Aah.
Decisions.
Should I do this, or that?
Should I follow my passion, or should I take the “safe” road?
Our lives are made up of decisions.
And it feels like we have to make the right decisions in order to live a happy life.
There’s a tremendous amount of pressure, and constant second-guessing. Am I on the right path? What if I make a mistake?
There’s a much more relaxed way to go about this.
How to Make Great Decisions
There’s no need to rely so heavily on the mind for decisions.
The mind is a reflection machine. Meaning, it can only use what it knows, such as past information, knowledge, conditioning, and the physical senses (seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting).
This means that when you try to figure out if a decision is right or not, your mind will try to predict the future with the information it has. In other words, thoughts are trying to use the past to see into the future.
As you may already know, this doesn’t work.
This means you end up in a doubt loop. You want to know, but you can’t. You’re afraid, so you still want to figure it out, but you can’t.
Getting out of this often means you need to do this until you’re so exhausted that you give up.
That’s when you open to an alternative, which is to listen to your heart, intuition, or inner GPS.
There are three steps to start exploring this.
1. Listening
What does it mean to listen?
I can say that it doesn’t mean trying to figure it out through thinking.
Listening means taking a few deep breaths, slowing down, and noticing the nudges within. These are usually nudges that you’ve been avoiding, because they may not make sense.
There are no guarantees, only nudges.
You will know you’re on the right track, because these nudges have an aroma of peace and stillness to them. They are not the hectic figuring things out of the thinking mind.
When someone asks if I want to do something, I notice how the body responds. Does it feel expansive, or does it contract? Does it open or close?
The answer may not be instantaneous. Sometimes it can take a few days, at least for me.
At first, you may have no idea how your intuition communicates. That’s okay. This may take time. If so, let take time.
Become curious how this works for you.
2. Waiting
You may be impatient. You want things to happen now. You want the answer yesterday.
This is the mind trying to distract from an uncomfortable feeling.
This moment doesn’t feel good, so we go into thoughts to try and figure it out, believing that the answer is found there.
Spoiler alert: It’s not.
Deep down you know this.
This isn’t a regular kind of waiting where you sit around doing nothing. I can wait to gain clarity on buying a house while I’m working on a book.
Remember, how this works for me is not going to be how it works for you.
Experimentation is crucial. Tap into your innate curiosity. Your Inner GPS has always been there, waiting for you to listen.
You’ve just pushed it away, because it was inconvenient.
3. Deciding
Somehow I stumbled onto this way of operating in the world when I was young. This was around 2002-2004. I realized that I could simply follow what was interesting.
After over two decades of this, it has evolved into the sense that life is living me.
I don’t have to figure anything out, because decisions happen when they need to happen.
The more I’ve played with this, through thick and thin, the more I’ve let go of the steering wheel. And you know what I’ve found?
I don’t need to hem and haw. I can relax and enjoy the dance of life.
Meeting Fear
When you begin to operate outside the realm of thoughts, there will be fear.
When this happens, welcome it. Fears are sensations in the body. Nothing to be scared of. Focus on taking tiny steps with this.
Talk to the fear. Ask what it is protecting you from, and if it still needs to do that.
Look at how your old way of doing things has worked out, and if it’s time to start trying something new.
An Example
A practical example of this was when I was working on my book Do What You Love back in 2014.
When you work on a book, you make hundreds of small decisions.
Should you rewrite or remove a sentence?
Should you add an example?
After a while, you don’t know what to do. So you take a break.
After months of work, the books was almost done, but it was in the digital drawer. I was letting it simmer.
After almost two months, I began to wonder: “Will I ever finish this book?”
I didn’t try to force myself to work on it. I wanted to. Instead, I waited for the right moment. And funnily enough, the right moment came a few days later.
I felt drawn to read the first few chapters. The result of that was me rewriting and finishing 30% of the book within a few hours. And within a week, the book was done.
Takeaway
What this comes down to is untangling yourself from thoughts.
That is not an easy task, because it feels like thoughts are vital for your survival, yet all thoughts provide is the illusion of safety and control.
Thoughts can be practical, but the vast majority of them are not.
This is not an easy path, but boy is it worth it. If you’re tired of trying to live life through the mind, this is the moment to experiment.
Remember, start with tiny steps.
Start with what you have, where you are, and do your best.
Nothing else is needed, because nothing else is possible.
Have a splendid day!
Henri
P.S. If you want to dive deeper into making decisions from your heart, check out my book Follow Your Heart. (Amazon affiliate link that supports my work with no added cost to you).
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