How to trust yourself to make good decisions
Being able to make good decisions is one of the keys to growing a successful business.
But decision fatigue is real; the more decisions you have to make each day, your ability to make decisions becomes worse.
We’re faced with thousands of them every day, from the mundane (What to cook for dinner?) to the business-changing (Can I trust this person?). And, for many of us, we are still reeling from the lockdown years of making decisions about stuff we never had to think about before (Which way do I walk through this supermarket? Do I have to wear a mask? Is it OK to hug this person?).
I always prided myself on being able to make quick decisions. Even at the start of my career, I realised I could process information fast and see where the real problem was.
But as I got older, my brain got faster, and my expectations of myself climbed as I took on more. My decisions became more knee-jerk and reactive as I jumped from one task to the next.
I couldn’t keep up with what life and business were throwing at me, so when I hit my 40s, exasperated by peri-menopausal symptoms of brain fog and exhaustion, I found that I didn’t trust myself to make good decisions any more. And this had a direct impact on my business.
Procrastination not only slows down growth … it’s exhausting!
To get better at making good decisions, we need to learn how to trust ourselves, our judgement and our instincts.
The first step in trusting yourself is knowing that you don’t have to be good at everything all the time.
We have incredibly high expectations of ourselves, largely because of our society’s expectations (think of the messages you get bombarded with – ‘you can have it all; be a perfect mother AND run a successful business’), but also because of experiences we had growing up both at home and school.
But let’s be real: nobody is perfect. Nobody ever will be.
No matter how much we try to make ourselves into some sort of superhuman machine, everyone drops a ball or makes a mistake from time to time. And that’s okay! It doesn’t mean we’re horrible people or should feel ashamed about ourselves; it just means that being human means not always being perfect.
So giving yourself a break and being kinder to yourself, particularly on the days you feel more tired than usual or you’re juggling family needs, is critical to allowing yourself the time to step back and give yourself some breathing space.
Trusting your gut is something you have to work at.
The older we get and the more responsibilities we take on, the busier our heads get and the longer our to-do lists grow. When your head starts controlling your life, it’s easy to override any intuition or instincts you may have. And when you get so busy that you forget to give yourself the space to hear the advice from inside of you, that connection can get cut off.
It’s the same as working out and keeping fit; if you stop, your body loses the muscle definition you gained, and your fitness levels decrease.
The next time you are faced with a decision, instead of panicking or saying, “I don’t know”, – take a moment, close your eyes and listen closely inside yourself first. If you don’t know how to do this (and yes, ten years ago, I was so ‘in my head’ that I didn’t know how to hear what my instinct told me!), take note of my next point.
Spend more time in your body.
Many of us will exercise for fitness and health, measuring success by steps or sweat. But because so much business is often solved in our heads, these exercises can feed the brain, giving you more things to take action on and complete.
Spending time moving your body consciously can help you connect with the neural pathways around your body. Movement such as dance – jigging around the kitchen rather than following a structured class – and slower walking focused on your posture – noticing how your feet connect with the ground with each step – can be simple ways of sensing your body and spending time ‘out of your head’.
Recognise that fear is different from intuition
… and sometimes, it can be good to take the moment to ask the fear what it may be trying to tell you. Is there anything that you can put in place to make your next steps less risky for you? Perhaps you need more time to put your decision into action … maybe you need to hire some help?
If you choose to ignore your fears, you may find that you procrastinate and pull yourself back from taking action. So, use your fear to shine a light on anything that you may avoid simply because it feels uncomfortable, as this can help make sure you don’t avoid taking action on your decisions.
Be prepared for change, even if it means sacrificing some things you really care about.
Trusting yourself means putting your faith in your ability to make good choices and decisions. It means taking risks without being afraid of the consequences.
If you want to take your business up a level, then there is every chance you are going to have to stop doing some of the things you are doing right now – and yes, that includes certain clients, programmes and team members you may care about – and do something different.
This may mean that you stop offering a particular service, programme or product; it may mean you have to change your pricing structure; it may mean you have to fire one of your team members.
You can not grow a business without change.
Get comfortable with that concept because trusting yourself means knowing when to let go and when to hold on.
You must trust yourself even when the outcome seems uncertain, and you may not know all the answers.
One podcast I listened to a lot was The Diary of a CEO. I was particularly taken by one – Moment 54: How you should make every big decision with guest Rochelle Humes.
They reference his conversation with Barack Obama and his 51% decision-making rule. Steven says, “If we are always looking for 100% of the facts, data, and certainty to get our decisions over the line, it leads to huge procrastination and time-wasting. Getting to that 51% is a much more efficient system, reassuring us that it will be the right decision to make.”
Knowing that we can make another decision or even reverse it if needed can open us up to bigger thinking and bolder decision-making… and that the cost of procrastinating and trying to be more than 51% in favour of or against that decision is potentially huge.
I like this idea of having your logic brain be only 51% convinced … it opens up to trusting our intuition more.