As women, we are conditioned to people-please and not necessarily be decisive.
We often defer to others when making decisions.
It’s not necessarily that we’re submissive, but even when we are decisive, we quite often doubt ourselves.
Even as business owners, having a coach, and having a peer group, and a mastermind, and all these things, can be a crutch.
Indecision is a decision too.
Yes, a coach and a peer group can also push you in ways to help you grow, but if you’re relying externally on people to tell you what you should be doing, that’s the underlying problem here.
If you’re deferring to others in other areas of your life, then you’re likely to bring that to your legal decision making.
Certainly for legal problems, too many people are willing to outsource their conflict resolution and the big decisions about their future.
People often get so stressed out about the uncertainty of it all, that the lawyer takes responsibility instead of you taking responsibility for yourself.
This is not only costly, but it’s not going to serve you well or be in your best interests – because it is your life, after all.
So what am I advocating for?
Taking back some of the decision making for yourself.
Importantly, being able to trust yourself when you’re making decisions.
As part of making decisions, weighing up the pros and cons, and getting other people’s advice is fine – if that’s what you need.
But ultimately, don’t make your decision based on what other people are saying you should or shouldn’t do. If they’re saying something that doesn’t sit right, then it’s not right for you.
A lot of people say ‘trust your gut’.
That doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.
Do you know how your intuition works for you?
There’s a lot of people who have to process and take a little bit of time, remove the emotion from it, let the emotion calm down so that they can make a clearer decision.
There are some people who have more of an intuitive hit than a gut instinct, and listening to that can be really important.
There are others who need to talk to multiple people and just talk it out, and talk it out, and talk it out. And it’s not necessarily about having the feedback, it’s more about when you’re vocalizing it out loud, you’re actually coming to the truth yourself.
Some people similarly have to write things out.
Sometimes I’m very much that way. I’m like, I don’t really know what I want to say until I start writing. And then the writing takes over and it becomes clearer that way.
Some people need to move their body, and actually remove themselves from a situation. Location and environment can be super important to good decision making. So being stuck in an environment all day in mediation, for example, could be really bad for some of those who need to take more time and to change their environment up.
Learn how you should be making decisions
Then learn to trust your decision making.
Trust that we all have a unique way of making decisions that is suitable for us.
You might have to do a little bit deeper learning to understand what the best decision making strategy is for you, what suits you best, and then have some tips around how to go about that, which is something that I am developing.