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July 5,
2006
How Do You Feel About
Making Decisions?
Are you
someone who enjoys making decisions or someone who is
paralyzed by them? Do you see decisions as an opportunity
or a trap? During the series of interviews I recently
conducted with people on the topic of decisions, I asked
people to tell me the first ten words or thoughts that came
to mind when I said the word, decision. Below are a
few examples of the responses I heard. (P.S. Thank you to
everyone who participated!!)
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Dave: action, getting it done, result, think, wonder,
joy, create, occasional challenge, possibility, freedom,
elimination
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Laura: fear, under the gun, can’t, hard, maybe the
wrong, don’t want to make the wrong, stuck, quicksand
-
Judy: sometimes easy, sometimes difficult, fearful,
paralyzing, easy at times, thinking, thinking through,
process, pros and cons, look at everything, weigh
everything
-
David: cutting off, creating, opening up, choices,
direction, focus, path, explosive, success
-
Susan: rational, obtaining all the info necessary,
thinking through consequences, pros and cons,
internet/expert opinions, ask friends, excited,
interesting, new opportunities, scared, exhilarated
-
Dawn: comparison, contrast, cost/benefit, ROI – monetary
or otherwise, chance to learn, end result, how to get
from point A to point B, nervous, anxious, curious,
excited
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Janet: heavy, responsibility, work, life decisions,
finding a balance, spending a lot of time, thinking of
immediate decisions, stressful, anxiety, burden, lot of
work involved, emotional, such a wide-scale
-
Katy: confidence, good, able to, moving forward,
eye-opening, opportunity, things happen, world universe,
difficult, trying, draining, depressing, anxiety
producing
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Roger: crossroads, fork, anxiety, opportunity, change,
friends, excitement, thought, lift, contemplation
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Layne: country, profession, maturity, doubt, intuition,
heart, head, dilemma, success, pressure
Even
without knowing the people above, who do you think is more
comfortable making decisions? Who do you think may even be
better at making decisions? Who do you think sometimes does
okay and other times struggles? Who finds decisions
painful?
How we
feel about making decisions and what we associate to the
process greatly affects us. But what comes first the
chicken or the egg? Does a person feel good about making
decisions because they’ve always made great decisions and
never lived with any “negative” consequences? Or does a
person struggle with decisions because they’ve made
decisions that have generated consequences they’ve terribly
regretted? My experience suggests that the results of the
decisions have little to do with how someone feels. It’s
more the way someone interprets the results.
What I
know for sure is that when my thinking, beliefs, and
feelings fall on the spectrum of positive about
something, things in that area almost always run more
smoothly – whatever the issue. If you have disempowering or
negative associations to making decisions, changing those
associations is a great place to begin in having your life
decisions become easier and to making decisions that will
lead you to the life you truly deserve.
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