• Home
  • New? Start Here
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Real Mom Life

  • Purpose and Passion
    • Planners
    • Purpose and passion
    • Reinvention
    • Retirement
    • Starting a business
    • Volunteering
    • Working
    • Trying new things
    • Ageism
    • Giving back
    • Confidence
    • Encore careers
    • Encouragement
    • Gratitude
    • Happiness
    • Inspiration
    • Lifelong Learning
  • Adventure
    • Travel
    • Technology
    • Trying new things
    • Books and movies
    • Embracing change
    • Fun
    • Holidays
    • Pets
  • Relationships
    • Marriage
    • Friendships
    • Parenting
    • Painful parenting
    • Mothering
    • Grandparenting
    • Aging parents
    • Empty nest
    • Cancer caregiving
    • Child adoption
    • Homeschooling
    • Special needs kids
    • Life skills for kids
    • Activities for kids
  • Health and Beauty
    • Alternative health practices
    • Fashion
    • Hair care
    • Health insurance
    • Healthy aging
    • Healthy brain
    • Makeup
    • Medical issues
    • Mental health
    • Sexuality
    • Skin care
    • Sleep
    • Stress
    • Nutrition
    • Physical fitness
    • Self-care
  • Creativity and Spirituality
    • Faith
    • Crafts
    • Hobbies
    • Art journaling
    • Blogging
    • Journaling
    • Jewelry making
    • Writing
  • Home and Finances
    • Cleaning
    • Cooking and food
    • Declutter
    • Decor
    • DIY Home
    • Downsize
    • Gardening
    • Holidays
    • Organizing
    • Saving money
    • Simplify
  • Coffee Love
  • Rants, Raves and Reviews
  • Bucket List
  • Store

What To Do When You Can’t Make Up Your Mind

September 4, 2018 By Christine Field

This post may contain affiliate links.

I have a hard time making decisions. I’m married to someone with the same weakness. It is not a good combination, but I have been working on it because it is so important.

 

making decisions

 

Having a little trouble making a decision? This is a common challenge, especially when dealing with big decisions. You don’t want to make the wrong choice and so you tie yourself up in knots trying to make the best possible decision.

 

It turns out that the most successful people make decisions quicker than the average person.  This is an important idea to remember. It made me wonder if I could be more successful in all my pursuits if I honed this skill.

 

Consider these strategies to make good decisions and create a successful life:

 

  1. Be clear on your values. Decisions are easier to make when you know yourself. What is most important to you? If you value adventure and risk-taking over comfort, certainty, and security, you’ll make different decisions than someone that favors the opposite. Make a list of your values and place them in order.
  2. Be clear on the objective. What do you hope to accomplish with this decision? Are you looking for the most impressive date for the company picnic or a lifelong partner? Are you looking for the most interesting career or the most lucrative? What do you want to achieve with this choice?
  3. Value time. We’re great at convincing ourselves that we have plenty of time, but it’s not true. Time is constantly passing through your life. You have fewer options available to you as you approach any type of deadline. Those that wait too long have no choices at all.
  4. Think about what you would do if no one else cared. Making decisions for the purpose of impressing others rarely works out well in the end. Buy the car you need, not the car that will impress your coworkers. Just ask yourself what decision you would make if no one would have an opinion other than yourself.
  5. Get into a relaxed, positive mental state. Intense emotions and fear lead to poor decisions. The logical centers of your brain are inhibited when you’re under emotional duress. Decisions made during this time tend to alleviate the short-term discomfort you’re feeling rather than looking at the long-term implications.
  6. Go for a walk. Getting out of your normal environment can free your mind from its normal thought patterns. You also get a different perspective of your life and your challenges.
  7. Get advice from someone that knows what they’re talking about. Getting advice from an expert might clear up some of your uncertainty. You might even learn a thing or two. Consider whom you know that has made a similar decision in the past and ask for help.
  8. Let fate do the choosing. I don’t say this flippantly. But try these: Draw cards, pull a choice from a hat, or roll dice. If you truly can’t make up your mind, then there’s a good chance that one option is just as good as the other. Simply choose something and get on with your life. You can’t accomplish anything while you’re stuck.
  9. Grab a mentor. Life is complicated. Therefore, you want somebody who has been through similarly difficult decision-making as you, according to coach Juliette Kristine. People who’ve done it all before can help you avoid big pitfalls and get closer to the success that you want faster. They can also give you helpful tools and strategies that you can use to make big decisions if psychological blocks are getting in the way.

 

The choices we make can have long-reaching consequences, so it’s important to make good choices. However, there isn’t an unlimited amount of time available to make up your mind. And sometimes, the best choice isn’t that much better than a good choice.

 

Understand yourself and your objective. Be sure to give time itself the respect it deserves. Your life is continuously getting shorter, so make a solid choice and move on!

Filed Under: Embracing change Tagged With: decision making, making good decisions

Previous Post: « The Courage of Pink Pants
Next Post: 3 Easy Steps to be Badass in Midlife »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. 1010ParkPlace

    September 4, 2018 at 9:17 pm

    These are great suggestions! When I married my first husband, I was 21, and he was older and very successful. He would drop little tidbits from time to time about a variety of things. One was about decision making. His theory was not making a decision was like making a bad decision. Since most things aren’t life and death issues, make your decision in good time with the information you have, and get on with it. Most decisions are also things you can go back and rethink. Brenda #MLSTL

  2. Sue from Sizzling Towards 60 & Beyond

    September 4, 2018 at 9:22 pm

    Hi Christine and great to have you join us at #MLSTL with some helpful tips for making decisions. I find that if I have a problem or need to decide about something, a run usually helps me clear my mind of the cobwebs and enables me to focus. I also think the old ‘pros and cons’ list is a good way to make a start. I’m not one to really procrastinate unless it is something I really don’t want to do and we all have those decisions in our lives, don’t we? Have a great week and thanks for the advice!

  3. Min@WriteoftheMiddle

    September 4, 2018 at 11:12 pm

    Christine, I saw the title of your post and couldn’t click and read soon enough. I am terrible with decision making lately – even with the most simplest of things. Thank you for the tips! 🙂

  4. Leanne | www.crestingthehill.com.au

    September 5, 2018 at 7:08 am

    I think we have too many choices these days and the more choices, the more difficult it is to make a decision! I try to look at what catches my attention first and not second guess myself. There’s not too many things in life that are life and death so I think it’s fine to go with my gut and hope for the best! #MLSTL 🙂

  5. Denyse Whelan

    September 6, 2018 at 2:15 am

    Good ideas and a great plan to use outdoor space before making decisions. The power of the ‘bigger world’. I know I am pretty good at decision-making but at times can have too many choices. I need to narrow that down I think!

    Denyse #MLSTL

  6. Christie Hawkes

    September 6, 2018 at 6:49 am

    Thanks for the great tips, Christine. I confess I have a hard time making choices–from small to large. Even deciding what to have for lunch! I especially like the idea that if you have two perfectly good options, you can just choose one and get on with your life. There isn’t always one “right” answer. I’m definitely going to give these tips a try. #MLSTL

  7. Donna

    September 6, 2018 at 2:22 pm

    These are very helpful and doable tips, Christine. I especially like #8 and rely on that frequently!

Primary Sidebar

FacebookInstagrammailPinterestYouTubeTwitter

Hi, I’m Christine

Have you been a wholehearted mother, but time, toddlers and teenagers have moved on? If you are wondering what comes next for you, you’ll feel right at home here.

Or, are you a mom for whom family life has been non-Pinworthy and parenting has been downright painful? I hear ya. There are many of us around.

Are you looking for a life full of exploration and adventure after the nest empties, but maybe you have no idea how to go about doing that? Stick around! We’ll explore adventures together to help you gain more clarity for your own path.

After a couple decades of writing books and articles about parenting, homeschooling and adoption, speaking to homeschoolers and other parent groups, and reaching out to the mom in the trenches who was trying to make the best of it - my kids grew up. Some grew up and grew away. I was determined to find a way out of the pain, emptiness and lack of direction.

For many of us, the journey starts with something we moms are not accustomed to. After years of caring for and serving others, sometimes we forget the beauty and wonder of US. We need to spend some time getting to know the parts of ourselves that have lain dormant, and take the time to explore interests and passions that we set aside.

I’d like to invite you to get the “What’s Next for Mom” workbook and jump into this growing tribe of Moms who are emptying the nest and filling the life! Let’s reignite your Mojo after Mothering!
Read More…

Visit my Amazon Influencer Storefront

www.amazon.com/shop/christine.field.7505

Search the Blog

Want to Search For Something?

Disclosure and Privacy Policy

Real Mom Life is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

 

Cookie policy

This website will store some information about your preferences on your own computer inside a tiny file called a cookie.  A cookie is a small piece of data that a website asks your browser to store on your computer or mobile device. The cookie allows the website to remember your actions or preferences over time.

You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer, and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. However, if you do this, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site, and some services and functionalities may not work.

Most browsers support cookies, but you can set your browser to decline them and can delete them whenever you like. You can find instructions here for how you can do that on various browsers.

This website uses cookies to

1) Identify you as a returning user and to count your visits in traffic statistics analysis

2) Remember your custom display preferences (such as whether you prefer comments to display all-collapsed or not)

3) Suggest any recent searches you’ve made on our site

4) Provide other usability features, including tracking whether you’ve already given your consent to cookies

Enabling cookies is not strictly necessary for the website to work but it will provide you with a better browsing experience.

The cookie-related information is not used to identify you personally and is not used for any purpose other than those described here.

There may also be other types of cookies created after you’ve visited this website. This site uses Google Analytics, a popular web analytics service that uses cookies to help to analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of another website, compiling reports on website activity, and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google undertakes not to associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

Third Party Advertising

This site has third-party advertising companies serving ads to you when you visit. These companies may store information about your visits here and to other websites in order to provide you with relevant advertisements about goods and services. For example, if they know what ads you are shown while visiting this site, they can be careful not to show you the same ones repeatedly.

These companies may employ cookies and other identifiers to gather information which measures advertising effectiveness. The information is generally not personally identifiable unless, for example, you provide personally identifiable information to them through an ad or an email message.

They do not associate your interaction with unaffiliated sites with your identity in providing you with interest-based ads.

This site does not provide any personal information to advertisers or to third party sites. Advertisers and other third-parties (including the ad networks, ad-serving companies, and other service providers they may use) may assume that users who interact with or click on a personalized ad or content are part of the group that the ad or content is directed towards (for example, readers in the Pacific Northwest who read certain types of articles). Also, some third-party cookies may provide them with information about you (such as the sites where you have been shown ads or demographic information) from offline and online sources that they may use to provide you more relevant and useful advertising.

To learn more about what options you have about limiting the gathering of information by third-party ad networks, you can consult the website of the Network Advertising Initiative.

You can opt out of participating in interest-based advertising networks, but opting out does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the companies from which you opted out will no longer customize ads based on your interests and web usage patterns using cookie-based technology.

Sharing Information

This site does not sell, rent, or disclose to outside parties the information collected here, except as follows:

(a) Affiliated Service Providers: This site has agreements with various affiliated service providers to facilitate the functioning of the site. For example, the site may share your credit card information with the credit card service provider to process your purchase. All administrative service providers that this site uses are required to have the same level of privacy protection as this site does, and therefore your information will be handled with the same level of care. Additionally, for example, this site may use analytic or marketing services such as Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Taboola, or RevContent, to which collection you hereby unconditionally consent.

(b) Where required by law: This site may share the collected information where required by law, specifically in response to a demand from government authorities where such demand meets the legal requirements.

(c) Statistical Analysis: This site may share Non-Personal Information and aggregated information with third parties, including but not limited to for advertising or marketing purposes. No Personal Information will be shared in this manner.

(d) Transactions: In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition, or in any other situation where Personal Information may be disclosed or transferred as a business asset.

How To Opt Out Of Interest-Based Advertising


Opting Out of Interest-Based Advertising Services: This website is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative(NAI) and adheres to the NAI Codes of Conduct as described on the NAI website. This website also adheres to the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Self-Regulatory Principles. For a description of the DAA Program, please visit the DAA website.

Opting Out of Interest-Based Advertising by Third Parties: To find out more about interest-based advertising on the internet and how to opt out of information collection for this purpose by companies that participate in the Network Advertising Initiative or the Digital Advertising Alliance, visit NAI’s opt-out page or DAA’s Consumer Choice Page.

 

Footer

About Christine

FacebookInstagrammailPinterestYouTubeTwitter

At Real Mom Life, my passion is to provide resources and reassurances for moms facing the surprising challenges of family life. In my writing and speaking, I explore solutions to unexpected issues in adoption, homeschooling, special needs, and more while encouraging moms to extract the maximum joy out of each day. Read More…

Real Mom Life

Real Mom Life

10339 S. Kostner Ave.

                              Oak Lawn, IL 60453

 

Copyright © 2023 Real Mom Life on the Foodie Pro Theme