015: The Gift of Decision

My entire life I have struggled with making decisions. I know I am not alone in this struggle. With the endless options we have, it can be hard to decide what we want because we fear disappointment and regret.
Whether it's the big decisions such as wondering if you should change careers, go back to school or take up a new craft or even sometimes small decisions such as what food you’ll order at a restaurant - you deserve the gift of decision. In this episode, I am exploring how decision making has come up in my life and how my indecisiveness has hindered me. I also chat about why you should just make choices and choose to love the choices you make.
I know that being decisive can be a real gift to ourselves and those around us so I want to encourage you today to make decisions, trust your gut and move past overthinking.
What you’ll find in this episode:
A mindful creative moment about cooking dinner
My lifelong struggle of decision making
The realization that my indecisiveness was stressing me out
Why you should just make a choice and choose to love it
My advice on why you need to just go for it
Read the transcript of the episode below:
Do you ever have a hard time making decisions? If so, you are definitely not alone. And we are going to talk about it today. This is episode 15, The Gift of Decision.
Welcome to the Committed to Create Podcast. I'm Lisa Funk and I am so excited to hang out with you here as we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds. I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives. I am so glad that you're here.
Welcome to episode 15. I am so glad that you're here. And before we get started with today's topic about decision-making, I wanted to do a little segment called mindful creativity moment.
So I have talked before about how to create mindful creativity moments in your life. And one of the steps is being aware and being present in that moment. So I just wanted to share a little bit about something that has been really fun for me lately. And it's kind of weird, but it is cooking dinner.
 So a few years ago, you guys know, I struggle on and off with my mental health, and I was probably pregnant with my last baby and I just was not cooking much. And my husband actually really enjoys cooking. And so he started making dinner regularly and making the meal plan and ordering the groceries. He just really took that on. And I was so thrilled and happy about it. He had always cooked here and there, but he just totally took it on and was really good at it.
And I just let him keep doing that. And for the past few years he has been the one primarily making dinner. I started to tell myself that I maybe didn't even like cooking anymore. And I don't know, when you do a lot of something, it's easy to get burnt out on it. Am I right? 
Well, after not cooking for so long, I started to get kind of interested in cooking again. I used to really love it. I loved trying new recipes and just the process of it when you're not super rushed and trying to cater to a bunch of people's needs when you're just enjoying the actual process of it. I personally find it to be enjoyable a lot of the time. I know this is not the case for everyone.
 So anyway, a few weeks ago, I was in a little bit of a funk. I'm not going to lie. You guys know that I kinda took a break and have been easing back into everything. And I just wanted one thing to do that would be creative and something that I could accomplish during the week.
And I decided to start cooking again. And I was doing it for fun. I was doing it because I wanted to, and I wasn't trying to find the quickest meal and the cheapest meal and the easiest meal. I was trying to find meals that sounded delicious and that I really wanted to try. And I enjoyed the process of finding the recipes and making the list.
And I was not in a rush and with my kids home, and we're not really running around very much. I could start dinner a little bit earlier and involve them if I wanted to or not. But I found that I just was really mindful when I was preparing the food. I wasn't thinking about a million other things, but I had to be conscious about that. I had to choose, like right now, I'm going to focus on being present and on my five senses, I'm going to feel the onion and I'm going to just focus on chopping. And when you really allow yourself to be present in that moment, I think it can be relaxing. 
And some of you may or may not agree, but I do believe that we have everyday activities that can be a mindful practice for us.
If we allow ourselves to focus on what we're actually doing, to feel with our hands, to smell, to hear, to look to taste, I just found that it was a really great mindful creativity moment. I was doing something to create with my hands and I was really present in that moment. And it was a really great experience.
Now, like I have talked about many times, you can do creativity a different way. You can do it really stressed and worried about time and thinking about a million other things while you're doing it and worried that it's not going to be perfect. 
But there is this other way to do it where you're very present in doing it. And you allow it to be relaxing. You allow it to be mindful. I cooked up some really delicious things. I'm just going to say, not everything, but some of the meals that I've made have been super good. And I have gotten a lot of them from my friend, Shannon, over at plum street collective. She doesn't know that I'm telling you this, but the halal street food meal, oh my gosh. It's one of the best things I've ever made. And her pizza dough recipe. Delicious. 
So anyway, those are some ideas among many other things, but that has been a fun way for me to be creative in something other than lettering, which is kind of my normal go-to. And it's something that I haven't done regularly for a long time and that I definitely haven't allowed myself to enjoy and to be present in it. When I have cooked, of course, I've cooked over the past few years. I haven't been like the main dinner maker, but when I have cooked over the past few years, it's normally something really quick and easy and not normally something that I'm super excited to eat.
So this has been just fun to do something different and get excited about it, plan it out and really enjoy it. So I know this segment was a little bit longer than my normal ones, but I just want to encourage you that even if you normally make dinner every night, maybe just allow yourself to really be present in the motions of cutting and stirring and pouring and feeling the ingredients in your hands and smelling them.
I know it sounds really cheesy. But what if making dinner could have some mindful moments in it? Now I know you might be thinking, but my kids are screaming and we're in a rush and all these things. I totally understand. What if one minute of making dinner was a mindful creativity moment for you? Just one minute of it, allow yourself to breathe in, to smell, to taste, to touch, to look and you might just be surprised. I'd love to hear about it if you try it. Okay. That is all for our segment today. And now we will get back to the topic.
All right. So we are going to get to the topic at hand, which is decision-making. The title of this episode is The Gift of Decision. And I want you to know that if you feel like you're sort of an indecisive person or it's hard to make decisions, you struggle to make decisions, I completely relate to you like a hundred percent.
Most of my life, I struggled with making decisions. And I'm talking about the tiniest decisions to the biggest decisions. It didn't matter if we were going out to eat, oh boy, me trying to decide what I was going to get was a real challenge. And then even after I chose, I still worried about, did I choose the right thing? Am I going to be happy with it? 
So imagine me going to cheesecake factory with they're like 25 million pages of their menu, I'm trying to decide. Sometimes I would even look at the menu ahead of time to try to make a decision on what I was going to eat at restaurants before we got there, because I just had a hard time choosing. And even once I chose, this is kind of embarrassing, but maybe it's not, I mean, this actually still sort of happens, but I would choose. And then I would worry that maybe I made the wrong choice. And then even when I was eating my food, I would wonder if I should have maybe gotten what my husband got instead.
And my mom kind of coined this term entree envy, because you always kind of end up maybe wanting what the other person got. And my husband kind of got used to me, maybe wanting to try his, and then he would like offer it, like, if you'd rather have mine, we can switch because he knew that I just had a hard time making a choice, and not just making the choice, but enjoying the choice and living with the choice. 
So the other thing that I think of that's kind of silly, but also not silly is that I would spend so much time buying things. And I don't mean buying things. I mean, researching what to buy. I was an expert review reader, and I'm talking about from big purchases to tiny purchases.
I wasted hours of my life, reading reviews, trying to make sure that I was buying the very best you name it. Maybe pair of socks, maybe cheese grater, whatever it is. Okay. It wasn't actually a cheese grater, but little things that I wasn't necessarily spending a lot of money on that weren't necessarily going to make or break my life. I just couldn't decide. And I would spend so much time choosing what I was going to buy. 
Now, when I think about this research and the indecision that I had, but trying to make the right decision, my intentions were good. I had good intentions. I believed that I was doing all of this to make my life better because I would get the very best product, which of course would improve my life so much if I got the right toothbrush or whatever it might be. Okay. You guys I'm giving terrible examples. I wasn't necessarily reading reviews about toothbrushes, but anything that I might've been ordering online, I was really kind of addicted to this process. Not making a decision easily. And I wanted to make the right choice.
I heaven forbid I make the wrong choice and buy the wrong pair of socks. I never thought that this was really a negative thing. In fact, I was kind of proud of being a review reader and a good researcher and someone who made a great purchase. Until, that is, I realized that it actually was stressing me out and stressing out the people around me.
They wanted me to be happy. Okay. I'm mostly talking about maybe my husband when we would go out to dinner or if we were trying to make a purchase for our home or any other decision that I was making about what I wanted to do with my life or for my kids, we have so many decisions every single day. And if you're a mom, it's not just for you, it's for your household.
A lot of times when your kids are little and when they get bigger, like what they're involved in or where you're going to buy their clothes or what you're going to feed them. All of these decisions, we have that can really paralyze us. 
And this was a big enough problem for me that several years ago, my new year's resolution was to be more decisive because when someone would ask me, well, where would you like to go? Or what would you like to do? I would go into weighing all the options, thinking of everything, worrying about all the things that could go wrong, what was the best possible choice? And this was true for big things and little things. I would spend sometimes a long time trying to make these decisions, talking to people or researching or weighing it out in my mind.
That's so much time for my life and so much stress too. And the truth is that, especially with smaller decisions, There's often no wrong choice. There are just different choices. Your brain wants you to believe that making the wrong choice is going to somehow lead to sudden death. Like if I don't get the very best vacuum or the very best couch or a fridge or whatever it is, or if I don't choose to go to the right university or program or store or buy the best kit or whatever it is, we believe that something terrible is gonna happen.  
It's really funny when we think about the stress that we have, especially when we're choosing about what we're going to buy or where we're going to go. Especially if it's something that's supposed to be fun and we kind of suck the fun out of it when we become so indecisive.
And we're just trying so hard to choose the right thing. It's just so ironic. And I didn't realize for so long that I was actually doing that. I thought I was trying to help. I thought I was trying to make it more fun, but research shows that people who make decisions easily are so much happier. So how ironic is it to spend so much time stressing about making a decision?
Because you're trying to avoid discomfort that you might feel later on, but really you're causing yourself so much discomfort making the decision and discomfort after you've made the decision. 
How many times do you make a decision, and then second, guess it, and wonder if you should have done something different and then find all the negative things about your decision, trying to prove that maybe you didn't choose right?
Now, knowing that you aren't going to be any happier, research really does show this, that you are not going to be any happier if you overthink, over research, and stay in indecision. Knowing that that is actually a fact, even though for those of us who have a hard time making decisions, we want to think that it's because we're just trying to do the right thing.
And we're just trying to make the right choice, knowing that we actually would be happier if we made a decision. Is it easier to just make a decision? And not second guess it, and just let it go. 
Oftentimes in the past I would ask my husband for his opinion. Now we all know how this can go, but my husband knew that I had a really hard time making decisions. And so I would say, for example, what should I wear the blue dress or the green dress? And he would just choose one, he'd say the blue. Really fast. He didn't take any time thinking about it. He wasn't like, Hmm. He would just say one. And I was like, you don't even really care. You're just saying what you know.
And he's like, yeah, because whenever I choose one, you ended up choosing the other one or it just helps you to make a choice. And it's true when he would give me his opinion, my real desire somehow came through a little bit stronger. But he would just pick anything. If I gave him options, he would just choose something.
And I thought, how is it so easy for him? But he just didn't make it mean anything. He didn't make it a huge deal. 
Now, the reason why we feel happy or sad with our decisions is because of the way we're thinking about them. We don't feel happy with our decisions because they're better or right, or because everything necessarily works out, it's because of the way we're thinking about it. So that means that our thoughts are super powerful in becoming better decision-makers. 
So for me, I decided I actually am not going to spend hours and hours researching anymore. I'm going to look at a couple options, decide on one and buy it. I cannot tell you how liberating that has been. We can decide to just love our choice.
We can just make a choice and decide to love it. In the past, I would make a decision. And then these were the thoughts that came immediately after: oh no, I wonder if I'm going to like it. What if the negative reviewers on Amazon are right? What if it is going to be terrible? Those thoughts would lead me to more worry and more concern.
I would continue to suffer. Even after I made the decision and after I did the thing, maybe it was choosing to go to one location over another. Maybe it was something for my house. Maybe it was something I was going to do. And not only did I struggle and suffer making the decision, but then after the decision, I spent a lot of time second guessing the decision. Did I do the right thing? Would the other one have been better? Maybe I should switch. Maybe I should do something different. And the discomfort lasted forever. The number one thing is just knowing that taking longer to make decisions doesn't actually make you happy. It really doesn't.
So knowing that we're just going to commit to making decisions faster. And second is to pay attention to the thoughts that you're having when you're making decisions and choose them intentionally. 
So, whereas in the past, my thoughts were those things I mentioned, like, I wonder if I'm going to like it? What if it's not right? I decided to choose things like: I'm going to love this. This is going to be great. This is the perfect choice for our family. You get to decide, you get to decide whatever you want to think. 
You can have the same exact experience of buying, say, a certain vacuum. I know I'm talking a lot of examples about buying things, but just stick with me.
It could be any decision in your life. So say you buy the vacuum, you can think thoughts like, oh, I wonder if I should have gotten the other one. I don't know if I'm going to like it, or you can choose thoughts like, it's going to be great. I can't wait. This is a great choice for me. It totally changes everything instead of continuing to stew and worry.
And I'm not saying you would spend forever stewing and worrying about a vacuum. Although if we are true soul sisters, you might actually spend a lot of time worrying about which vacuum to buy. 
But once you decide to change your thoughts about the decisions that you're making, I'm going to tell you a little secret: you're going to get your life back, like so much time, so much time and energy and worrying about what to choose. You're just going to make decisions and go with them. And you're going to get so much time and energy back in your life. I have really noticed that really successful people do not spend a lot of time in decision-making.
They don't spend a lot of time worrying about making the quote unquote right decision. I have done this time and time again, worrying about what the right decision is, but the truth is that most of the time we MAKE it the right decision. We make a decision and then we MAKE it right by doing the work and figuring it out and moving forward and putting in the effort.
A lot of times when we say that we want to make the right decision, what we're really saying is that we want to pick the choice that's going to work out. But so much of the time we have to make it work. We do the work to make it work. We don't have to wonder what's going to work or what's the right choice, we can just choose something and make it work. 
And in the worst case scenario, if we feel like it's not quote unquote working, even after putting in a lot of effort and thought, we can pivot or we can try something else. And we will have learned so much in the process. 
Because think about what the alternative is. The alternative is making no decision, allowing ourselves to flounder in indecision and doing nothing to go in the direction that we want to go. 
And now when I'm talking about this, I'm talking a little bit more about making decisions for your life. Remember the motivational triad that I talked about in the first few episodes, it's what our brains have been trained to do over centuries. The brain wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy, which served us really well when humans were living in caves, but we don't need to worry about those things anymore. Your brain is going to try to keep you from doing too much hard work and experiencing any pain or putting forth more energy than it needs to.
So your brain is actually just fine to avoid making decisions, but that is going to keep you from trying new things and doing the things you want to do in your life. And it will likely add more stress and worry to your life as well as you struggle to make decisions. 
So let's apply this to creative pursuits. Let's just say, for example, that you have thought about trying lettering, learning lettering, but you can't quite decide how you should start or if you should start or if it'll be worth your time and your energy and your money, maybe you've seen our workbook bundle for beginners and you can't decide whether or not to get it.
And your brain wants to spin about, should I spend the money and do I have the time? And is there another way to learn. Okay. First of all, we can notice that our brain is trying to complicate things. Okay. Side note. This is why we created our bundles on our website because it is so difficult to choose the right pens and the right paper and everything to go along with it when you're lettering.
So it includes the workbook. It includes the tracing paper and the correct pens and videos. So that you have everything that you need to get started, and we do all this so that you don't have multiple decisions to make, because we know that your brain does not want to burn calories, making whole bunch of decisions.
We just wanted to make it a no brainer. Right? You can learn from an experienced teacher, have fun and learn lettering. Now this is just a hypothetical choice that you might be making. But if you really are trying to decide if you want to do that, you should, and I will link to our beginner bundle in the show notes, but I want to give you another example for my life.
And that is this podcast. I spent way too long in indecision wanting to do everything right. I had thought about this podcast for years. And even once I decided that I was definitely going to start a podcast, I didn't make the decisions to start it because I let certain obstacles, or what I thought were obstacles, keep me from making the decision to start for at least a year. I held off deciding to start because I wanted to do it, quote unquote RIGHT. And then after some time I realized that it wasn't all going to line up exactly how I thought and that I needed to just decide to start and guess what? I made it happen.
When you decide to just jump in and do something, you will figure it out. You can get started and refine it later, but just start! It is the best way to get it quote unquote right. Thinking about it and mulling it over in your head again and again, isn't going to make it right. Isn't going to make it better and improve it. Most of the time we have to just decide to start and then get it going and improve it. 
So, whether it's choosing what to eat on the menu or to start a new hobby or grow a business, or make a big decision in your life, maybe you're trying to decide where to go on vacation or what to get for your kids for Christmas, whatever it might be.
Give yourself the gift of decision. It really is such a gift. I know it feels hard. I know it feels like it's not going to be a gift, but I promise you knowing that people who decide faster are happier and knowing that it's our thoughts that are making us feel great or horrible about our decisions means that we can decide to make decisions faster and then choose the thoughts that we're going to have about making those decisions.
You can choose the thoughts. I bet this is going to be like, say you're choosing something at the restaurant. You say this is going to be delicious. And guess what? If it's not amazing, it's just one meal and agonizing over what to get isn't going to serve you. 
Now, of course, there are some decisions in your life that are big decisions that you're not going to make in one minute, choosing to have another child or choosing whether or not to go back to school or what job you're going to take.
I'm not saying that there aren't decisions that you should definitely weigh and think about and pray about if that's what works for you. But that in general, making decisions easily and quickly will improve your life. I have changed so much in my decision-making from small decisions to bigger decisions. I have just decided that I'm going to make my decision more quickly and more easily, and that whatever I choose will be great. 
I have a few phrases that I want to offer you that I want to give you as a gift that you can use whenever you come to a decision to make, and you don't want to spend hours of your life agonizing or stressing or whatever.
So I'm going to give you a few phrases. One is: I'm a great decision maker. And if you can't quite believe that you might say something like, I actually don't have a hard time making decisions anymore, or I'm getting better at making decisions every day. 
Another thought that I think is helpful is to say: whatever I choose will be great.
And that is something you can offer to other people when they bring their decisions to you. This is so common for other people to consult each other, right? They come to you and say, I just don't know what to choose. And most of the time it really is true that whatever you choose will be great. And just believe that. Believe that you will make a great choice. And remember, most of the time there are no bad choices. 
And another thought that I want to offer is: I will make it the right decision no matter what, because the truth is that it's what we think about it that makes it right or wrong. If we believe this is the right decision, and I'm going to make it the right decision by either putting in the effort that it's going to take by thinking positive thoughts about it, by learning from my mistakes if it doesn't work out the way that I think it's going to, and just generally making decisions, allowing myself to have that gift, because do you ever feel that relief, like when you've spent a long time looking into what car to buy, or what to do with your life, or whatever it might be. Once you've made the decision, you don't have to research the cars anymore. You don't have to look into which program to do, and it's such a relief. It is a true gift. 
And I want you to give yourself the gift of decision. Know that it's all gonna work out either way and that you don't have to spend all of that time and stress and energy on it anymore. 
All right. My friends, I know I get kind of excited on these episodes. Have you noticed? 
If you have a hard time making decisions, like I said, I have been there and I still sometimes find myself wanting to slip into that spinning, trying to decide, and I have to remind myself: whatever I choose is going to be great. I'm going to choose and then move on. And it does take a little bit of time to get used to being decisive, but it has been a huge gift to my life.
So I want you to make the choice and decide that it will be great. 
I would love to know what you thought about this episode. If you have been indecisive in the past, if this is helpful at all, and you can do that by leaving us a review. I love reading the reviews and sharing them from time to time here on the podcast.
I'm going to share one today. Today's review is from Kay Frederick. She says: oh my, I have been bingeing this podcast lately, and every episode has been wonderful. I have a toddler who struggles to do art projects. He has no patience and taking Lisa's advice for letting him lead the project instead of being the helicopter, mom has been a huge success. I've also started to bring out my lettering while my little one is coloring or working on letters. And I love that we can really do that together. I'm loving the encouragement to bring creativity in my life in a much less stressed out way of needing the perfect time to create. Lisa's views and tips and tricks have really refreshed my joy in being creative. Thank you, Lisa. I can't wait for the next blue couch session. 
Thank you so much for that review. I read every single one. I cherish them. They mean so much to me. If you haven't left one yet, please go do that. And if you are Kay Frederick, send us an email at hello@handlettereddesign.com and we will get you a free lettering course.
And if you have been interested in trying out lettering, but you've been a little indecisive, now is the time to try it, decide to just try it. You might love it. We are going to link to the beginner bundle in the show. It will include everything that you need to get started. You don't have to make any more decisions, but just to get that, I promise.
It's great. I love your reviews. I love when you share on social media and tag at hand lettered design, if you're not already following me over there, I love to hear from you. And I hope that you enjoy lettering, whatever creative thing you're doing this week, allow it to be imperfect. Allow yourself just a few minutes, a day to be creative, to be mindful.
And I hope you enjoy it. And I will talk to you next week.
Links:
Beginner Lettering Bundle
The website I’ve been loving for recipes
Halal Street Food
Amazing Pizza Dough
Ready for a fun activity to feel less stress? Come get our FREE Guide - 5 Creative Steps to Less Stress & More Joy while it's still available!
I hope that my podcast has left you feeling inspired and excited to create the life that you want. If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe so you can continue to hear more. Want to get to know me better? Connect with me on my website or on Instagram to keep up with everything that is going on with me and my business.
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015: The Gift of Decision

Podcast

046: Removing the Pressure

045: Creative Constraint
