We’ve all been there: faced with a decision to make while feeling completely helpless, succumbed to the sheer solidity of not being able to forecast the future. The unwavering cycle of ‘to do, or not to do.’ We subconsciously permit the moment to overwhelm us and in the end paralyze us. What if I told you that you’re actually paralyzing yourself?
The beauty, yet curse, of life is our freedom to make so many choices. So many choices we believe single-handedly impact our future. Society, our friends, family, and even our own selves project so much pressure on us to always make the best decision; however, most of the time that decision isn’t apparent to us, and may not ever be apparent to us. The inherit fear of failing forces us to a standstill, which, to be explicit, is an automatic forfeit. Stop paralyzing yourself.
First, let go of your addiction of needing to be right. You don’t need to feel 100% right to make a decision; the critical component remains that you make a choice at all. Disclaimer: this doesn’t substitute for confidence. You must be confident in your choice in order to set yourself up for success. Manifest your success into existence. By committing to one route, you’ll gain insight onto making better, more informed decisions in the future. If you have an affinity for math, narrow your decision down to your final 2 choices and you have a 50/50 shot of being right. Sure there’s grey area, but the part I can 100% guarantee is that you’ll be closer to achieving your goal after you make your first choice. For my sports lovers out there, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Same goes for sports, same goes for all aspects of life.
Secondly, sometimes you just have to feel your way through life. To be brutally honest, you may never truly know if you made the right decision or not. The “right” decision is subjective exclusively to you and can’t be judged at a later date when you have more information. Everything in hindsight is 20/20. Trust your heart, trust your gut, and make your choice with the information you have available.
When you’re 90 years old, you’ll never regret failing, you’ll never blame yourself for making the wrong choice when you believed you were making the right one in the moment. You’re going to regret not taking chances and making choices. Setting with, “I don’t know” won’t get you anywhere in life. Consider this: the truth may be that you do know, you’re just scared to admit it and take a chance. It’s in our human nature to fear the unknown more than the known. This is why we stay up for hours pondering every possible outcome of a scenario that may never happen. In reality, we may never have those answers. But why let that paralyze us from living our lives in the moment? Live in the moment by accepting things as they are.
So, make this your week to tie up loose ends on decisions you’ve procrastinated on. Take the path less traveled and never look back. You’ll never know how beautiful the places are that trail leads you to until you take your first step.
What’s been the hardest decision you’ve made so far in life? What factors helped you on settling on a choice?
For another article I wrote on believing in yourself and my journey to self-belief, read this: https://wiseandshinezine.com/2019/12/29/this-is-the-place/
My personal blog can be found here: https://poemsandprose.travel.blog/