, the new owner, a late 20’s some­thing New Yorker-turned-LAer-turned-High-Roller was now in proud pos­ses­sion of the beau­ti­ful sil­ver SUV.  I showed him the bells and whis­tles, he signed the papers, and that was the last that I saw of my lux­ury vehicle.

We then got on “the” 405 free­way to “the” 710 and were on our way to the Long Beach aquar­ium, when it hit me…the lump in my throat wouldn’t go away.  I tried to cough, no.  I tried to gag, no.  It wouldn’t go away, then I got short of breath. Was this a panic attack?  The tears started to roll down my face, I was dri­ving a car that I was unfa­mil­iar with, on a busy LA freeway…oh no. Snif­fle, cough, gag, sniffle.

I just gave up my prized pos­ses­sion, handed the keys over to a per­fect stranger! I loved that car.…people loved that car.  If I had a dol­lar for every time a man said to me, “My wife so badly wants a car like that…!”

My dar­ling hus­band was speech­less because I had been so “matter-of-fact” about need­ing to get rid of the car for the last two months.  “But my Satel­lite radio, and my seat heaters…I don’t have those in the Explorer!!”, I con­tin­ued to snif­fle and cough and gag.  It just won’t be the same.

I parked the rental car, and dried off my eyes, and heard a deep-down voice say to me:

“No Maken­zie, this is not what you want, that is your Ego talk­ing and not your true self.  Your true self wants to spend those pre­cious moments with your kids.  If you keep that car, you will need to get a job instead of spend­ing time with your kids. Your true self wants to design the life that you want.  Your ego wants things and approval.  Your ego has failed you count­less times.  Now is the time to lis­ten to your true self.”

That car wasn’t who I was, it didn’t mat­ter to my kids what kind of car I drove.  It was not a dif­fi­cult deci­sion to make log­i­cally, or financially…but the ego and emo­tional play was far big­ger than I anticipated.

I think this is what hap­pens often when peo­ple get “stuck” in a sit­u­a­tion.  They fear that dia­logue with their ego…the one that asks them, “What will peo­ple think?” or tells them “You are not smart enough to try some­thing new, you will surely fail…and then…what will peo­ple say?” They are so afraid that their Ego, rather than their True Self, is right, that they stall and say things like, “It’s just not that easy” or “Life is complicated.”

Well, life is not com­pli­cated, as I am here to tell you.  Our fam­ily con­tin­ues to over­come adver­sity with phys­i­cal injuries, career changes, fledg­ling finan­cial mar­kets.  But really, our life is simple:

We Love each other, We spend time together, We enjoy adventure.

That’s it.

Many adven­tures to you!

Maken­zie

Okay, so I am giv­ing away my age with this post, but that’s okay.  I already told every­one I was about 12 pounds over­weight in the prior post!

I really wanted to share with every­one how excep­tion­ally excited I am to have Retired!  I guess I like to use the term Retire because it really epit­o­mizes the mind­set that I have taken regard­ing my new life transition.

Some define retire as:

To with­draw from one’s occu­pa­tion, busi­ness, or office

To fall back or retreat, as from battle

To move back or away; recede.

I have def­i­nitely withdrawn.…

I moved back or almost like the tide, I’ve receded.    Yet, I really enjoy the sec­ond def­i­n­i­tion, as I’ve fallen back or retreated as from bat­tle! Wow!  I def­i­nitely felt like I was in a los­ing TIME bat­tle, and with the deci­sion to fall back, I have regained my Life! Decid­ing not to con­tinue to fight the bat­tle doesn’t always mean you lose.  Some­times you find out that you’re only bat­tling your­self, you are your worst enemy in some situations.

Retir­ing young DOES NOT mean:

Well what the heck do I mean then?

This type of retire­ment stinks

How DID I retire at 33?

INSPIRED

I am inspired to cre­ate this blog to share with oth­ers, espe­cially lead­ers, entre­pre­neurs, and other women regard­ing the jour­ney that I have dis­cov­ered. By no means has my jour­ney been solo, nor has it been easy, but it has def­i­nitely been reward­ing. I hope that with this blog I can inspire oth­ers, give some “AHA! Insights” or help to cul­ti­vate lead­ers. I cer­tainly did not get to this place with­out Men­tors, Coaches and Great Lead­ers. I still make mis­takes (a lot of them) but the great­est stu­dent is a teacher, the great­est teacher is a stu­dent.
From the out­side, my life seems to be charmed. Some would con­sider me “for­tu­nate, lucky, in the right place at the right time”, but I will argue against, that. I will say that I have been focused, clear and intent on my deci­sions. I have con­sis­tently made deci­sions, most of them good some of them poor.

WE ARE DESTINED TO MAKE DECISIONS

No one is proud of those poor deci­sions, nor am I, but those deci­sions have served purpose.…meaning that I have taken the lessons from those deci­sions and made pos­i­tive changes. Events in our lives, both good and poor serve us and allow us to learn. It never feels good, it is painful and some­times so painful that we do not repeat those lessons.

PAIN IS SOMETIMES NECESSARY

Imag­ine not being able to feel the pain of a hot flame.…we would con­tinue to touch the flame and burn our­selves. Pain serves a pur­pose, both phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally. Pain allows us to make a deci­sion to change our per­spec­tive: is your job so painful you can­not stand it? Or is it painful, but the idea of chang­ing jobs is even more painful, so you chose not to? How about going for that pro­mo­tion? My thought on this is to veer away from Pain into more of a Plea­sure con­tin­uum. The idea of start­ing a busi­ness was Painful, scary, fright­ful. The idea of the Plea­sure that we could ben­e­fit from the busi­ness, increased flex­i­bil­ity, cre­at­ing my des­tiny, pos­si­bil­ity of increased wages out­weighed the Pain of start­ing a busi­ness. This is my par­a­digm. Every­one has a dif­fer­ent Pain/Pleasure con­tin­uum. Those who “suf­fered” through a 4 year or 6 year degree under­stand this well. For those who want to read more on the Pain/Pleasure par­a­digm, here is one of my newest read­ers: “Awaken the Giant” Anthony Robbins.