The High Esteem Podcast

Are you stuck in indecision?

February 24, 2021 Sarah Erwin: High Esteem Coaching Season 1 Episode 6
The High Esteem Podcast
Are you stuck in indecision?
Show Notes Transcript

Have you ever been stuck on the brink of making a decision?

Perhaps you don’t know where to start. Perhaps you’re scared of what will happen if you do.

Perhaps you’re scared of judgement: from your family, from your friends, from your colleagues.

Perhaps you’re scared of failure, of the unknown, or of what happens if you make the wrong choice?

Here’s the thing, friends: when we sit in indecision, we’re choosing inaction. And when we choose inaction, the problem— the anxiety behind the indecision, the lack of information that keeps us stuck, only continues to grow.

Join me for this fear busting conversation on indecision, and how you can start choosing action to collect more information, push past this stagnation, and start moving forward.

Let's do this thing!

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Unknown Speaker  0:35  
Hey, Hey, everyone, welcome to episode six of the high esteem Podcast. I am coming to you from a bit of a rough week, I have been really tired and I have been dealing with a sick dog. And we all know how it is when our little ones get sick, regardless of if they're a child or for baby and our hearts just ache so much for them. And we want to make it better. My dog actually, as you see in the podcast art, if you have taken a look at that, in some detail, he has only one eye. He was born that way. He's a rescue. And he was also born with a pod deformity or abnormality that for most of his life didn't give him any trouble. He's about eight now. And I've had him since he was a year and a half.

Unknown Speaker  1:24  
He is actually the love of my life. His name is Opie. And yeah, it just started to act up this year. And I was told he might be a high expense dog. And for the most part, I'm just I've been really lucky. I feel very grateful that he wasn't up until this year. But he started to get inflammations in his paw and his abscesses. And I'm not going to go too much into the gory details, because that's not why you're here. But I want to feel like you're getting to know me as you're listening to this podcast and like I'm being real. And

Unknown Speaker  1:57  
that's part of my struggle this week is just being a for a fur-mama and, you know, trying to do business and life and my full time job, while also making sure that my dog is getting the care he means and the little guy is just freaking out at the pain in his paw he got it wrapped. And he just, you know, woke up in the middle of the night when the when the medication were off and was just screaming because he was stressing himself out. And it was just horrible. So that's where I'm at, I might I might be a little frazzled today, I'm not really sure. But it's, yeah, it's that's life, right life comes up and life comes up on our busy weeks. And we just gotta roll with it. But life things aside, I am here because as I'm about to talk to you all about, once again, we still need to move our lives forward. And we still need to, of course, with self compassion, and with that rest and self care, make sure that we're doing the things we need to do to go about our responsibilities and move the needle forward in our lives in ways that will bring us towards the person we want to be towards living a life that is meaningful, a life of purpose and towards feeling our best selves, which of course lines up with my catchphrase holding ourselves in high esteem. So I wanted to talk specifically today about indecision, because this is where we get stuck often, and don't move that needle forward. And we all come at it from a place of fear, for the most part, right? When we have ideas of where we want to go. And we just are in this place where we're stuck, and we're not moving forward, we're not making any choices. You know, maybe we're choosing between two different career options, or two different jobs. Maybe we're choosing between two different food items on the menu, if you're me, like I get sometimes real anxiety about that, because I fear, the idea that I might not like what I'm eating, it might be a big thing, it might be a small thing. But there's those little things in life where we stay where we are. And we stay with what's familiar because we're scared of what's on the other side. And fear can take so many different forms. Some of us are scared of judgment of others, maybe judgment of not seeming that professional. If you're an entrepreneur like me, and you're doing a podcast or some kind of speaking gig, maybe it's fear of the unknown, which is literally the definition of what anxiety is. And that's what keeps us stuck. Maybe it's fear of success, even of losing our identity. And maybe it's just fear of making the wrong choice. And I really do think it comes down to self trust, right? So when we're not trusting ourselves to make a choice, we're not trusting ourselves to make mistakes. And and yes, sometimes we legitimately don't know which one to choose, but there's always part of us that sort of gravitating towards one thing over the other where we feel a little bit more passion towards one another

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Gather, and if there isn't, we still require decisions to be made. Because otherwise everything remains in that state of the unknown, right. So we do need to make choices and choose to move forward and choose to decide. Because not deciding actually is a choice, it is us choosing to stay stuck and to stay still, and to stay unfulfilled and to stay confused and to stay anxious. Because when we don't know things when we have that fear of the unknown and of the future, and we're not trusting ourselves to move forward, and we choose to stay there, we are actively denying ourselves the information we need to find ourselves in the place that will fulfill us. So I've talked before on other episodes about collecting more information, right? When we fail at something, we collect information, when we're fired from a job, that's not a fit for us, we collect information, when we're in a job that we hate, we collect information about where we want to be, who we are, what we like, what our strengths are, what our weaknesses are, what fits and what doesn't, right. And so even making the wrong choice, right, is making a choice to find out if it is the right or the wrong choice. And we might very well find out that it is the right choice. And I think that we find that we find ourselves stuck in this idea that if it doesn't work out, we might not get through is that unknown factor, right. But that's not always true, right. And that's where I really want to drill home. That is the idea of self trust, and how important it is to trust ourselves. Even though we don't know what's going to happen. We can figure it out, guys, we can figure it out. So I want to give you guys a little exercise here, you can journal on it, you can think about it, you can bypass it if you really want to, but I really do think is a good exercise. To help you get out of that indecision and to help you get unstuck. I want you to think of the last time, something didn't go your way, say something went completely wrong, even if it has a vacation, and you had a trip planned or something back in those days when we did that.

Unknown Speaker  7:23  
And things just flew off the handle and you ended up doing something completely different than you did before. Maybe it was initially a disaster, right? But I want you to think back to a time where things did not go as planned, where maybe you chose the wrong thing. Or maybe you made a horrible mistake.

Unknown Speaker  7:42  
And I want you to think of how you got through it. Okay, what did you do to get out of that situation or to get yourself back to a good place. And even if you can identify right away what it was, it's a good exercise to realize that you have done it right. And all those steps that you did take are tools and skills that you have and strengths and things that pulled you out of that bad place. And then the next step is looking back at what came from that. Right? What did you get from the experience that you had, whether that's new information, or a different adventure, or a story to tell later, or if it's finding something out about yourself that you didn't know, before? I know that when I travel, I you know, I've gotten lost traveling before. And I've realized that I am way more self sufficient than I thought I was through those experiences, right, I would stop I would find Wi Fi I would pull out a map or you know, pull up my GPS, I would figure it out, right. And I learned how to not be shy. And I asked people for directions. And I ask people for advice. And there's stuff that we do to get out of these situations that aren't ideal. And that is such a strength, right? And looking back on those experiences can help us develop that self trust that, hey, look, we've done it before we've conquered the unknown. Because we do it all the time. life throws us curveballs all the time, and is going to regardless of if we make that choice. So say you stand still right now, say you stay exactly where you are. It's the illusion of comfort that keeps us trapped guys, because really, we don't know what's going to happen. Saying in his comfort zone, we can still be sent a curveball that rips a rug from beneath our feet that we are not expecting. And we're gonna have to come out of that too. So why not start to actively make choices? Because really, when we're actively making those choices, we're cultivating that self trust, we're building confidence. We're gathering information, and we're putting ourselves first in a way that really feeds back into

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
satisfaction and fulfillment, and a positive self concept, right positive ways of thinking about ourselves. Because I don't know about you. But the more I remain stuck in indecision, the less I make active choices in my life, the more I feel like life is just sort of happening to me, like I have no control. And the more, you know, disappointed, I feel myself and unfulfilled and inadequate, and

Unknown Speaker  10:28  
I lack passion, and I lack I lack joy. And I just generally don't feel very good. And sometimes the act of just choosing for yourself, of making choices, is putting yourself first in a way that makes you feel really good. And you get that sense of reward. And that itself to me, is worth it just being intentional and taking actions that are ones that are intended to move you forward to a better place to a more fulfilled place, to a place where your life is in more alignment, even if it doesn't work out. And so let's talk about what happens when we don't choose as well. So when we don't make a choice, and we're second that, oh, should I do this? Or should I do this, and maybe we're making a million different websites of different businesses, we might start as a certain individual that I know, does who's probably listening to this, and procrastinating in ways that feel productive, because we're not really quite sure if we can take that leap yet. What happens when we're not choosing? Does the anxiety go away? Does doing those hours of work on different things, and not committing actually help us get to a point where we'll feel confident, because I think that's a lie that we often tell ourselves that if we continue to research more, or try different things, or we start to put together a visual on a website of the business, we want to start?

Unknown Speaker  12:00  
If we talk to enough people, if we wait long enough, then we'll feel confident enough to the decision. And we will know. But I want you to look back and when that's happened for you has has time itself actually helps you make those decisions? Or were there choices you had to make? Did you have to wait for that? You know, as I've mentioned in my first episode that fuck that shit moment before you made that choice? Did you have to wait for something to implode for something to go horribly wrong to make that choice? And were you forced to make that choice in some way that ended up being more chaotic. Because in my experience, and in the experience of a lot of my clients, when we don't choose, all we're doing is adding to that anxiety instead of actually helping it. Right. Because when we're fearing the unknown, when we're fearing our lack of comfort, when we step into something new, or when we're fearing making the wrong decision, and how awful that's going to go. We're filling in the gaps with our minds, right? So we don't know what's going to happen. So we come up with a bunch of conclusions about what could go wrong. We come up with disasters and catastrophes that could happen, we tell ourselves that we won't be able to do it, we build that anxiety, right? anxiety is fear of the unknown. And indecision can keep us trapped and anxiety can really exacerbate it. But all we're doing is collecting information from our brains that that isn't grounded in the truth, right? their thoughts, their fears, fears based on vulnerability, fears based on fear of loss of identity or change or failure or being judged.

Unknown Speaker  13:40  
fear of not knowing what we're doing, right? We're just perpetuating that when we're not giving ourselves actual tangible proof. And sure, maybe some of you are okay at talking yourself down from those catastrophes and situations. But chances are if you're someone who's not making choices to move forward, and you're stuck in that liminal space between one decision or the other, or you're just standing still, chances are that's not you. Chances are you're talking yourself out of a decision rather than into it. And I really want to drive home that you are making a choice to not move forward.

Unknown Speaker  14:19  
And I'm sorry if that's a little blunt. And and I'm not saying it without compassion, because I've done it so many times. And it's so easy to do. But we do actively hold ourselves back when we just wait to feel competent, right? And that's that's what that whole episode was about about cultivating confidence.

Unknown Speaker  14:36  
If you haven't listened to that, just go a few episodes back. It's called don't wait for competence cultivated instead. And that's something I'm really, really passionate about. And I just think so many people too many of us exists in the state of sort of numbness because we don't want to decide

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Deciding is pressure deciding gives us room to blame ourselves for making the wrong decision is a very vulnerable place to be in because it's on us, we were making a big choice between one thing or the other between the status quo and something new. And that's a big one, right? It doesn't have to be between two different paths, or two different items, or two different platforms that you could use for your business. It can literally be between your nine to five job or entrepreneurship, it can be between sticking with your job and going with a new on a new career path or looking for a new role. Right, choosing the status quo is making a choice to stay exactly where you are. And often if we have a big choice that is sitting at our fingertips that we're looking at with envy, and pay attention to the envy and the jealousy, because it's telling you something, right? When we're looking at something with an MV like, I would really want to do that one day, I really want to do that. But we're not moving. we're choosing to stay where we are. And, you know, we all do that for a time. But there comes a time where we need to make a choice to choose us to choose our future, to choose forward to choose fulfilment. And that does mean risking making the wrong decision. But listen, we can always come back from wrong decisions, right? You don't lose all the skills that you've built up to this point. For instance, if you change careers, your skills are transferable, you can reward those and you can use those in different avenues in different jobs, you will find another another job. If you've chosen to leave your nine to five and become an entrepreneur and change your mind. You will figure it out. Because you're you're tough, you've gotten this far, you've done it before you figure things out. And it might have been in a completely different area. Right? You might have figured things out when you were traveling around the world, but not in your career, well, hey, that strength is still there, those are still the same skills of being thrown into a frenzy of a situation you don't understand and making your way out of bed. Right? You you've done more than you think you're a lot more resilient than you think. And, and I want you all to think about that. So you can start to tap into that strength and start to trust yourself a little bit more. Because there's nothing worse than just feeling like your life is stagnant. It's almost worse. And in my experiences, it's always been worse than when I actually make make a choice because

Unknown Speaker  17:39  
it just feels it feels dull, and it feels unintentional. And it feels like often Your life is just out of alignment and you're not living a life that's your own, because you're not choosing it right. It's literally just happening to you and everything kind of starts to fall out of line and not feel right.

Unknown Speaker  17:57  
But so much starts to happen when you collect that information. And listen, I've done it and I know a lot of you have to and I just want this to be food for thought a little seed planted, to invite you to consider to choose versus not choose, or to choose to make a decision versus to choose standstill. That's all okay, make a decision to make a decision. And then I want you to start taking those steps towards making that decision. And now if you want to know how if you want to think more about what are the logistics of doing that, or if you want someone to walk you through it, please reach out to me. I am Sarah at high esteem coaching.com and I am taking new one on one clients as well to help people work through that indecision, help people tap into their potential and hold themselves in high esteem moving forward to that life of purpose and fulfillment is literally what I do. If not feel free to keep listening to my episodes here bi weekly. Regardless, and I love to have you here. I love to hear from you anyway. So if you want to just send me an email and ask me a question, feel free to do so. And I am happy to talk to you. But this is something I'm really passionate about. So I want to hear from you all. Let me know if you are stuck in indecision. Let me know what your questions are about how to start taking those steps forward, how to choose a life of choice versus a life of stagnation. Send me your question and I will answer you as soon as I can. I love hearing from my community and I am so inspired by you all because I see so much resilience in my work and I see so much passion and inspiration and so many big leaps and it inspires me it's it's a cycle of breaking that cycle of just, you know, watching people break that cycle of just letting life happen to them and transforming themselves by making the choice to put themselves first There is nothing more inspiring than that. So if you want to be one of those people

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
Reach out, send me an email DM me on Instagram. I'm your underscore high underscore esteem underscore and I will get back to you as quickly as I can. I love you all. Thanks for joining today. Let me know what you thought of this episode. Please remember to leave me a review if you do like,

Unknown Speaker  20:18  
excuse me, if you do like this episode and my work, I really does help me and my podcasts out and it helps me get this message out to more people so that more people can have this information and I can help more people move forward in their lives so much appreciate that. If you do subscribe so you don't miss another episode. And I will see you all in Episode Seven. Again, if there's anything you want to hear about on this podcast, feel free to email me I am open to all kinds of ideas. Thanks, guys. See you next week. All right, everyone. That is it for today. But if you liked this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so that you don't miss future episodes. And then go ahead and leave me a review because of course it really helps me and my podcasts out. For more tips, training and tools to help you hold yourself in high esteem. Follow me over on my Instagram page at your underscore high underscore esteem underscore and then join the your high esteem Facebook group. There's a link in the show notes to join your community to do this work together. To learn more about me and my private coaching. You can also head over to www dot highest Team coaching.com and then browse my programs and free tools there. Thanks so much for tuning in. And I'll see you all in the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai