61: Empowering Yourself with Decisive Choices in Your Life and Business

Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.

Hello, my friends and welcome back to the Time to Level Up Podcast. Today I am bringing back an oldie-but-goodie episode. In today's episode, you're going to hear me talk about the nine questions or nine things to think about when you're making a decision.

What we do in coaching, a lot of what I do is I help my clients make decisions and these are the smallest decisions like, “Should I go away this weekend or should I stay home?” to big decisions, like, “Should I hire an employee? Should I change my offer? Or what should I invest in?”

We make millions of decisions every day. You make a decision about what you're going to eat for breakfast, you make a decision about whether or not you're going to get up out of bed. It's a skill, the skill of making decisions is super duper important, which is why I wanted to bring this episode back.

The timing of bringing it back is perfect because big thinkers, when someone is thinking big, they make decisions. If we're staying in a very small container, we are avoiding decision-making. But big thinkers, one of the things that big thinkers do is that they make decisions. They make them quickly, they make them efficiently, and they don't turn back. They realize that no matter what happens from the decision, it's the right decision.

I want you to sit back, buckle up, and listen in to this replay of an older episode about how to make decisions.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I am glad to have you back. This month inside my coaching program, we are talking all about decisions. I am focusing the podcast this month on decisions, making confident decisions because that, my friends, is the root of all progress.

I want you to think about this. What decision have you made that has not led to you growing somehow even if that growth is in the form of learning what doesn't work or what didn't pan out the way you wanted it to? Making decisions always creates growth.

Now, most of the time, it's a yes decision that creates the growth but a no-decision can create growth too because it allows you to create brain space to potentially do something else. We never hear anyone say, “I wish I had taken more time to make the decision.” Have you ever heard anyone say that recently? “I wish I had taken more time to make the decision.” No, I haven't heard anyone say that either.

In fact, what I've heard are people saying, “I wish I had decided sooner,” or “I should have started that a long time ago. Why did I wait so long?” Because I think there actually is some research out there that says 99% of the time, what you decide is what you thought of in the beginning, whatever your initial gut instinct was as to which way the decision should go, that's the way you end up going.

It is only when you give yourself more time to “think” about it does your brain do what it's supposed to do and that is to keep you safe. Your brain isn't about growth, to be honest. That's why some of this work is very hard and it's actually work. Your brain wants to be comfy, it doesn't want to create growth. Think about this, when was the last time you said, “Oh, I wish I had taken a long time to make that decision”? I'm going to go with never.

You know what? I've seen this in my own business, the people who decide that they are a yes to coaching, what I would consider quickly or in the moment are the ones that see the most growth. The hemmers and hawers, the stragglers, even the stalkers if they've been stalking for a long time, they may schedule a call with me because they're interested but they're not committed because they are actually giving themselves all the opportunity in the world to talk themselves out of it. They are not giving themselves the opportunity to make a decision and start growing.

That was me on my little soapbox, but now we're going to get into the meat of what we're talking about today. Last week, we talked about why you don't make decisions and why you should make decisions. Today we're going to talk about how do we actually decide.

Now, I will tell you that today, my voice is not 100% but I had decided yesterday that I was going to record these podcasts today. There were lots of times this morning when I thought I don't feel like it. I don't know if I'm up to it. I could have backed out but I decided yesterday ahead of time that this is what I was doing today and I'm honoring that decision. I am happy that I am because I get to create this amazing content for you and I get to use my time next week doing something even better for you.

Today, I'm doing the podcast for you. The question that you probably are thinking is, “Yeah, but how do I get out of confusion and make a decision?” I'm going to give you some guidelines. I’m going to give you nine ways in which to make a decision. You ready? Here's the first way. As we're going through this, think about a decision that you've been debating, hemming and hawing. You've been on the fence.

Now, this first one may seem like, “Andrea, I can't believe you're saying it,” but it's true. Number one, how to make a decision, is I want you to consider everything. This is what I mean. A lot of times when we are making a decision, we have self-imposed limitations on it. Sometimes in the coaching world, you hear this as limiting beliefs.

Someone might say, “I can't decide whether or not I should call them right back now, or later.” As if they are considering all of the options. It's either call them back now or later. Or here's another option that they haven't considered: maybe you just don't call them back at all.

In reality, there are many different options for any decision. When you only give yourself two, you're not giving yourself all of the options. I want you to step back a minute and consider this: would you choose to call them back now if there was no history if there was no past? Would you consider calling them back later if there was no history or no past? Would you consider not calling them back at all if there were no history, there is no history or past?

What are all the possibilities? When I first started coaching, I told people I was a possibilities coach. Really, ultimately, that is what I'm doing. I am helping people figure out what the possibilities are. If you were starting brand new, no past history, would you choose whatever it is that is the status quo?

For example, if you had no history, and you were deciding whether or not you should leave a job or not, I want you to re-decide would you, in the first place, have taken the job or not? If you're deciding whether or not you should keep an employee or not, I want you to ask yourself, would you have hired this person again? Would you marry this person again? Would you buy this house again? Would you spend this money again?

We often bring the past into the decision making and that sometimes can create some limiting beliefs like, “No. This will never happen. It never has,” or “I don't know why this would be a good decision this time because it never has been a good decision in the past.” Whatever it is, consider all the options and ask yourself, “Would I choose this as the decision now if I removed the history bias?”

A lot of us just say, “Well, I mean, I've been doing it for so long.” That might not be the reason that you want for choosing something in the future. Remember, when you make a decision, you want to make sure you like the reason for choosing whatever you're choosing, not because of what has happened in the past. You want to like your reason for choosing what you're choosing now, not because of what has happened in the past.

You usually don't even like the past so why do you want to recreate history? Sometimes when people say to me, “Oh, I've decided that I'm just not going to move forward with coaching right now,” I say, “Well, do you like that decision?” They say, “Well, I mean, I just think it's the smartest decision right now.” Of course, you think it's the smartest decision right now because you have never made the decision to move forward with coaching. Your brain doesn't know what the possibilities are. Your brain only knows, and so, therefore, it's smart, it only knows what it's like to exist without coaching.

See how that works? It's so interesting. Our brain is like playing tricks on us. I want you to consider all of the possibilities. Which leads me to number two. Imagine that both of your decisions, a yes or no, would turn out amazing, that you would succeed at both of them. If it's a yes, and you did succeed, and if it's a no and you'd succeed, which one would you choose?

One of the reasons why some of us don't choose one option over the other or don't make the decision is because we've played it out and we've already anticipated failure. We've already anticipated that we won't know how to do something or we won't have the resources to do it. We've succumbed to our own doubt about something.

What I want you to do is when you're making a decision, I want you to try to decide between one thing or the other with the thought that both options will turn out amazing. If I stay married, the marriage turns out amazing because I make it amazing. If I leave, my life is amazing because I make it amazing. Knowing that either way, I could have an amazing life, which one would I choose?

It clears up the decision-making so quickly. If you're trying to think about, “Should I stay in this job?” What if you stayed and it was amazing and what if you left and it was amazing? It makes it really clear. Which one would I choose then?

This brings me to number three. What if failure was no big deal? What if you're just winning or learning? There's no losing. What if you're either winning or learning? What if it didn't matter if you failed at it, or it didn't turn out as you envisioned? What if it didn't matter if you failed at trying something, quitting something, moving on to something, or adding something into your life? Would you do it if failure didn't matter?

Now here's the truth. Failure is really just brought on by the way you think about something. If you're only winning or learning, failure isn't an option. There really is no failure. Nothing is a failure. It's either winning or learning and there's only a thought that can create the feeling of failure.

When you take out of your tray of thoughts the optional thought that this could fail, which one would you do? When you take out the thought that failure ruins everything and that you could fail, then which option would you choose? Pretty interesting.

Number four, I want you to use this as a way to decide, what if you said yes to both things? We turned this decision not into an either-or, but to an and. A lot of times when we're making a decision, we sometimes think if we say yes to one option, we're saying no to the other.

Sometimes we don't really want to say no to the other so we don't make a decision, we just stay in limbo. But what if you could say yes to both things? It might be a timing thing, it might be a resources thing, but what if you could say yes to both options? When I was deciding to start this business, I thought, “Huh, should I leave my job to start my own business?” Then I thought, “Well, what if I could keep my job and start the business at the same time?”

That's what I did. What if you can have both? Would you choose both instead of saying yes to one and no to the other? I always want you to consider that you don't have to make a decision. You can really make a decision to have both things that you're trying to decide between.

I call this the “and rule”, not the “either-or rule”. This “and rule” is also helping you think about all of the possibilities. Which leads me to number five. Now, number five is something you've probably heard me talk about before and it is your future self. I want you to go to that future self to help you make the decision now and in the present.

I sometimes imagine my life 10 years from now. Ten years from now, maybe I'll be a grandma. I'll probably live in a different house. My business could look differently. My husband's at a different stage in his career. What would that future self tell me to do right now when I'm making the big decisions in my life right now?

I always ask my future self, “What should I do and why?” Because if I asked myself, my present self, the answer is going to be, “Just stay right where you are because it's safe here. It's comfortable. You understand what's happening right now.” But my future self always seems to know exactly what to do. That future self always has the best answers. It always has the answers that get me excited.

Who doesn't think about the future and not get excited? 99% of the time when we think about the future, we get excited. There's a reason because we've created what we want in the future. We need to make decisions now to create what we want in the future.

I just coached someone recently, and they couldn't decide whether or not to start to try to have kids. I said to them, “Well, how much longer are you going to be deciding whether or not now's the time to start trying to have kids? There is zero risk in making the decision. The only risk you have is in the decision, in making the decision. There's no risk in the decision. Give yourself till the end of the week, and then decide if you're going to do it or not do it, if you're going to start or not start.”

Now, if that feels scary to you, you're doing it right. It's okay to be afraid. Making decisions is what propels us forward. It's what makes us grow. That's why some people don't even want to make the decision because they don't want to propel forward. They don't want to put themselves in a position of growth.

Again, sounds good. They're interested but they're not committed. Making the decision based on your future self always increases our action, our growth, and our confidence. It saves us time. I talked a little bit about that in the last episode. If you haven't listened to it, you might want to go back and do that, Episode 60.

Here's the number six reason of how to decide, what if the question you were asking yourself is what would love do as if love were a person? This is really hard to explain why it works so well because it's really based on that feeling. Remember, our decisions, which are actions, are based on feelings but the question “What would love do?” works for every single decision I've made.

I always want to do what love would do in every situation. Love sometimes means I say no. Love sometimes means I say yes. Love sometimes means I leave and love sometimes means I stay. Think about that when you're deciding what would love do.

Now this is an easy question when it comes to parenting or relationships. Asking ourselves what love would do is a fabulous way to help you decide how to act or what to do in a relationship or with your kids. But I want you to ask yourself when you're making decisions for yourself, what would love do? Would love tell me to yes, put on my shoes and go workout or would love tell me to stay on the couch?

Would love tell me to invest in people to help me in my business or would love tell me to keep doing everything on my own without help? What would love do? It makes everything so clear.

Number seven. Here's the next question that you can ask yourself to help yourself decide: who do I want to be? Or sometimes I like to say how do you want to show up? Let's just stick with “Who do you want to be?” as number seven.

Now, fear, fearful is not a reason to do something. In fact, most of the things we're doing when we make decisions, we're going to be a little afraid to do. Discomfort is not a good reason to do it. But yet, discomfort is the currency to getting to what you want out of life.

Sometimes I say, “Discomfort is the currency of success.” There's discomfort along the way. If you ask yourself, “Who do I want to be? Do I want to be someone that's uncomfortable?” The answer is no. I don't want to be someone who is uncomfortable. But I do want to use that discomfort as a means of growth.

It's like the currency of success. Ask yourself, “Who do I want to be? Do I want to be the scared person stuck or do I want to be the one that's okay with being uncomfortable for a little while while I grow?”

Which brings me to number eight. How do I want to show up? This is a famous question of mine. How do I want to show up? Do I want to show up having made the decision or not? Do I want to show up having made X decision or Y decision? You get to decide how you want to show up in what you want to be and who you want to be in every situation.

I like to say you've got a Santa sack that you're carrying over your shoulder. You can either carry a huge big Santa sack of doubt, regret, fear, and confusion into the party or you can carry a Santa sack full of confidence, action, new learning, and decisions and choices that align with who you want to be? What do you want in your Santa sack? How do you want to show up? That was number eight.

Then number nine, which is another famous question I ask my clients all the time in helping you decide, you want you to ask yourself, “What's the worst thing that could happen?” Usually, that worst thing that can happen is not worse than it is now.

Now I want you to think about this, maybe I'm going to use money as an example. If you're debating on whether or not you should spend money on something that will help create growth, and I'm not talking about like a new TV, I'm talking about something for you, and you say, “Yeah, but if I do this, I could go into debt,” okay, possibility, but even if you went into debt, you would learn how to get out of it.

That, my friends, is amazing in and of itself. That’s skill. The worst thing that can happen is usually not worse than where you are right now. Because think about this, the worst-case scenario is missing out on the best-case scenario. You're not even in the game if you are stuck where you are now.

the worst-case scenario is never ever worse than it is right now. Because the worst-case scenario doesn't even allow for there to be the possibility of the best-case scenario. That is how I'm going to leave you today.

I’m going to review the nine things or nine questions that I want you to ask yourself when you are trying to decide. Number one: Have I considered everything? Have I considered all the possibilities? All of them? Number two: what if both of these decisions turn out amazing, which one would I choose? Number three: What if failure is no big deal? What if I'm just winning or learning? Number four: What if I say yes to both options and make it an and, not an either-or? What if I say yes to both options?

Number five: What would my future self tell my today self to do? Number six: What would love do? Number seven: Who do I want to be? What do I want to feel? Number eight: How do I want to show up? Number nine: What's the worst thing that could happen?

Okay, my friends, that is today's podcast. If this deciding, if this skill, and it truly is a skill of deciding, is something that you want to get good at and you want to take the learning we had today, and 10x it, I would love to help you do that.

Who is your coach? If you don't have a coach, I would be honored to be your coach. Together, we will both grow. I will help you become an amazing decision-maker and you in turn will help the world. You will have more goodness to put out into the world and that includes all aspects of your life.

Are you ready to level up? If you are ready to level up, I encourage you to head to my website and apply for coaching. Do it now. We have resources inside my coaching program that you can dig into today to start helping you make better decisions.

Here's one decision that I want you to make right now if you haven't already made it, I want you to head over to shethinksbigthebook.com, get yourself on the list so that you can be part of all of the things around the She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary, all the things around the launch of that book.

Because inside that book, we talk a lot about making decisions. I want you to think about this: How much space is taken up in your brain right now by unmade decisions? If we could close that gap, if it could build that space, could be used for something else, what would be possible? What's holding you back from releasing that space through making a decision?

This is something that I want to help you do and I help you inside She Thinks Big, the book, and I also can help you through coaching. If this is a skill that you want to get really good at and not just be a passive learner by reading a book or listening to a podcast, but by being an active learner and taking massive action, then I also encourage you to schedule a call with me. Let's talk about what this might look like for you and what is possible if you become an expert decision-maker.

To do that, head to andreaslinks.com, click book a call, and let's do it. Let's just talk about this. Let's figure out what you need to become that expert decision-maker. Okay, my friends. Until next time, remember now is the time to level up, and decision-making is a huge part of leveling up. You've got this.

Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.