Why Telling Yourself "No" Can Make All Of The Difference

For most of us, our childhood and adolescent years were built on trying to get people to tell us “yes”. As children we heard “no” a lot. While it wasn’t our favorite answer, it wasn’t a bad thing.  A healthy childhood is built on hearing “no” from teachers, coaches, and parents.

“No, you can’t eat paste.”

“No, you can’t bring that stray cat into the house.”

“No, if you don’t come to practice you won’t play in the game.”

When faced with “no”, we tried harder, argued more forcefully, and became more sneaky. We were desperate to turn the “no’s” we were hearing to “yeses”.

Then all of a sudden, high school ended. You headed to college or off to a job, and there were fewer people there to tell us “no” than there were before. Your job tells you, “no, if you aren’t on time or don’t perform on your job, you might be fired”. But, there is no longer anyone there telling you that you can’t stay up until 2 a.m. We can do pretty much whatever we want to do, and many of us do. We soon learn though, that the results of over indulging on our new found freedom can have some pretty tough consequences.  When life stops telling you “no” all of the time, your success depends on learning to tell yourself “no” at the right time.

More than any other skill, the ability to tell yourself “no” sets the stage for success as an adult. Adulthood reminds us that just because we can, doesn’t mean that we should. Is your inability to tell yourself “no” making your life difficult? Here are three tips that may help:

Insert a pause

There’s a time and place for making quick decisions. That time isn’t every time, and that place isn’t everywhere. Few people like telling themselves “no”, so if you act based on what you feel in the moment, you are likely to give into things that you know aren’t great for you. If, however, you can find a few minutes or hours to slow down and think things through, you are much more likely to come to an answer that best reflects your core values.

Don’t forget “future you”

It’s easy to restrict our thoughts to the here and now, to think only of what we feel now, think now, and want now. But “future you” (that’s you in 5 to 10 years) matters too. Something that doesn’t seem like a big deal now could really cause problems for future you. Take some time to imagine what you would like life to be like in 5 to 10 years. What sort of skills would you like to have developed by then? What sort of relationships would you like to have? What sort of activities will you want to be involved with? Then ask yourself if your present decisions are taking you to your preferred future.

Enlist some help

Life without the input and encouragement of others is hard. When you have people around you who value the things you value, you have an amazing resource. You can learn from their successes and their struggles. You can ask them when you aren’t sure about decisions you have to make. You are more likely to tell yourself “no” at the right time, when you are surrounded by people who will support your decision.

Telling ourselves “no” isn’t easy, but it’s an important skill for all growing adults to have. Like every other life skill that is desirable, this one gets better with practice. So, begin to tell yourself “no”. It might not be easy at first, but it will be well worth it. You and “future you” will be glad you did. 

How Stopping Can Set You Free

My to-do list this week is insane. The list seems endless, there are arrows to other items, things marked out, and things underlined. I couldn’t survive without a list to help make sense of my day. In some ways my list is healthy. It allows me to stay focused and to prioritize my activities during the day. In other ways, my list is unhealthy. It feeds a compulsion that I have been battling for a while. It’s just so easy to add one more thing to the list, to pretend that I have an infinite amount of time and unlimited resources. There’s a quote from Jim Collins incredible book, Good To Great that helps me return to sanity when I’ve let my to-do list get too long.

                “Your stop-doing list is more important that your to-do list.”

Collins advocates taking time on a consistent basis to evaluate what you are doing, and to remove things from your to-do list by creating a stop-doing list. Here are three ways that a stop-doing list can help you this week:

1)It allows you to spend more time doing the things that matter most.

 

It’s so easy to spend gobs of time doing small things, which then cause us to not have enough time to do the things that matter the most. Just because an activity is good doesn’t mean it’s good for you. We all have things that are important to us. Spending time on those things and with those people gives you greater fulfillment and helps differentiate you from everybody else. 

2)It allows you to practice your “no”.

I am convinced that the word “no” is critical to healthy work and relationships. It’s not always easy to say “no”. There are so many good opportunities and so many people that we don’t want to let down. But if you never say “no” you will never find your unique fit at work or in your relationships. You'll spend all of your time doing things that matter to everyone else. Practicing our “no” helps us be ready to fend off the pressure and turn things down when we need to. Building your stop-doing list is a great way to find the freedom that “no” offers.

3)It reminds you that life isn’t all about productivity. 

If you try to do everything, you rarely get to fully enjoy anything. An overly long to-do list is an indication that you have come to believe that productivity is life. Productivity is important, and we should all take seriously the things we hope to accomplish, but life is more than productivity. You were not placed on this planet just to get things done. You were made to love and be loved. You were made to enjoy moments of rest. Not only are you to help others, you are to allow others to help you. Finding something you can take off your schedule is a good way to break your productivity obsession. 

Take some time this week and find something to stop doing. Step off of that committee. Don’t coach this year. Don’t squeeze in another client. It’s only when we are able to stop doing things that we are free to enjoy the things we choose to do, the causes we choose to fight for, and the people we choose to love. 

How Much Is Enough: Why We Burn Out

I ran long-distance races for my track team in high school. I wasn’t very good, but evidently neither were a lot of people in my conference. So, I could be counted on to finish third or fourth at most meets and get a few points for our team. I remember clearly the nightmare of each lap of my 2-mile race. After two laps I would ask myself, “Why didn’t I run the 800m?” After four laps I would ask, “Seriously, why could I not have run the mile race?”  One thing I did like about track and field was the clarity. There was no question about how far you needed to run. The finish line was clearly marked. The laps were loudly counted as teammates cheered you on. You knew exactly how far was far enough. You might not be able to get there as quickly as you liked, but you knew when you had done enough.

Knowing when we have done enough can be a challenge for many of us. I stumbled across this line from Barbara Brown Taylor’s great book, Leaving Church that I can relate to, and maybe you can as well:

     “No matter how many day planners I bought, none of them told me when I had done enough.”1

Our relationships can always benefit from more time and energy. Work always has more tasks for us to complete. We can always come in a little bit earlier and stay a little bit later. The chores around the house are never ending. We can read more, learn more, achieve more. There is always more. When we always pursue more, we inevitably believe that we have not done enough. That sort of compulsion, though often applauded in our society is destructive. To avoid the burnout of endless striving, we have to make some choices:

Choose Who

There will always be an abundance of people who want your time and energy. If you don’t make choices about who you want to get your best time and most focused energy, then life will decide for you. Are the most important people in your life getting your leftovers? Is it possible that the people who need you most, see you the least?

Choose What

There are an infinite number of things to do every day. You will only get a few of them done, no matter how productive you are or how hard you work. You have limits. If you can’t do it all (and you can’t), then you need to choose what gets done and what remains undone. It’s easy to do what is most urgent each day rather than focusing on what is more important.  Remember, urgent doesn’t always equal important.  

Choose When

You are a very different person at 9am than you are at 2pm. You are different later that night after dinner. When you do your important work and when you engage your important relationships matters a great deal. You want the best of you to engage the things that are most vital. It’s possible to waste your most clear and energetic hours each day doing things like returning email or scrolling through Facebook. Email and Facebook aren’t bad, they are just not likely your most important priorities today. 

Choosing with clarity what "enough" means for you is the key to avoiding burnout and stress. No one knows what matters to you more than you, so take some time today and make some choices about how your are spending your time and energy. When you have done "enough", take some time to be thankful for the opportunities and choices you have! 

1- Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church (New York, NY: HarperCollins 2006)

A Time Budget: How Managing Your Most Important Resource Can Change Your Life

Making ends meet is never an easy task and for that reason most people have a budget they use to track their spending. Most of us have learned that having a system to make the best use of our money is incredibly helpful. It allows us to meet our most pressing financial needs, plan for the future, and enjoy the present a bit more. As important as it is to handle your money well, it’s even more crucial to manage your time well. People have run out of money and bounced back tons of times. Once you run out of time, however, there is no bouncing back. Here are three thoughts to help you begin to budget your most important resource more effectively:

Don’t Cheat Your Sleep

You only have 24 hours with which to work each day. The way you use those hours will determine how effective you are today, this week, and 20 years down the road. Most people need between 6 – 8 hours of sleep each night. For the majority of us getting less than 6 or more than 8 on a consistent basis will have negative consequences. It’s easy to accumulate more and more demands on our time each day, and the first place we tend to try to steal hours from is our sleep. Not only does sleep recharge your body, it refocuses your mind. The hours you steal from sleep may help you get ahead today, but they will cost you tomorrow.

Some Hours Are Better Than Others

Let’s face it, you are not equally productive all throughout your day. In the same way that there are limits to the number of hours you have in a day, there are also limits on the number of quality hours you have each day.  We have dips in energy and lags in concentration all throughout our day, it’s one  limitation that we all have in common. Instead of ignoring that limitation and pretending that it doesn’t affect you, plan with it in mind. Take time over the next few days and see when you are the most clear and most focused. Are you better in the morning? Is the evening your most productive time? Are there times when you get tired and are not as sharp? Next, slot your most important tasks into the hours when you are most focused and most motivated. Don’t schedule your tasks according to urgency, but according to importance. You will see an immediate improvement in your productivity.

Think Big Picture

When you choose where you spend those 16-18 hours you have left in your day, begin with the end of your story in mind. When you are 70 what will you have wanted to achieve? How close will you want to be with your family? How important will your physical health be to you? The way you divide your time now will determine how satisfied with life you are then. How many hours will you invest in your family? How much time will you spend at work? What sort of chunk of time will your hobbies gobble up? You need to make all of these decisions in light of what you value the most. So, take some time, sit down and be honest with yourself. Will the way you are using your hours this week make you most satisfied in 5 years, 10, 30?

Time is the one resource you can never recover, so set up your time budget now. Begin to make decisions today that will lead to your greatest satisfaction now and in the future.

How To Turn Your Fear of Change Into Something Amazing

Few things scare us more than change. New expectations with my job at the office, a new teacher at school, new diseases springing up close to home, all of these things cause us stress. Our normal reaction to the fear we experience in the face of change is to try to stop the change. Our hope is that if we can control the changes around us, we will feel more at ease. This usually costs us a great deal of energy and stress, and ultimately doesn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work is that change is constant. No matter what we do, we are changing and the world is changing around us. If you are counting on halting change to stop your fear, then your fear will never go away.

We have two options when it comes to dealing with change:

Passively Endure It

Passively enduring change means that we feel that we are a prisoner to change. We wait for things to happen and then do our best to react. People who simply attempt to endure change often feel overwhelmed and can become very aggravated. When we try to deal with the changes around us as they come, we inevitably end up looking at change as an enemy to be battled against.

Deliberately Embrace It

The other option is to make our peace with the fact that life is constantly changing and to embrace it. When we choose to embrace the changes around us, we no longer see change as an enemy, but as an opportunity. Change is my chance to grow. Change offers me the ability to see life and myself in new ways.

A Final Word About Change

Mercifully there is one port in the storm of our constantly changing world. The authors of the Bible described God as the one thing in the universe that is unchanging. His love for you doesn’t waver. His thoughts of you won't ever change, and He will never leave you alone to face all of the difficult things that life can throw at you. 

Photo courtesy of Makena Madden

Why Can't I Get This Right?!: How To Break Free From Your Past

I think I have found the least likely verse in the entire Bible to be put on a t-shirt:

                “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.”

                                                -Proverbs 26:11

Go ahead and cross-stitch that on a pillow for the living room. I guarantee it will be a conversation starter!

It’s true though isn’t it? It’s so easy to repeat the unhealthy things we do and it always leads to the same predictable disappointment. We’ve all had those moments when we stop and realize that we are struggling with the same bad decisions, addictions, or fears that we were struggling with 10 years ago, and the thought makes us shudder. So how do we break the cycle and escape the bad decisions that are impacting our lives each day? Here’s a few things to consider:

Be Honest With Yourself

It’s much easier to keep life on cruise control and keep motoring along, than it is to stop and have an honest look at ourselves. Your ability to be honest with yourself hinges on your ability to trust that God’s love for you is bigger than your bad decisions. God doesn’t stop loving you when you sin. God hates the sin that is wrecking your life, but He loves you completely and unconditionally.

Be Honest With Someone Else

Getting your struggle out in the open is a big step on the path to dealing with it. It’s easy to ignore our mess when life gets better or busy, especially if no one knows about it but us. Admitting my struggles to someone else helps me see how real they are.  Don’t tell just anyone! Choose someone who loves you and who won’t judge you. Share what you are wrestling with, but don’t make excuses or explain it away. Be honest and be clear and if possible, ask for help.

Form a New Habit

Old habits don’t just go away. If a new habit isn’t formed in it’s place, old habits are nearly impossible to escape. As you think and talk through what you are struggling with, examine when it happens the most, and what triggers may bring it to the surface.  Choose a routine, activity, or thought process that you can engage in when those moments hit. Be patient, it takes 63 days for a habit to be deeply entrenched. You won’t be perfect, but you must be relentless. It will be worth all of the work!

We all fail, but failure doesn’t have to define us. As you work on your new habits, talk to God often. You are not in this alone, and He isn’t waiting for you to get your life straight to have a relationship with you. He wants the relationship He has with you to be what gives you strength as you grow.  

Photo Courtesy of Death To The Stock Photo

Wounds Don't Just Heal Themselves!

I grew up with two incredibly resilient parents. Both grew up deep in the mountains of western North Carolina. Both came from large families (13 siblings for my mom, 9 for my dad). Both grew up in poverty. Both suffered great loss, and both endured and created a good life for themselves. I don’t ever remember either of them talking to me directly about how to deal with hardships, but it was understood. “If life kicks you, kick back and keep moving. Don’t let what you feel affect what you do. No excuses, no feeling sorry for yourself. You may get knocked down, just don’t stay down.” Those thoughts have served me well, and while I am in no way as strong as they were, I am grateful that they raised me the way they did.

There are times, however, when gritting your teeth and pushing forward no longer works. There are some wounds in life that must be attended to, not just endured. Much like a bad cut that gets infected without proper attention, there are wounds to our soul which will never heal properly unless we intentionally address them. In the words of John Eldredge, “An unfelt wound is an unhealed wound.”

So if you have been through a hard time that you just can’t seem to shake, here are some things to consider:

Are You Hurt Or Are You Injured?

One of my favorite coaches in high school was fond of saying, “are you hurt or are you injured?” There’s a big difference in those two. If you are hurt or simply feeling pain, the best thing to do is to keep moving, and to push through. If you are injured, however, it would be foolish to try to continue playing, because it would only make the injury worse.  Here’s some question to give serious thought to: Has your broken relationship, betrayal, abusive past, etc… begun to affect the way you see yourself? Does it impact the way you make decisions in life? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you are likely injured and not just hurt.

Wounded Does Not Mean Weak.

It’s not weak to get a broken leg set in a cast, it’s smart. If you have been wounded by life, it’s not weak to stop and get some help. This is more than just having your feelings hurt or not getting your way. A wound that is not attended to can affect your quality of life for years.

Wounds Heal

There is hope. You do not have to carry around that pain for the rest of your life. Talk to a trusted friend or pastor. If needed, talk to a counselor. You invest time and money into your house and food and clothes, why not invest in the health and well-being of your soul?

If you have been wounded by life or by other people, you are not weak and you are not alone.  I hope you will find the courage to get help, and that you will enjoy the freedom that comes as your deepest wounds heal!

Quote from John Eldredge's book Wild at Heart

Photo courtesy of Death To The Stock Photo

2 Ways To Battle Your Fear of Intimacy

The one thing that most limits your relationships may be something you’ve completely overlooked. You may fear that you are not funny enough, or attractive enough, or intelligent enough. You may doubt your abilities to carry on conversations. But these things pale in comparison to the number one killer of relationships: fear of intimacy.

Fear of intimacy drives us to avoid connecting deeply with other people. We are afraid of the thought of people knowing us too deeply, perhaps because we fear people won’t like us if they know us that well. This fear can affect our romantic relationships, our family relationships, and even relationships at work and with friends. If you find yourself backing away from people that you know you should be able to trust, here are a couple of things to think about….

Intimacy isn’t bad, but people sometimes can be.

It may be that you’ve been hurt before (most of us have), and you may have come to believe that the reason you were hurt is that you allowed yourself to open up to someone else. It’s possible that you were simply trying to continue to grow in the relationship, but when you opened up, someone used what you shared against you.  Relationships won’t grow without trust and intimacy. Intimacy is not bad in and of itself. People on the other hand, can act in very bad ways, and many times they can use your attempts to relate, to hurt or betray you.  It may be that your problem isn’t intimacy, but the people you’ve chosen to try to relate with. Although opening up again to someone in the future may be scary, it’s a necessary step if you want to have a healthy and satisfying life. Don’t let bad past experiences distort your present choices!

Intimacy isn’t bad, but too much of it too soon can be.

Intimacy, like a brick wall, must be built one brick at a time. Trust grows over time, and so does closeness in relationships. Opening up too much and moving too quickly can put you in a dangerous place. It will either overwhelm the person you are trying to relate to, or it will de-value what you are sharing (sometimes both). Remember, even small things can build a relationship. Every talk doesn’t need to be an earth-shattering, heart-exploding, share-everything sort of talk. Take your time and share the small stuff. You need to be patient as you open up, and the person you are relating to needs to prove themselves worthy of your trust.

So, if you find yourself lonely, hurt, or both, don’t just shut down and try to live off surface-level, empty relationships. It won’t be satisfying!  Intimacy is good even though it’s risky. So, take your time and allow people to earn your trust. The fears you’ve accumulated over the years will lessen, and you’ll find quality relationships emerging in your world. 

How To Keep Your Memories From Making Your Miserable

Happy Memorial Day!

For most of us Memorial Day means two wonderful words: MONDAY OFF! For others it’s a day to gather folks around and fire up the grill. For still others it’s your chance to torture your family by watching every war movie in the history of film. (I enjoy all three actually). At it’s core, Memorial Day is the day set aside to stop and remember those who have given their lives in service to this country. Many people take this time to remember all of their loved ones who have died. Remembering is an essential component of healing, but there are ways to remember well, and ways of remembering that will do damage to us and impede the healing process. Here are some things to think about when you delve into your memories:

Don’t use your remembering to beat yourself up.

We have all said things or left things unsaid that we regret. We have all made bad decisions in the past. We have all let someone down. It’s possible to go back to those moments from our past and feel shame, humiliation, and guilt as strongly as if the event were happening today. The simple truth is: punishing yourself today won’t change yesterday. It’s important to remember in context, which means that of course you messed up, but so did the people you love. We all do. Odds are that you have forgiven those your love for their mistakes and bad decisions, maybe it’s time to forgive you as well. You must always remember with grace.

Don’t get stuck in your remembering.

Sometimes the pain of the past can be so deep that it’s hard to escape it. We think, re-think, and then think again about what happened last year and even last week. It's possible to live in such a way that our mistakes or the pain of our past is never far away from us. That way of living steals the joy and peace that are available to us today. The purpose of remembering is to allow us to live better today. Living in the past steals our today, and weakens our tomorrows. So, go back and remember, but then give energy to the people and choices around you today.  

I hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day, and if today is filled with memories for you, I hope that you will allow them to help you live and love more fully today!

How Your Anger Can Change The World

We’ve all been there.

You are driving along minding your own business when a car, that has decided to wait until you are 20 yards away, pulls out into the road in front of you. The next thing you know, you are driving 15 mph behind a car for 7 miles with no place to pass him. If you are a praying person, you probably prayed something like this:

Dearest Lord, thank you for allowing me not to wreck into the driver in front of me. I feel sure that he didn’t see me when he pulled out, and I am grateful for the way this is teaching me the important virtue of patience. Please reward that driver with lottery winnings, the love of beautiful women, and the admiration and respect of like-minded men. Thanks again for this slow drive to start my morning.  Amen.

Yeah right! You’re prayer was probably more like this:

Ok, God, seriously! Did you see that? Of all mornings, why did you have to let this happen today?! What did I ever do to you?! (on second thought, please don’t answer that).  Please plague this man and his home with locusts, hail, and swarms of angry frogs. Make all of his shoes uncomfortable and all of his shirts untuckable. Create an awful smell in his car, that annoys him, but that he is never able to find and clean. Also, please erase my boss’ memory, since it is your fault that I am late anyway. Amen.

We have all had our anger get the best of us, causing us to do and say things that we later wish we hadn’t. We kick ourselves and make promises about controlling our anger better in the future.

But what if our anger isn’t the problem?

Anger is simply an emotion, and God created and gave us our emotions. They are an important part of a healthy life. Emotions add color and depth to life, and many times they are important indicators of what is going on around us and inside of us. Anger isn’t something to be avoided. You can’t just “not be angry”. It won’t work. Eventually your anger is going to come out. It may be explosive and loud, or sneaky and passive-aggressive, but your anger will eventually make it's way to the surface.

So, the challenge in dealing with our anger isn’t to find a way to avoid it, but to find places to wisely invest it. Your problem isn’t that you are angry, but that you are angry at the wrong things. If you choose to go to battle over the fact that someone got your order wrong in the drive-thru, then it's likely that you have become disconnected from the deeper instances of pain and injustice around you. Think about this, within a 5 mile radius of where you live: a wife is being physically abused by her husband, a child has no one to do homework with him or to play catch with in the backyard, a senior adult is lonely and depressed because no one comes to talk with her anymore. Allow you anger to be engaged by these things, by things that are bigger than your own life and personal comfort. Allow your anger to be stirred, and then take action out of that anger. Make a difference. Find a need and step in. Fight against the small and large injustices around you and in our world. When your anger is spent in the cause of justice and mercy, you will not need to vent as much during life’s aggravating moments. Please understand it’s ok to be angry during those aggravating moments in life, but you get to choose where to invest your anger and where to act! There's nothing wrong with getting angry, but as often as you can, funnel your anger into making a difference in the life of someone else!

I hope today finds you angry in all the good ways....

3 Ways To Crush Your Fear of the Unknown

Few things can derail our lives as quickly as fear of the unknown. Alfred Hitchcock made his living off of this type of fear. In Hitchcock’s movies, the villain or imminent danger is always off the screen where we can’t actually see it for as long as possible. That gives our imaginations time think of all sorts of horrible and terrifying things, which heightens the suspense we feel. This makes for a terrific movie experience, but in real life it’s not so enjoyable. The unknown dangers and unseen pitfalls that lurk ahead of us can create incredible stress and will often cause us to delay or miss out on great opportunities.  So, if fear of the unknown has caused you trouble in the past, here are a couple of thoughts that can get you back on track:

Make Friends With Failure

A great portion of your fear of the unknown comes from the fact that you think that not knowing something ahead of time will cause you to fail. You won’t have time to prepare or think it through and you’ll fall flat on your face. We have all been challenged we these types of thoughts. So, will you fail? Of course!  Everyone fails. Failure doesn’t have to define you, however.  In fact, your response to failures in your life will oftentimes lead to life’s biggest accomplishments. This means that failing at a task isn’t something to be feared but embraced. So, fail! Fail often and fail well. Just remember to get back up when you get knocked down, because another opportunity will be coming your way soon, and it may be the very one that leads to the success you desire.

Make What You Do Know Your Focus

There will always be lots of things that we can’t see ahead of time or predict in life. Most of the important decisions we make will involve some level of uncertainty. With that in mind, you can choose to allow all of the things you can’t foresee to stir around in your brain, cluttering your thoughts and freezing you into inaction, or you can focus on what you do know. In most major decisions you will know some details and most importantly you know what your goals and priorities are. When you make a decision based on your values and direction in life, you can feel good about your choice, even if it doesn’t work out.

Make A Move

When all is said and done there will always be the option to think about things some more (for the 314^th time), or an option to act, and sometimes you need to turn your brain off and act. There is a point in every decision when further thought is only slowing down the process and crushing your confidence, in those moments it’s important to take action. I learned this lesson as a teenager, when friends and I would sneak off to jump off of a local bridge into the river. I’m not saying that jumping off the bridge was a great decision (I’m pretty sure now that it wasn’t!), but I know that the longer I stood on the bridge , looking at the water below, the more my fear began to take over. The only thing that could crush my fear was to jump. After the first jump, my brain was no longer locked down in fear, and I could have fun. The same is true of many major decisions. There comes a point when our continued thinking and processing is only adding to the fear we feel, at that point, you need to go with whatever decision you think best and move forward.  

These tasks aren’t easy, but they are fear-crushers, and nothing feels better than unloading 100 lbs. of fear off of your back! Good luck as you battle the unknown in your life this week!!! 

How To Successfully Make Decisions

Posted by Michael

“The best companies don’t necessarily make right decisions all of the time, but they make clear decisions and get people rallied around them.”
                                                                -Patrick Lencioni

Whether you are running a company, your family, or just your own life, clarity makes all of the difference in the world. Clarity gives direction and relieves stress. It’s impossible to make the right decisions all of the time, which leaves us with two options: 1) Delay or make hazy/half-way decisions to avoid being wrong or 2) Make clear, honest decisions and give yourself the chance to be right. Bad decisions aren’t what normally derail us, it’s the lack of a decision that will bump us off the tracks. A couple of things to consider as you face the decisions in front of you:

Face your decisions one at a time

I know that you have a millions decisions and they all feel like they have to be made today, but you need to step back, take a deep breath, and say these words with me: “it’s not going to happen.”…at least not at this moment. What you can do this moment is make one decision. You can tackle one thing right now and put it behind you. That’s progress and that’s how mountains get moved, one rock at a time.

Remember that bad decisions are not the end.

Bad decisions are not fun. They have consequences for us, and oftentimes for the people we love. We want to make the best decisions we can, but we will never be perfect. Our destiny of imperfection is not a reason to avoid making decisions however. Making a bad decision isn’t the end of the road, no matter how painful it feels. We when find ourselves in a bad place, cursing ourselves for going left when we should have turned right, we simply need to stop, take a look at the landscape and make a new decision. Step by step we can get back to the direction we want to go in, and usually find something unexpected and good along the way. Most of the amazing discoveries in history have come on the coattails of a bad decision or misstep.

People don’t rally around perfection. They are drawn to authenticity and humility. So, make your decisions, and if they blow up, make some more. Make them the best you can, but make them regardless, you’ll find courage and increased confidence as you go.

Quotation from Patrick Lencioni's The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity To The Most Important Organization In Your Life.