I’ve made some pretty crazy ass decisions in my life. Haven’t you?
C’mon.
Luckily at this point, I don’t believe in wrong decisions (more on that coming soon andhow you can stop worrying about making them), but I have ushered in some pretty sticky, complex, painful messes of my life, love, work…er, all of it.
Aaaaand I’m pretty sure some of those spirals into mini-hellscapes were unnecessary. I learned from ’em, SURE, but some of them were repeats of sh*t I’d already learned (or thought I’d learned) and was double-dipping. My dad says I used to dip chips into guac, lick off the good stuff, and put it right back in for more — I guess it’s an old pattern.*
Since I realized I didn’t want to keep treading the same stretch of my path over and over, I learned a thing or two about how to make decisions from my deepest held values.
No more double-dipping (except with guac, duh. You’ve been warned if we ever dip together.)
So if you’re trying to make some big decisions and are done running the same old patterns of confusion, frustration, disappointment, exhaustion, dissatisfaction, and all those fun feelings, here’s what I’ve learned. (Plus a free gift of support at the bottom!)
- Mindset (really really really) matters. If you want to make big changes in your life you can’t just change your behavior or your circumstance. That’s a recipe for short-term change only. You need to change your mind(set). Your beliefs are the actual source of your behaviors.In our culture, we’re totally taught that we just need to DO more/less/something different than what we’re doing and we can *poof* have long-term change. This overrides our connection to vision and commitment and obsesses over discipline.If you think you can just change your behavior, you’ll always find your way back to square one. You cannot behave your way out a belief. (It’s why most diets fail, tbh.)
- Changing your mind takes time…and that’s ok…it’s time to learn how to slow down! We all need to learn to slow down so we can hear/know/trust/love ourselves and make better and more stabilizing decisions. True clarity comes from slowing down and giving yourself room to become more awesome over time.You’ve heard me share about this for the past several weeks/months and I ain’t stoppin’ now. You can still get my free guided meditation called Slow The Eff Down right here. (I’ve got more for you below, too.)
- Your emotions hold the guidance your soul needs. If you’ve been asking for signs, they’re already there, in your emotions, you just have to learn to read them. Most of us have been programmed not to listen to or trust ourselves. We shove our emotions down when we don’t like them and as a result, often erode our own self-trust. We think we’re saving ourselves pain from scary feelings but we’re really just compounding them and confusing our inner compass even more. Your emotions are your soul’s GPS, and you can totally become a high-level navigator.
- Your relationship to yourself is the most important part of your next big step. You think your next big step is about the job/location/relationship/etc, but it’s all about your relationship to you! With any big decision (external) there’s a desired emotional experience (internal)…if you think you’re gonna get that internal shift with just an external shift, you got another thing comin’! You gotta start making that internal shift now.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll keep unpacking these lessons and give you more opportunities to dig in.
>> Including this sweet little audio training/exercise right here on how to boost your inner awareness and gently begin to release your grip on patterns that aren’t serving your highest and best.
>> And join me live on instagram Friday at 11am PT for my weekly MAGIC HOUR and I’ll guide you in unpacking and transforming what you uncover with the guidance above.
Ultimately, as you learn these lessons, you learn the steps to experience an expanded capacity to face big life decisions with the courage, confidence, and clarity you so want and deserve.
* This makes me either a genius or wholly uncouth. I prefer both. I contain multitudes.