What If You Make The Wrong Decision EP 47

 Hi. Hi. Welcome back. 

[00:00:07] Shanenn Bryant: I'm your host Shanenn Bryant and today I'm going to talk to you about making decisions and I'm going to share an exercise towards the end that's going to help you to make decisions very quickly because I know that you get in this painful loop of trying to decide, of doubting yourself, of questioning.

[00:00:33] Shanenn Bryant: Are you doing the right thing? Are you thinking the right way? Are you making the right decision? What if you make the wrong one? All that that's going on, all that mind drama, I'm going to help you with it today because decisions create everything in life, what you want and what you don't want.

[00:00:52] Shanenn Bryant: Throughout your life, I'm sure that you've made many decisions. Who to be friends with, when to stop being friends with people, what to eat, what to wear. Do you go to school for a degree, or do you get a job? What kind of work do you want to do?

[00:01:07] Shanenn Bryant: Do you rent, or do you want to buy a house? What kind of car do you want to drive? 

Tons of decisions

 And certainly, decisions like who to go out with, who to love, who to give your heart to. And who to stop giving your energy to. And along the way, I'm sure that you have felt like some of those decisions were good ones and some of them were bad decisions.

[00:01:35] Shanenn Bryant: And everybody does both. Good and bad decisions have completely changed history. They've changed businesses. They've certainly changed people's lives. You know, just take Dr. Martin Luther King's, "I Have a Dream" speech. His decision to go off script and talk about his dream changed history. And now, I" have a dream", are the most famous four words ever spoken.

[00:02:03] Shanenn Bryant: What about Steve Jobs? His decision to transform Apple from a computing company to a consumer products company? Launching the iPod, then the iPhone, eventually the iPad. I mean, who doesn't have something from Apple these days? His decision completely changed Apple's business, but it also changed all of our lives as well.

[00:02:31] Shanenn Bryant: There are also certainly some decisions that are a little less favorable in history, like maybe executive Dick Rowe, when he passed on the Beatles. He thought guitar bands were on their way out and lost over $38 million in just a few years. And certainly, much more than that, I'm sure in the long run.

[00:02:52] Shanenn Bryant: Also, the Mars Company. They turned down Steven Spielberg when he asked if he could use M&M's in a little famous movie, he made maybe you've heard of it, E. T. They told him, no. No, you can't use our M& M's. But Hershey stepped up and said you can use our Reese Pieces. Their sales went up 62%.

[00:03:20] Shanenn Bryant: after the release of ET. I share these stories with you because decisions are definitely an important part of our life. Now, those are famous people's examples, but you have decisions that you make every day and sometimes those decisions probably feel just as big, especially in the moment.

[00:03:40] Shanenn Bryant: So, it's certainly understandable why you would shy away from making decisions or why it's hard for you to make a decision. But the truth is the pain of deciding is greater than the pain of deciding wrong. I'm going to say it again. The pain that you put yourself through, the pain of deciding, is greater than the pain of deciding wrong.

[00:04:09] Shanenn Bryant: And isn't that what you're really afraid of? Making the wrong decision. This is what can keep you stuck. You live in this pain of trying to decide. self-doubt, questioning yourself, weighing your options. Like, oh, I'm thinking through this. I'm not sure what to do.

[00:04:29] Shanenn Bryant: What if I make the wrong choice? And this can go on for days, months, even years and decades. Sometimes we get so caught up in that mind drama of making the decision. out of fear of making the wrong one.

[00:04:48] Shanenn Bryant: We fear this in our careers. Maybe there's a decision of changing jobs and you think, uh, is the money worth changing? What if I don't like this new position? What if I don't like the new people that I'm working with? We really stay stuck in indecision when it comes to our romantic decisions.

[00:05:09] Shanenn Bryant: I'm sure at times you have feared, well, what if they see my true colors? Like, what if I show my true colors and they break up with me? Or they decide they don't like me. Or if I express this, if I tell them my opinion, if I tell them this.

[00:05:26] Shanenn Bryant: They won't want to be with me anymore. If I say what I'm really thinking, they won't like me. And then I'm going to be alone again. Scarcity is a huge part of relationship indecision. You're probably like me, and in the past, maybe stayed way too long in a relationship that wasn't good for you and didn't make you feel loved or appreciated just because you didn't want to go through the breakup, or you didn't want to feel alone again.

[00:05:58] Shanenn Bryant: Feeling like you can't find somebody else. We live in that scarcity, which then creates the fear of sometimes making relationship decisions. I know that you self-doubt, you self question, like, should I be upset about this?

[00:06:15] Shanenn Bryant: Should I set a boundary about this? That whole self-doubt absolutely comes into play. Years ago, when I was much, much younger, I had two people that I was really interested in. One, I was pretty crazy about. you know, we had spent quite a bit of time together, went out several times, and he was this mysterious, intriguing person, traveled the world.

[00:06:42] Shanenn Bryant: He had a great career, but he seemed really reluctant to fully commit. He didn't say it. But then he also never asked for it either. Like he wasn't begging me to make a commitment to him. The other guy was a newer guy, Southern boy. He asked me out several times, maybe two or three times already. 

[00:07:06] Shanenn Bryant: He seemed very interested in me, had a great family, really seemed to like me. And I had so much mind drama around which of these two guys to choose? You know, which way do I go? Who do I choose? What happens if I choose the wrong one? I liked them both, but I was afraid that I was going to make the wrong decision.

[00:07:30] Shanenn Bryant: in this situation, it wasn't scarcity, but it still felt like a really big decision. I knew I was still young, but I was getting older. And I knew, or at least at the time, I told myself and made it so big that like, oh my gosh, I'm getting closer to maybe wanting to settle down. And so, in my head,

[00:07:51] Shanenn Bryant: I was feeling like, oh my gosh, maybe this is the last time I ever choose between someone, like the last time I ever pick a guy. So, I got to get this one right. I can't screw it up. I've got to pick the right. and I just want to say, the hilarious thing is, like, looking back, the funny thing is, at the time, I even made myself small.

[00:08:22] Shanenn Bryant: In my own decision thinking, like I felt like those were my only two options. Just because in the moment, those were the two people that I liked. I created all this drama that they were the only two choices. So, I really wasn't even choosing from all of my choices. I made myself small. I created a ton of drama around the decision, and I made it that I only had those two choices.

[00:08:54] Shanenn Bryant: And I felt like this was a huge decision that I had to make, like, which guy do I go with? And because I was so afraid of making the wrong decision. I made a lot of bad decisions in the situation. I was kind of trying to hop between the two, thinking like, well, if I spend a little bit more time with this one, maybe it'll be really clear on which one I should go with, or this one will do something that will, you know, just make me fall in love with them and, and...

[00:09:28] Shanenn Bryant: feel like it wasn't even a choice or that the other one, you know, may fade away or they may make this grand gesture that then will make my decision for me. It was a wreck. and I just really made a lot of bad decisions when I was staying in that stuck mode of indecision. I was in that fear. 

[00:09:56] Shanenn Bryant: Finally, I did make the decision. Now I will say in the end, The person I chose, I am no longer with. They weren't right for me. But that doesn't mean that the person I didn't choose was the right decision. Even though I'm not with the person I chose at the time, I don't look at it as if I made a wrong decision.

[00:10:20] Shanenn Bryant: It was the decision that I made with the information that I had and the emotions that I felt at the time. And to me, that is always the right decision, even if it's wrong. The thing that I hear the most is Well, what if I'm wrong? What if I'm wrong in feeling this way? What if I'm wrong in trusting this person?

[00:10:49] Shanenn Bryant: What if I'm wrong that I don't trust them, and I really should be trusting them and I ruin it? This self-doubt will keep you stuck in so many different areas of your life.

[00:11:01] Shanenn Bryant: This whole indecision and mind drama around decisions and the fear of making the wrong decision. I want you to think back to when you made a big decision in your life. What was the outcome? You could probably go back and maybe would say, well, yeah, some decisions were a little bit more important than others.

[00:11:23] Shanenn Bryant: And here in this one, I can see that it didn't work out the way that I wanted it to, but for the most part, in the end, most of them probably didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. 

[00:11:38] Shanenn Bryant: We also can never go back and see what it would have been like had we made the other decision. it's just something that I want you to keep in mind when you start to question things of, oh my gosh, what if I make the wrong decision? Guess what? Well, the one good thing is we'll never know how the other decision was, but more importantly, to get out of that space of indecision.

[00:12:05] Shanenn Bryant: Because most of them aren't a big deal. It ends up not being this huge deal. So, let's, let's just say, let's go back to my example, and let's just say that I picked the other guy way back when. Well, that doesn't mean that I'd still be with him today. Those were my two options that I was interested at the time.

[00:12:28] Shanenn Bryant: But in the end, neither one of them were the right person for me. But at the time it felt very heavy. It felt very important. It felt very serious. Like I was making this huge life decision. But to me, that is still not the wrong decision. Whatever I made. The one that I chose, we had a long-term relationship.

[00:12:53] Shanenn Bryant: We experienced a lot of things together and then it ended. But I don't feel like that was the wrong decision because had I chose the other one, I would have had different experiences with them and lived whatever life with them until it was over, or it wasn't. But either way, I got out of indecision, stepping out of that pain of trying to decide and making myself crazy about which way I should go.

[00:13:20] Shanenn Bryant: And I just made the decision. So sometimes we let this weigh so heavy on us, we stay stuck where we are. We're questioning ourselves all the time, constantly doubting ourselves and wondering if we're making the right decision. There is a great exercise that I love that I want to share with you. 

[00:13:40] Shanenn Bryant: when you're feeling stuck, when you're feeling in self-doubt, when you're really questioning yourself. And this works best when you're trying to decide between two things. And a lot of times, most of our decisions, we can get down to, is it this or is it that? Or should I do this, or should I do that?

[00:13:59] Shanenn Bryant: Should I do this, or should I not do it? So, most things we can get down into two choices. So, I'm going to share this with you. You might want to write it down because it's huge. It might be hard for you to remember. Here it is. Ready? Flip a coin. I know. I know you're like, uh, really? 

[00:14:24] Shanenn Bryant: You're going to tell me for these huge decisions to just flip a coin I'm struggling with this huge decision in my life, and I'm just supposed to flip a coin Well, yes, but let me explain Let's take my example of trying to decide between the Southern Boy and the Jet Setter Guy. You would take a coin and assign one option as heads and one option as tails.

[00:14:52] Shanenn Bryant: So, in my case, Southern Boy is heads, Jet Setter Guy is tails. Now, flip the coin and as it's in the air, blurt out your choice. Heads or tails? Blurt it out. And then never actually... Look at the quarter. It doesn't matter what it landed on. The reason just flipping a coin works is because most of the time, you already are leaning one way or the other.

[00:15:25] Shanenn Bryant: You already have a really good idea of what feels good to you. You already have an idea of what you're going to do. And you've probably experienced this with other people. Like

[00:15:40] Shanenn Bryant: when you've talked to your girlfriends or your guy friends, and they call you and they ask for your advice, and you give it to them. And then they end up doing the complete opposite or something completely different. Or they give you this scenario, they ask your opinion, but then as soon as you start giving your advice or your choice to them, they start defending the other opinion or the other choice.

[00:16:05] Shanenn Bryant: It's because usually we already know what we want to do. We already have a feeling of what we should do or what we're leaning towards. So, tell me if this scenario hits home for you. You're upset about something that your partner did or something that happened.

[00:16:24] Shanenn Bryant: And let's say you're trying to figure out if you want to bring it up to your partner. Like, uh, I don't know, it's bugging me, I don't know if I should say anything or not. We start to get in that relationship scarcity, like if I bring it up, if I give my opinion, if whatever it is, maybe they'll leave, maybe I'll feel abandoned, maybe they'll break up and I'm going to be back looking for somebody to go out with, looking for somebody to date, I'm going to be all alone again.

[00:16:53] Shanenn Bryant: So, then you do what I call the survey tour, where you start calling all your friends. And you tell them the situation and then you ask for their opinion. Like, oh, well, what do you think I should do? Do you think I should bring it up to them or not? You maybe run it past a coworker or two the next day.

[00:17:14] Shanenn Bryant: You call your mom on the way to work, and you ask her opinion. Should I bring it up? And then all of a sudden, you feel more confused than ever. You just went on this self-induced emotional roller coaster because one minute you felt justified because the one friend felt the same way that you did or agreed with kind of the way that you were leaning.

[00:17:38] Shanenn Bryant: Yes, you should bring it up. I feel like you should talk about it. And then you are talking to the other friend and now you're feeling embarrassed because that friend said, no, I don't think you have a leg to stand on. You absolutely shouldn't say anything about it. And then your other friend will, she's going to love him if you love him and she's going to hate him if you hate him.

[00:17:59] Shanenn Bryant: she's just going to go with whatever you think. All of that energy, all of that suffering and indecision, all of that time on your survey tour, you've lost it.

[00:18:12] Shanenn Bryant: where you could be enjoying life. Because guess what? You already know what you're going to do. You already know it. You already have a very good idea. You're leaning one way or the other. You had your mind made up before you ever picked up the phone to call the first person. Way before you started the survey tour, you already knew.

[00:18:35] Shanenn Bryant: Save yourself all the pain, all the time of asking 15 different people, mulling it over, having sleepless nights, an upset stomach. When you are ready, most likely know what you're going to do anyway or what you. Release the idea that the only good decision is the right decision. a good decision is one that you make where you take all the information that you have at the time, you consider your circumstances, you make the decision, and then you commit to that decision.

[00:19:15] Shanenn Bryant: And that commitment piece, I want to talk about that too, because this is a big part of it. You have not made an actual decision if you don't move forward and commit to that decision. So, it's not just to say, oh, I've made this decision, but then don't take any steps towards enforcing that decision or validating the decision or moving in that direction.

[00:19:39] Shanenn Bryant: I have made that mistake many times. You know, um, I'm sure you can relate going back to X's maybe. So, it's like I quote unquote made the decision to break up, but then my actions didn't follow that. I broke up with somebody, but then I was still kind of seeing them from time to time, or okay, I've decided to buy this one thing over the other, but I haven't actually paid the money for the one that I decided.

[00:20:08] Shanenn Bryant: Make the decision and commit to that decision with your actions. Not following through and not taking steps on your decision that you made still leaves you in indecision. That is not a decision made. Start to trust in yourself And 

[00:20:28] Shanenn Bryant: get rid of that the only good decision is the right decision.

[00:20:33] Shanenn Bryant: Trust in yourself. The right decision is the one that you made. And it sounds silly, but just release that thought. release the thought that you always have to make the right decision. I mean, who's to say what the right decision is. No one can ever go back in time and say, oh, yep, you should have picked that other guy, because here's everything that would have happened.

[00:20:58] Shanenn Bryant: We don't know that. Had I picked the other one, it might have blown up like a dumpster fire in ten minutes. We don't know that. so being afraid of making the wrong decisions, it's just fear. It's the fear that is getting in your way. It's the fear of making the wrong decision. So, release the idea of making the wrong decision.

[00:21:19] Shanenn Bryant: It's okay. Just make the decision with the information that you have, the one that you feel pulled towards, and you'll be okay. And here's the beautiful part. Whatever the outcome is, you’re strong enough to handle it. It's going to be okay. Start building your skill of self-trust by making some of these decisions and then just moving forward.

[00:21:50] Shanenn Bryant: And it isn't that you need to make decisions haphazardly. No. You're going to have a good formula. The right decision is the one that you take in the information, you take in your circumstances, you consider your feelings in the moment with what you have. That's all you can do. Make the decision. No reason to look back.

[00:22:11] Shanenn Bryant: That's the one that you made. And also, 

[00:22:15] Shanenn Bryant: If you are struggling with jealousy in your relationship, if you've been in indecision to book your free discovery call or sign up for one on one or group coaching, today is the day for that as well. One of my favorite quotes is one day or day one.

[00:22:34] Shanenn Bryant: You decide. make the decision to commit. Let's move forward and stop living in fear of making the wrong decision. 

[00:22:47] Shanenn Bryant: Until next time, take care and remember, you're not alone.