I think the advice “follow your heart” is possibly the worst advice I’ve ever received. My heart usually acts impulsively and without consequence, and although that’s a nice concept, it’s unfortunately not how the real world works. Leaving all decisions to just my brain, though, is also a mistake waiting to happen. If my brain was always in charge, rational thinking would completely take over, and I would never take any risks.
So where, then, is the happy medium?
Maybe this is why I’m so bad at making decisions. From what I want to eat for lunch (a lot harder decision than one might think) to what I want to do with the rest of my life, decisions are not my forte. I’m always afraid to fail. But I’m also afraid to miss an opportunity. Do you see my struggle?
For those of you that also face this struggle, here’s a couple of tips that I can give you that seem to help me in my times of indecisiveness:
1. Pros vs cons- Honestly, for big decisions, I have to draft a pros and cons list. Not just in my head, but on paper. And include everything, no matter how small or dumb something might seem. To physically see the positives and negatives of a decision helps immensely.
2. Look around you- There have been so many times that I’ve looked back at something in hindsight and thought “wow, I’ve totally done that before, why didn’t I realize it?!”, and it’s ground shattering. Look at your daily patterns or things you did or loved in the past. If you liked something before, I’ll bet you still like it now.
3. Do it for yourself- Do not, and I repeat DO NOT, ask people for help with your decisions. You’ll eventually have 20 other opinions on a topic only you really know about, and you’ll feel more inclined to make your decision based off of someone else’s perspective instead of your own. It’s you, not the people you ask for advice, that will forever live with the consequences of your decisions. They don’t really care what you end up choosing.
Hopefully this helps with your decision making a little more. It took me a while to decide if I even wanted to write a post on it. Nobody should be surprised, though.
Bri Car 