In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

16. Making Decisions With Confidence - Part 1

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 16

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What if you could make every decision with unwavering confidence?  In this episode, I share the secrets to effective decision-making in caregiving, drawn from my journey through my husband's battle with cancer. I'll tackle the emotional whirlwind and relentless pressure we face and offer practical strategies to break free from indecision.

Ever felt stuck in indecision, fearing the wrong choice could be devastating? I'll explore why striving for the "right choice" will only keep you stuck. By removing the burden of value judgments, we can make strong, purposeful choices without fear of failure. In this episode, you'll learn to treat decisions as opportunities for growth and experimentation rather than sources of stress. 

This episode is your roadmap to navigating caregiving with resilience and confidence, making decision-making a manageable and empowering process.

As a Resiliency Coach for people who are caregiving for their partner, I'm here to support YOU, the caregiver. Learn more about my work at www.coachmarika.com.

Marika:

Hey, caregivers and care partners, welcome back. I've got something special for you today. One of the challenges that caregivers face is how to make good decisions. Making decisions can feel overwhelming and there's a lot of pressure to make the right decision, so we often get stuck maybe an indecision or second guessing ourselves, and all of that just takes a lot of energy and can be very stressful. A couple of years ago, I did a class on this very topic. It was called how to make decisions with confidence, because there are some ways of thinking and strategies that can make decision making easier and can give you more confidence in your decision, so that you're not second-guessing yourself. So I'm going to share that class with you today. I've broken it up into two parts, so this will be the first of a two-part series. It is a live webinar that I did, and next week you'll hear some coaching I did with the audience on some of the decisions they had to make. So enjoy. Welcome to how to Make Decisions with Confidence.

Marika:

I am Marika Humphries. I'm a life coach for caregivers and I coach in that very specific field because that was my experience. I came coaching during my husband's battle with cancer, so he battled multiple cancers for just about five years. When he was first diagnosed we had a five-year-old. Now I have a teenager and I was 40. I had just turned 40. So it was kind of midlife caught us completely off guard. I won't tell you the whole story, but just to say that he had chemo radiation, he had surgery. Throughout those years we worked with a naturopath at one point. We sent him overseas to get treatment at one point. So we kind of did the whole gamut, and everybody's journey here is different. My husband did pass away from cancer and I tell you that too to just say that I've also been through grief and I'm now on the other side of that journey and it is. It's a journey, and all throughout it I had no idea how it would turn out never at any point. So I'm coming to you kind of as someone who's been through a lot of similar experiences that you have and I think the emotions are very similar across the board that we all struggle with. So I know it's frustrating, it's heartbreaking at times, it's an emotional roller coaster when you have a partner with cancer or you're caregiving, and so one of the things that helped me was what I learned when I first was exposed to coaching, which actually was my husband's idea, and then I later became a coach and changed my whole career and changed my whole life, and it's what I completely love doing now, because I grew through a very difficult time and I often think that it's kind of a watershed time for us in our life.

Marika:

Any crisis often is we can either grow from it or we can crumble under it, and people can go both ways, and grief is the same right. We can really delve deeper into who we are and what's important to us, or we may never get over it, and I believe the difference is the growth that you decide to do, the self-growth that you decide to do, and the fact that you're here means that you are open to growing, and while none of us would choose this in life, we can still grow from it. I believe that with all my heart and again, like any major crisis in life, we always have an option to grow and learn from it and become stronger and better. So, with that being said, one of the things that we all face in life in fact, I'm just going to move on here is decisions. Right, we all make decisions. We're making decisions all the time. I will tell you, I struggled with decisions for a lot of my life as a perfectionist, but as a caregiver. I remember my husband and I talking about it Often. A lot of times, you make decisions from a place of fear and it is not a great place to make decisions from. I've actually done a lot of research in the last several months and my experience working with clients in this area.

Marika:

I really wanted to put together all the knowledge and share with you some real tips on how to make decisions with confidence and not look back and not second guess yourself, and there's a few things that you will, I hope, take away from this that will change how you make decisions and hopefully you won't agonize as much over them. There will still be big decisions and little decisions, but the stress around them I hope to alleviate some of that, we're going to look at it from some different perspectives today. So there's really four parts to the webinar today. We're going to talk about why decisions are important Seems again obvious, but I'm going to go into that a little bit. We're going to talk also about the cost of indecision and why we get stuck making decisions. Analysis paralysis was originally what I was going to call this class because that was me for sure, right, getting stuck trying to overthink the decisions that I had to make and all kinds of decisions. I've always done that. And then we're going to talk about the elements of good decision-making and, lastly, we're going to go into step-by-step how do you make decisions. So you will come away, I hope, with some gems and really a new perspective to bring to the decisions in your life, literally, whether they are small or big. So, while I talk about this class in terms of caregiving and many of my examples will be around that this is really this is a life skills class and I will say it impacted me. What I've learned has impacted me in my life in general. So with that we'll move on. Why decisions are important. So, why decisions are important Again, it seems obvious we are making decisions constantly, from things literally like what we eat in the morning to how we spend our time and many, many of those choices we just make out of habit or sometimes conditioning how many of you eat basically the same thing pretty much every morning.

Marika:

I know I do. It's routine, right? Yeah, we, we do a lot of things daily out of habit and we do that. Our brain works intentionally that way because we conserve energy. So I thought most of you put a thumbs up. We all eat the same thing. We dress in the same way. Right, I wear the same like basic clothes and that's okay, it's totally fine.

Marika:

But we sometimes can make decisions that are also motivated by stress or fear. So I've talked about before pressure obligation. If you ever are thinking I should do something, I should, I'm a big I should person, that's something I've worked a lot to get over. Hey, those are also decisions. But their motivation behind them is not it's not always great, right, I should, it's like always great, right, I should is like a feeling of pressure or obligation, and sometimes we don't do anything like making, not deciding is also a decision. Right, we put something off or we just let it go, and when we don't always do that consciously, when we choose to do that consciously, it's a different thing. But a lot of times we just put something off, we delayed decision-making, and that's's a different thing. But a lot of times we just put something off, we delay decision-making, and that's also a decision. So we're always making decisions. We're just not always doing so deliberately and with conscious thought about our desired intent and with the small things right, it might be okay, but maybe you should relook at what you eat for breakfast in the morning.

Marika:

There are decisions that are really worth looking at. What is our desired intent here? And we want to be obviously the big decisions, and there are many. In caregiving, we want to be deliberate, because decisions literally shape our life. Right, if we're acting out of habit, we're going to live a life on repeat. We're going to live the same life over and over again because we're not going to do anything new when we're not conscious about choices. Right, because we're just going to act the way we've always done things. When we are deliberate, especially about the big things or changes in our life, that is the key to living the life that you want, despite the circumstances. So really hear me there living a life on purpose, right, instead of on default and I'm going to I'm going to spend the rest of this class kind of showing you how to do that. But that's the power of decisions when we can harness and make decisions decisively and deliberately with where they're important, when it's important to do so, that's where we create the life that we want, right, despite the circumstances that we're in, whether we're caregiving, our partner has cancer, whatever it is. We still have a lot of choice and a lot of agency there. So that's why decisions are important.

Marika:

Let's look at indecision and what it costs us. First of all. It wastes time. I think we all know that, right, when we are confused, when we feel like we don't know enough, sometimes we just don't like our choices it just wastes time, right, we delay and we put off something and therefore we don't act and therefore we get no more new information with which to evaluate, right, so we just kind of delay everything. It keeps us stuck and it's just a waste of time. It also takes up energy. Now this is proven. Like I said, I did a lot of research prior to this class and they have actually found that your brain will kind of review options in your head, in the forefront of your head, when you have an unmade decision weighing on you. I think we all can relate to that experience. This is what keeps us up at night, right, unmade decisions in your brain will go through and cycle through the options, which takes up brain power and that takes up our energy, our precious, precious energy. So I will give you an example, because this was a recent decision I made and it's a kind of an insignificant decision, but it's a perfect example of how much it takes up energy.

Marika:

So I recently it was right after Christmas, I got some Christmas money and I needed a new bookshelf. I wanted to buy a new bookshelf and I would find I had very specific requirements for this bookshelf. So I wanted it to look nice. I didn't want to spend much more than $300, which is like kind of inexpensive for a bookshelf and I wanted to have doors and it and it also had to like couldn't be a certain wider than a certain area, because I had a specific spot that I wanted to put it in. I would find myself here I am with family and I literally find myself thinking about what kind of bookshelf I had searched and searched on a couple of different sites and I'd find myself thinking about what kind of bookshelf to buy while I'm with my family. So that was not a very big life decision, but that's an example of how it takes up our brain power.

Marika:

Okay, and I've already mentioned this but it keeps us from moving forward. When we stay in indecision, we don't learn, we don't act and therefore we don't learn anything new, and then we have no new information from which to proceed. Right, so we kind of stay stagnant. Indecision can keep us stagnant when it goes on too long without any way forward. Right, and sometimes I will tell you like a little secret that we can do to ourselves is we.

Marika:

It can sometimes feel safer to be deciding in the process of quote unquote, deciding for a long time, because when we make a decision, then we have to act. This is kind of like something that goes on a lot of times subconsciously in our brain. If I make a decision on this, then I actually have to do something. So it's kind of safer. It feels safer to stay in indecision. But again, is that serving you? Most of the time it doesn't. And then the last thing is indecision. It just feels terrible, we feel conflicted and the stress the part of our brain that reacts to threats is more reactive, which is why we're more tense, why we don't sleep as well when we have these unmade decisions. So it costs us. Again, it costs us and that's why, with a few tips, you can really learn to look at decision-making very differently.

Marika:

What keeps us stuck from making those decisions? I've talked a little bit about this. When we talk about the costs of decision making. But the biggest thing there's a couple of big ones here and that's what I've listed here on the slide. One of the biggest ones is believing that there is a right choice or that you need to maximize your option. So I will tell you for most of my life as a recovery perfectionist, I struggled being decisive with what I wanted to order at a restaurant, and the reason was I wanted to make the best choice. I wanted the food that I was guaranteed to enjoy, that costs the right amount and that keeps us stuck right. I would take forever making a decision at the restaurant because I wanted to maximize my choice. Same thing like going to college or taking a job. There's a right choice out there and I just need to figure out what it is that will keep us stuck because we're looking for that right choice. Trouble is you don't know I'm going to talk more about that Not having enough information.

Marika:

So, as a caregiver, this is probably one that comes up a lot. You can research endlessly, you can feel like you don't have enough information and where do you call, where do you draw the line right, but that keeps us stuck from moving forward from making a decision is this feeling that you don't have enough information. Another thing that keeps us stuck not liking the options. Sometimes we just simply avoid something because we don't like our choices. I remember that very specifically when this was maybe a couple of years in and my husband's cancer had come back and he just we'd been through chemo, we'd been through it, so we kind of knew what was in store and the options we had ahead of us were just none of them were quote unquote good and that keeps you. You don't want to decide because you don't like any of your choices. So it's, it's something to be aware of. It's one of the things that keeps us stuck. And the last one I think the big one that keeps us stuck is feeling like we have no choice.

Marika:

This comes up in a lot of different ways. I was recently different ways. I was recently my client. One of my clients. She's struggling with her boss right now and hasn't really there's been. There was an incident that brought this situation to head. That she's that's been bothering her for a while now and I reminded her. But she really wants to stay in this job because she needs the income right now. But I reminded her look, you always have choices. You can quit tomorrow, and in her mind, that's not an option and it might not be something that she would actually do. But we never know right, if circumstances change, we often change how we make decisions. If you're critical health situation, you might change, you might have to quit, but sometimes we feel like we have no choice and again I'm going to cover this, we always have choices. When we feel like we have no choice, it keeps us stuck. So those are the reasons that keep us stuck. So that's kind of the backdrop, right, why it's important to, why decisions are important, because they shape the course of our life and they help us make, be deliberate in our life and live a life that we choose and the reasons why we get stuck currently.

Marika:

So now I want to talk about okay, so what do we do about that? Right, what's the what's the answer to that problem? Well, there's a couple, there's four things that I want to talk about are kind of what I consider elements of really good less good, I like to say decisive decision-making, and we're going to talk about those next. So, and I'll tell you here, decisions are neutral. You have to be committed, you need to take responsibility for your choices and you have to know your result. So we're going to talk about each one of those in turn. Okay, decisions are completely neutral.

Marika:

There is no such thing as a good or bad decision. I want to just pause there because you might be thinking what Probably all of you thinking back to your past and thinking about some bad, questionable, bad decisions you've made in your past. Give me a thumbs up If you can think of at least one thing in your past you're like that was a bad decision. I certainly think to college when I think about this right, some questionable decisions. What if?

Marika:

But here's what I wanted to say about that right, good and bad, right and wrong are all judgments that we make after the fact. So we look back to a decision we made or a choice we made and we make a judgment about it. We say, well, that was bad, this is after we knew how it turns out. Right, so we are. It's just a judgment call. Good and bad, right and wrong is a judgment we make in retrospect. Totally unfair that we judge ourselves this way and even to little things, big things, we do it from a place of looking back right and then we say, oh, that was a bad choice, that was a good choice, that was the right thing to do. We only say that afterward. So we, in control of that judgment, we get to decide how we're going to look back at our decisions and we can determine whether something was good or bad, right or wrong.

Marika:

And a lot of times we we judge ourselves harshly. We say, well, that was a bad decision. Well, because maybe it didn't turn out like we expected, right. But it doesn't really serve us to think that way, to judge ourselves after we know how something turned out. Because I know for each one of you, you think of those quote, quote bad decisions of the past and, like any failure, quote, unquote again, failure in life. Those are the biggest, usually growth moments. We learn the most when things don't turn out how we expect. So when we call them bad, it's, it's doesn't really service, we could simply go well, that was a learning experience, right, it shifts how we think about ourselves and when we judge ourselves it doesn't serve us, we look at it critically and thus, where they're more afraid to make decisions in future, fear that we might quote unquote judge ourselves again for making the wrong choice.

Marika:

So this is kind of backed up by our society. We have this idea that if you simply make all the right decisions in life, you're going to have this perfect life and you'll be happy. Life is not this perfectly upward path. Everybody knows that this certain age right, it's full of ups and downs, and it is the downs, in fact, when things don't turn out the way we expect, that we learn the most, that we grow the most. So how can we call those bad? So I do think our society perpetuates this, but it also on a personal level.

Marika:

When we think about decisions as being right or wrong, good or bad, it holds us back and I feel like I spent a good portion of my life trying to make the right choice. That gives me no room to grow or make mistakes, which I'm going to do anyway. Right, that's a part of life instead. So when I learned this concept, I was like what kind of blew my mind? And now I think about this all the time and I use this actively as I parent a teenager who I could easily think about all the quote, unquote bad decisions they're making. Instead, this is the way I want you to think about it there are choices and there are outcomes. There's no value judgment to them. There are simply choices and outcomes. You make a choice and it's going to have a consequence right, there's going to be an outcome to it. You don't pay your taxes, that's a choice, right. You might get caught, you might have to go to jail. That's the outcome. It's not necessarily good or bad. You may have values that you want to apply, but those are still judgments. There's still beliefs that you hold and you get to decide that Everything right.

Marika:

I used to think about a turn to food. When I have an emotional issue. That's kind of I'm an emotional eater. I used to feel terribly guilty eating a box of cereal out of emotion, out of being upset or whatever. It was a moral thing. It's crazy, right, there's an action. I ate a box of cereal. Now there's a consequence I have an upset stomach, I don't feel good, I gain weight. But we do. We apply value judgments to our decisions, and that doesn't serve us when we want to make good decisions, because then we're afraid to make decisions in future and then we become more indecisive and less decisive.

Marika:

So I want to encourage you here. There are no bad decisions, there are no wrong decisions. There are simply just choices and outcomes, and that is all of life. Right, choices and outcomes. I'm going to pause here for a minute. Does anybody have any questions? Okay, so again, the importance of this is when you want to recognize what judgments you have about a decision and you want to strip out those judgments in order to make strong decisions. Right, we want to strip out our judgments. Remember, there's no good or bad, there are simply choices and outcomes. So let's talk about the next element to decision making, and that's commitment. Okay, give me a thumbs up again.

Marika:

If you've ever made a decision and then totally second guessed yourself like, oh my gosh, that was probably the wrong decision, I wonder if I should change. Yeah, we all have right. It's totally human to do that. We second guess because, again and that comes from now that you've been thinking about it differently it comes from this idea that there's a right choice or we get set on the outcome. We want a specific outcome, so we were guessing like, oh, this might not turn out. So when we second guess ourselves, we waste time, because what we do is we keep ourselves stuck in evaluating if we should have that decision after all, instead of moving forward and actually finding out is this going to turn out the way I want, and then making a new decision. That's what moves us forward, right, but when we're second guessing, we're staying stuck in that, like we're looking backwards Okay, well, let's see how this turns out and then I might have to make a new decision. So, second guessing, when you commit to a decision, make a decision, commit, not looking back. Not, it's almost like a promise you need to make to yourself I'm not going to second guess this and I'm going to give you some tips on how to do that, like how you have to think about it to do that Right, but you commit, move forward and you'll get new information. You're going to find out does this turn out or is this turning out the way I want? And if not, you have to make a decision right.

Marika:

I think another thing is the idea that we need to eliminate doubt. Doubt is it's an emotion that comes from thought that this might not work out. It's simply an emotion. It's a human emotion, but we can move forward while feeling doubt. It is not something that needs to be eliminated. So you can commit to a decision, recognizing that you may feel some doubt, but it's how much attention you give that doubt. So remember, doubt is an emotion that comes from this thought that this might not work out. We have thoughts all the time. We don't have to pay attention to all of them, and doubt is one of them. Right, it doesn't really help you to pay attention to it. Sometimes doubt can maybe is calling your attention to something you hadn't considered, and that maybe is a different case. But a lot of times doubt just is a fear. Comes from the fear or the idea, the thought that this might not work out and therefore you don't simply have to pay attention to it.

Marika:

You can keep doubt, like in the back seat, and continue to drive to your destination, recognizing that, yep, it's going to be there. Ask any CEO of a business. Right, they make decisions all the time knowing that it might not work out. There's always doubt there. Doubt can always come along for the ride. It doesn't have to be in the driver's seat. You make you focus.

Marika:

Your focus then is on forward, when you commit to the decisions you've made, then on making it work, figuring out how to be successful, how to make this work, and less on finding evidence for why it's not going to work. So let's take a simple example there, right, choosing a dish at a restaurant, commit, order something, commit and then decide I'm going to enjoy it and if not, I'm going to decide that I learned something, as opposed to oh, doubting. Oh, this didn't taste quite as well and you know I should have made the different choice. You're finding all the reasons why you made a bad decision. You don't learn anything from that. But when you commit, then you've learned something. You can move forward, but you've got to be all in.

Marika:

And then the last part of that is having your own back. This is kind of basically referring back to how we make a judgment about our past decisions. When you have your own back, you decide that I'm going to stand by the decision I made. I'm not going to judge myself for it, even if it doesn't turn out the way I expect. That is having your own and even if somebody else has a different opinion, because I guarantee you they will right. Treatment decisions If you make treatment decisions with your partner, your family members, friends, they probably all have opinions about them. They're gonna it's totally fine, we all have opinions. Have your own back. And part of this again, I'm going to go on to how you can support yourself for having your own back. But it's an important part of decision-making is be willing to stand up for yourself, not second guess, and commit to moving forward. So commitment we've talked about right, no wrong decisions as one element of good decision-making. Commitment is another.

Marika:

Now let's talk about taking responsibility. This is, I think, similar to commitment, but taking responsibility, what do I mean here? When we own our choices, it keeps us in control. Right, there's a lot of things in life that we decide, and when we take responsibility for those decisions, we put ourselves in the driver's seat. So if we're the ones deciding, then we get to also be the ones to change our mind or make a different decision.

Marika:

When we shirk responsibility for past decisions or even present decisions and we blame well, I couldn't do that because of my job or my partner, or the weather or politics. When we put that responsibility and we give it away to others, we become powerless. Well, I can't do anything because my partner disagreed, so I'm stuck. Or I can't do anything because my partner disagreed, so I'm stuck. Or can't do anything because of the state of the world. That's an easy one. It's totally shirking responsibility when we are at the effect of things effective, others effective. Cancer we feel powerless.

Marika:

This was a big one for me. He felt like so when my husband I was the primary breadwinner in our family and I had been unhappy in my career for a little while. When my husband got cancer. I then felt stuck in my job. I felt like I had no choice, like it's not the time to move, change careers because we obviously need the insurance and stability. I felt very stuck and I became resentful, kind of. I kind of blamed cancer, just this stimulus, and when I took responsibility for my job. At first it feels overwhelming, I think, but then it's empowering and I will tell you, I ended up getting a promotion in that period because I shifted how I started thinking about my job and recognizing that I was choosing to stay. All of the things that made me feel stuck were still true, right, I really wasn't a time to change careers, but that was a choice. I took responsibility for that choice as opposed to feeling like a victim of it.

Marika:

We always have a choice. I could have quit my job, I could have gotten a new job. Those were things I wasn't willing to do, but I wasn't taking responsibility for that. Recognizing right. We always have choices sometime, even when it feels like we don't. I'll give you another example here, kind of extreme example. But I have had consultations. I had a consultation with a woman who their marriage was already on the rocks. Her husband got cancer and she's like, well, I can't leave him now, like I have no choice. Not true? You always have a choice.

Marika:

People leave their spouses, even during cancer. It happens. It is a choice. Now it may not be a choice that you would make, but there is a big difference there. You have to recognize you have choices, because when you see that then you put yourselves in the driver's seat again. It may not be choices you'd like or choices you would choose, but recognizing that you have choices feels empowering. When you think I don't have any choice, you're powerless, right, you feel stuck. It is a change in perception, and that change in perception is everything, because then you own it, right, you take responsibility. Yeah, I am choosing to stay in this marriage, even though I'm unhappy, because I don't want to leave him during this time. That is very different than I have no choice, and then she could just sit there and be resentful and miserable, basically miserable. Or she could recognize yeah, I could leave and she might choose to do that. I think it's great to entertain truly all the options that you really would normally put off the table. Don't Remember there's no good or bad. That thought right that she shouldn't leave was basically that it's wrong to do that. That's an opinion, so we always have a choice.

Marika:

The other thing we need to do in decision-making good decision-making is know your reasons and like them. So here's an example of what I mean right, I'm taking care of my husband because it's what a good spouse should do. That is very different than I'm taking care of him because I love him and I choose to and I choose to. This is what I want to do for him. The first reason comes from an obligation and maybe a little like societal pressure, and the second reason comes from love and being in choice. Right, in both cases you're doing the same thing.

Marika:

Your reasons are very different and in that example it's very obvious that those reasons are very important. You want to know your reasons and you want to like them. And if you decide, if you recognize hey, I'm doing this out of obligation and you're fine with that, but you just need to be honest with yourself and then own it right. Own it. It's fine to make decisions that way. It's just deciding on intentionally what you're doing, as opposed to on default. So knowing your reasons and liking them, that's only you up to you Doesn't mean society's judgments about your decision, your family's judgments about your decision. You have to know your decisions or your reasons, and like them. That is very powerful because you're the one that lives with it, right? So you want to have that's having your own back liking your reasons, knowing your reasons and liking them.

Marika:

And the last thing I'll say is when we give away responsibility for our past or our present choices right, we give it away to again politics, the state of the world, to COVID, to our partner's cancer, to our family members, and we give it away to other people or things in life. That usually leads to resentment and blame and it's terrible. Those emotions feel terrible. We blame cancer, we blame the doctor, we blame the system, we blame our partner, we blame our family. Being in blame is one of the most disempowering places emotions to be in. Because we give away all our power, we make ourselves the victim. And I want you to recognize you're the creator. You get to decide when you own and take responsibility for all the choices right, all the questionable things you did in your past that in retrospect realize maybe didn't turn out the way I want it, but own it. My husband used to say that all the time. Own it right. I kind of like that, but that's what it is right Just owning our choices, owning our mistakes. There is power in taking responsibility. When we end up it can feel overwhelming because that means we have to own our failures, but there's power in that. And again, I use the word failure, but typically that feels bad and it's not. It's just means something didn't turn out the way we expect. And we learn the most from our failures. They don't feel always great, but that's when we learn the most. And again, of any business or company they will tell you failures or any scientists same thing. We learn those fields. You have to learn from failure.

Marika:

Failure is not a bad thing. It's how you move. You figure out what doesn't work. Same in our life how you figure out what foods you don't like is you order something at a restaurant? You just make a choice and then you figure out guess what? I don't like that here. That's how we, that is how we learn, and I, as a recovering perfectionist, was so afraid of making the wrong choice because I would judge myself like I should have known somehow. But how do I know? You have to trial and error, and that is true. That's what doctors do, literally right when you go to the doctor and their treatment plan includes that's literally how the medical system works. They don't know how something is going to work. They may have data and evidence based on past cases, but human beings are complex. So literally it's trial and error. That is how the system works and that is how I want you to think about decisions. There's no right, perfect choice. There's just choices, remember, and there are consequences. So taking responsibility. And the last one here you need to know what result you want. You need to know how do I want this to turn out and not just in a vague way. I want you to be specific here. Sometimes we're very specific.

Marika:

Stephen Covey said in his first habit of the seven habits of highly effective people the first habit is begin with the end in mind. You want to know your reason, you want to be clear about that, and I think that's a really useful thing to keep in mind around treatment decisions. Yes, I want to be cancer free or I want to get cured. But be more specific I want to have a quality of life while I go through this treatment. I want to be able to function in all the ways, or I'm willing to do whatever it takes. So be very clear about the results you want. At the same time, you want to allow for multiple paths to get there, multiple plans. This is something I didn't use to think about a lot and now I think about all the time, especially as a business owner, and then I also think as a caregiver too.

Marika:

I remember in the beginning, when my husband was first diagnosed, we were in such, a, such a state of fear. We didn't feel like we had any options, and so we just put the doctor's recommendation because we were afraid and we didn't have other options. Later, though, we started to do a lot more research, and there are endless. There's literally I mean, you just do a Google search on like cure for cancer. I mean there's all kinds of things out there and many that you have never even heard of. I'm not saying you need to choose those, but just it's recognizing you need to have plan A, plan B. All right, you want to open up your mind that there's endless options, because you can't get locked into, you don't know how any of them are going to turn out, so you have to think of it this is the third point like an experiment, and I really recommend taking that mental approach to everything. We're going to see how this works. This is what doctors do, right? They have a plan B, it's working. You can do that with all decisions in your life, and it might mean there's some things you can't undo. Just move forward, but when you think about it like we're going to see how this works, and then I'll make a new decision or I'll adjust course based on the decision I've made. You want to identify what you want, but then take an experimental approach, be the scientist, see how this works.

Marika:

I'll give you another example of this. Not a big decision, but I was really struggling with planning my time because I work for myself now, so it's very different than working for someone else and I have total control over my time. And I would set this intention each week, to like plan a week out beforehand. But I would always put it in procrastinate because I want to plan it perfectly. And what would happen is I would plan it and then I would either take longer in certain areas or I wouldn't give myself breaks and I'm tired, and then I wouldn't do one of the tasks that I'd set. My whole plan would kind of go be shot. I'd give up Like I wouldn't do one of the tasks that I'd set. My whole plan would kind of go be shot. I'd give up, like I can't do it.

Marika:

Perfectly Well, I had to tell myself, okay, we're going to try this, I'm just going to plan it, I'm going to see what works. And the minute I started thinking about it as like an experiment. I don't have to get it right the first time. I'm going to see like how much rest I need after I write a blog post. It totally changes my perspective. It took off so much stress for me on planning my week. It's crazy. That is not a major thing, but I would procrastinate because I wanted to do it right. There's no right right. It's all a big experiment. That is a really helpful way to think about things. Yeah, yeah, is it Vidya? Am I?

Vidya:

saying that that's Vidya, yes, vidya, that's pretty. Yeah, go ahead. No, I mean, I'm listening to you and just reflecting on my own experiences and saying, boy does that sound familiar. So, thank you, very informative Good.

Marika:

Yes, you identify with being like a perfectionist.

Vidya:

That's me, a lot of us out there indecision, because you get so afraid of making the decision.

Marika:

So, yeah, it totally resonates with me good, good, glad to hear it, thank you. Thank you for sharing, I think for me.

Tara:

I think for me it's more trying to get out of that loop of I feel like I know some of these things and I identify with them, but I still continue in this loop of making stuck, I guess, is the word of these decisions, and trying to get myself out of the loop is the goal. I guess that's part of what you're saying too is kind of identifying what exactly happening in my head. It's definitely that perfectionist that you talked about, but trying to like just move forward and get out of that loop in that unstuck place, what do you?

Marika:

think keeps you in the loop.

Tara:

I think when I listen to you, I think for me myself it's always second guessing, like I'm good at identifying the decision, I'm good at making a decision after I have the information I need, but then, once I make the decision, a few days later I'll go back and second guess that decision, probably fear as well not making sure that I made the right decision, which we're finding out from your wording that's not necessarily a right decision. So maybe that's getting that out of my head as far as realizing that it's better to just move forward rather than second guessing that there is a right decision or that I made a mistake, that type of thing.

Marika:

So, yeah, here's what I would say to that. I have two things. Second, guessing is essentially doubt. Yeah, it's okay to have that and I would not give it attention. And for you, especially if that's where you find you get stuck, the more you're able to see it and go, yep, there it is. Here's the doubt coming up. That's okay, it's just what my brain is going to do and just kind of let it be there, put it in the backseat of the car and go, yep, I'm just not going to pay attention to it. The more you can do that. That takes practice, but right now it's in your attention away, right, and like trying to direct traffic and going back and looking, and that's where we waste time.

Marika:

The doubt, that little critical voice on our shoulder we don't have to listen to. And especially if it's a, you know, when you recognize it's a pattern with yourself. And the other thing, tara, that I was going to say is what helps me in that situation. Like you said, you know you're good with doing the analysis, making the decision when you switch to thinking about it like this is I'm just going to see what works, thinking about it like an experiment, right, I'm just going to see what works. That really helps me kind of get out of that doubt, even because then you're no longer like this has to be perfect. It's just we're going to see what works and you can even give yourself a timeframe on which to evaluate. I'm going to see what works and I'm going to reevaluate next week or whatever makes sense. So, letting doubt be there and then taking the experimental approach, thinking about it like you know a scientist, we're just going to see what works. That lessens some of the pressure.

Tara:

Very helpful, I think, is just kind of identifying and giving myself a little forgiveness. I just think I'm way too hard on myself lately on everything, so that's probably part of you know also the decision making. You know just wanting. It's that perfectionist loop that we talk about.

Marika:

So for sure there's a reason why I call myself recovering perfectionism, because it crops up in my life all the time and I have a good coach friend who calls me on it because I don't see it a lot of times. It is my habitual way of being and I think it is something that we have to actively work to see in ourselves. And then I always tell my clients give yourself, especially when you're caregiving, give yourself a lot of grace. I think we need to do that anyway in our lives, but caregiving especially. You want to give yourself so much grace because it's challenging. But the more you can have compassion for yourself and be more forgiving you're just figuring out, making the decisions as you go, with the knowledge that you have the more you'll be able to be, like you said, kinder with your judgments of yourself when things don't turn out right. None of us know how things are going to go, and yet we want to do it right so much. But the future is always unknown.