In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

17. Making Decisions With Confidence - Part 2

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 17

Share episode

Send us a text

Can making decisions ever be stress-free? Imagine approaching your toughest choices with the calmness of a monk and the clarity of a scientist. This episode promises to equip you with the mindset and techniques needed to make confident decisions. Learn how to treat decisions as experiments, reducing pressure and increasing flexibility, while identifying multiple options to avoid the trap of binary thinking. Discover why there are no right or wrong choices—only different outcomes—and how to detach negative self-judgment from your results.

Balancing family obligations and personal responsibilities can make decision-making feel like an overwhelming task. Building confidence with smaller decisions can pave the way for tackling more significant ones. I share insights on how to commit to your choices, even when doubt and external opinions are loud. 

In this episode you will also hear me coach people who are struggling with decision making in their own life. 

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 Humphreys:

Hey, caregivers and care partners, welcome back. Today is part two of a two-part series on how to make decisions with confidence. Last episode was focused around the elements of decision-making and really the mindset you need to bring when making a decision. In this episode, I'm giving you an actual step-by-step process for how to make difficult decisions. This is from a webinar I did a couple of years ago, so you will also hear me coach a couple audience members on the decisions they were facing. So lots of fun, let's dive in.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, so let's talk about how to make decisions. So this is the decision aid I put together, mini DC. Just I wanted to have something that is kind of easy to remember. We're going to go through each of these steps to help you actually make decisions. But I do have a handout that I'm going to email you all to. That was kind of like a decision aid, I call it. So. The first one is mindset. We have essentially been talking about the elements behind mindset throughout this whole class so far.

Marika Humphreys:

When we make decisions, we want to be in a clean emotional space, especially when making big decisions. Right, we want to be calm, relaxed, well-rested. We don't want to be fearful, we don't want to be anxious or feeling stressed or feeling obligated. So, especially again with big decisions, making sure, kind of checking in and seeing what kind of emotional space you're in. If you are stressed out, if it's the end of the night and you don't have to make that decision like for me, end of the night, I'm usually tired. My kid always asks me things, wants me to make decisions. All the time it's the end of the night and I'm like that is my worst time because I'm tired. I don't make decisions at the end of the night anymore. In the morning, after a good night's sleep, then I make decisions. It's okay to put things off till you're in a good space. That's a really like foundational piece. You want to be in a good emotional place to make decisions. If you can't, some, obviously we have to make some decisions we have to make right then. But if you can wait till you're in your kind of best, calmest, most rested place to make a decision, that's what you want to do. And remember, these are the things I think about Always having choices. You always have choices and I want you to think about it like it's an experiment. We're just going to see what works. That's even for the big ones. Literally, that is what doctors do. They don't say it like that, but that's what they do. They have data, of course, to back them up, and you can always get data for whatever decision you're making. But that's what they do. They take an approach, they recommend an approach and then they see how it works by doing a scan or blood test or whatever they measure. They measure the outcome. You can do that with all of your decisions and but the way you think about it right, we're talking about mindset here. Think about it like it's just an experiment. I'm just going to see what works and you can. And to help you think that way, remind yourself you can reassess at any time and make a new decision when you find yourself second guessing. Remind yourself okay, I'm just going to reassess at a certain time and then I might make a new decision. So, clean, calm, rested, place and be the scientist, be an experimenter when you think about decisions. That's the mindset you want to have, be in the right mindset.

Marika Humphreys:

The second thing is identify your options. Now, obviously, you're not going to do this with your food. Maybe you will like what you're going to eat for breakfast, but with big decisions, make sure, like if you identify at least three, but I would say no more than five, and I will explain why. So, like I said, I've done a lot of research on decision-making and the reason why you want to identify options is sometimes we tend to think binary I either do this or I don't Like. It's very binary thinking. We want to get out of that because it locks us into feeling like I only have choice A or choice B and in reality there are always a lot more choices there. We just don't always see them. So you want to bring them out, you want to think about them. What are my other choices? Doing nothing is an option, right. We either proceed with the treatment, we do nothing. We proceed with the treatment while we're researching other avenues, or we stay the course. Challenge yourself to create at least three options, but you don't wanna overwhelm yourself either, so it's a little bit of a balance. While I want you to keep in mind that there are always endless options, because there are things that you've never even thought about, I want you to kind of have that always in the back of your mind, but when you're choosing, limit down to three to five, because your brain will get overwhelmed you just need three to five. At any one point, you could always make new decisions, so that's what keeps you moving forward. So identify your options and I really recommend, with the big decisions, writing them down. Okay, so step three.

Marika Humphreys:

This is a little bit of mindset, but I have found this one to be one of the most helpful things to remind myself. There are no wrong choices, there are no bad choices or good choices. There are only choices and consequences or results, and you really, really want to notice if you're attaching any meaning to your choice Like I'm not a good parent, I'm lazy. Any of those things are like make it mean something. So, for example, I mentioned my kid's a teenager now struggling to get to school on a regular basis. My kid didn't go to school today. I can make that mean I'm a bad parent. They're going to fail in life.

Marika Humphreys:

It could be easy to go down a rabbit hole with all the bad thoughts that I could make it mean that the fact that they didn't go to school today that's the fact. We do that very easily in a lot of things. It's kind of where our brain will slip to. So I give you an example of my teenager, which is a true situation that I'm struggling with. I give you an example of my teenager, which is a true situation that I'm struggling with, but I'm sure you can find parallels in your life. Same thing with my husband If I wasn't there for him, like if I wanted to do something else or go hang out with my friends. Am I being a bad spouse? I attribute all these meanings to an action and that's where it comes back to just knowing your reasons and liking them. But I find it very helpful to remind myself look it's judgment.

Marika Humphreys:

We don't know at any one point how something is going to turn out. And so the idea of there being a right choice, which just means this if I choose this, it's going to turn out the way I expect it to or the way I want it to. None of us know that ever. We never know how things are going to turn out. So therefore, we can't make the right choice. We can just choose, and we have to allow that. Things are going to unfold the way they unfold and life throws us all sorts of things that we could never foresee. We're always just making the best choice with the knowledge we have at the moment. There's no bad choices, there's no wrong choices, there's just choices. And the more you can remind yourself that, the more pressure you lift from yourself, because thinking this way serves you to make better choices. Because when you're thinking there is a correct choice, you stress out, and then you drive yourself crazy, or you delay making the choice, or you second out, and then you drive yourself crazy. Or you delay making the choice or you second guess. It doesn't serve you to think that way. That's why I'm talking about this. I also believe this to be true, but it also doesn't serve us when we think I have to make the right choice. We get stuck when we think that way.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, fourth step is I already talked about identify your result, and you can simply do this by asking the question what do I want? Be clear and specific, and I recommend too. Sometimes it might be challenging to figure out what you do want, and I would recommend that you consult, think about your values too. What do I value right now? So I will share that.

Marika Humphreys:

So my husband, his initial diagnosis we went, he went through chemo, had surgery, had radiation afterward and his cancer came back a couple of years later. At that point the decision, treatment, his decisions towards treatment and our decisions together were shaped more by his values. He had been through chemo and it was just awful and he did not want to go through that again. So he valued some quality of life. That was a value for him that wasn't there before. I mean, he valued a quality of life, but it wasn't as high of a value as it later became.

Marika Humphreys:

So when I talk about values, that's especially important to think about. What do I want and what do I value here? Maybe I value time with my family. Maybe I value my health. What is it you value can help you identify what you want and the specifics of it and just ask yourself the easiest way to do that. Ask yourself questions what do I want, what do I value? Then decide Decisive I use that adjective a lot right, decisive decisions.

Marika Humphreys:

I have practiced making quick decisions, especially on the little things. I'm being honest about literally my struggle with choosing what to order at a restaurant. I still have to practice it, but I do. I practice just choosing, just making a choice, and the one good way to do this, especially with bigger decisions, you can do this when you're in the decision process. Here's a good way to do that is 10, 10, 10. Imagine how you will feel. So you've made a choice, at least in your mind, and then imagine how you will feel about that choice in 10 hours. How will you feel about it in 10 months? How will you feel about it in 10 years? Think about that. That can really give you perspective, because when we're in a decision process we're often kind of like in the middle of it, sorry. When we get perspective, we're able to be a little more objective about it.

Marika Humphreys:

So, going back to my bookcase. I spent a lot of time trying to pick the right bookcase. How would I feel about in 10 hours? 10 hours after I chose it, I put purchase on wherever I got it from somewhere online. In 10 hours, I'm either going to like my choice or I'm not. In 10 months, honestly, I probably wouldn't have either wouldn't really care at that point what bookcase I got. If I had really hated it, I would have gotten rid of it after 10 months or bought a different one. In 10 years I probably won't even have the stinking bookcase anymore. So all that time I spent trying to choose the right bookcase, in 10 years it's not even going to matter. 10 months it's not even. I won't even give it a second thought. It holds books and my storage stuff. It serves a purpose and I'm not going to give it a second thought.

Marika Humphreys:

So you want to give yourself perspective by looking to the future and looking back. How will you feel about this perspective or this decision? Another way to do that is think about it as if what you would advise a good friend to do. That's another way to get perspective, because we don't have as much emotional attachment to if our friend has a decision we're like oh, it's very easy to give them advice, right, so think about it for yourself. What would a friend tell me to do in this situation? So you want to be less emotional and more objective about your decision when you're deciding.

Marika Humphreys:

And again, last thing is just like your reasons. Know what they are, like them. There's no good or bad reasons. Doing something out of obligation is not wrong. It's just recognizing yeah, I'm doing this because I feel obligated and I'm okay with that. Family events sometimes we're like, oh, we need to show up. It's a family obligation. It doesn't really mean we're excited about it or we want it, but that's okay, just recognizing it. Again, it comes into ownership. This is why I'm choosing it and I'm okay with that. So those are the things that can help you actually make a decision Really, too, and I recommend this. This is what I do for myself.

Marika Humphreys:

Practice making quick decisions with the little things. There's plenty of little things in life. I just tell myself just decide. And the more you do that with the littler things in life, the better you get at decision-making. And the last step is commit. And I know this is a struggle. This also takes a little practice. It's okay to feel doubt, you can still have your own back and that does take practice standing by the decision you've made, even if someone disagrees, because people will have their opinions and I do find it helpful to expect that, maybe with big decisions or your life choices that your family might have an opinion about, your kids might have an opinion about, expect that people will have opinions and again, when you've gone about this process deliberately and you like your choices, their opinions will mean less to you because you've thought through them and you like your own opinion better. That's all you really need to do. You need to like your own opinion and recognize that again, it's just an experiment. You're going to make the best choice or a good enough choice for now and then see what works.

Marika Humphreys:

My husband and I used to go on like weekend trips. That was something we did quite a lot back in the day and he would deciding like where to go or where to eat or what to see. He would always let him make all those decisions because I didn't want to have responsibility for it, because I was afraid that he would judge me. If it turned out it wasn't great. When I think back to that now I'm like that's crazy. But basically I was afraid of judgment. So in that situation with my husband, I let him make the decisions in those situations. It's crazy. With my husband, I let him make the decisions in those situations, it's crazy. Now I'm like, no, it's okay. I recognize people are going to judge. They judge, but when you're okay with your own opinion, it will matter less to you. That's, that's the only person that needs to be okay with it. It's your opinion.

Susan:

Hello, hello, susan, I really I was really looking forward to your class, even though this morning I have a surgery. I have a dental surgery, but I still wanted to come, so forgive me if I wasn't really sound really clear. Anyway, I was actually the recently. My struggle is can you hear me? Yes, yep, I can hear you. Great, my struggle is, of course, for the past probably six months, our focus, our life, our whole family is focusing on my husband's sickness, the treatment plan, and now we have decided, he has decided to go through surgery. So he just finishes surgery and he recover and he's back to work now.

Susan:

So, um, at the point, like you say, you said, you said something. Like you, you want to make decision, because if you keep on delaying those decision, it become a stress and it affects your, your life and my struggle. Okay, there are two things I want to do. I know we need to do something with our house. Okay, that's like landscaping part and that was a big thing, and, yeah, I keep postponing it because I feel like it's it's a big project and that's probably not the most important thing. It's still in my mind and my husband keep on saying we need to do something about it and I said I know, I know, but I, just before his surgery, I just don't have the capacity. Yeah, okay, so that was one thing. And then the other thing is I, I wanted to go home to Taiwan to visit my mom. So that's another thing. I don't know whether or not I could, I could make that decision. So when you're saying you really need to make a decision, but I'm thinking I really don't know, how yeah?

Marika Humphreys:

So let's take a look at the landscaping. You said that's something you and your husband were both bringing up, like we need to do something with the house and the landscaping, but for you, is this a project that would fall primarily on your shoulders?

Susan:

probably not, but I will be the one that decide what it look like. Yeah, that I design part. I would like I will be the the brain person.

Marika Humphreys:

Yeah, so what I would recommend, then, is what are your options there? Like, you can either proceed like first identify your options, just like we talked about right? You can either proceed with moving forward with the landscape project and you might even write down okay, I would have to call somebody and I have to think about design, just so you kind of know what that choice would look like. But that's one option. You could do nothing, which is which is where you are right. You're doing nothing, but you didn't deliberately decide to do nothing, right, so you're. So you're in this process of like we should, we should, we should, which is what's eating up the brain power, because you haven't deliberately decided.

Marika Humphreys:

And when I say do nothing, another way to do that is to say we're going to do nothing for now, for the next six months. Like, give yourself a timeframe. That is really helpful, because then your brain is like okay, I can shut down, and you might have to remind yourself okay, six months, we're going to shelve it. That's another way to think about it. Like we're going to put this decision on a show or this project on a shelf for six months. What else? So those are two choices. What are your other choices. Remember, we want at least three or five, just brainstorm. Give me another option for the landscaping project. Okay.

Susan:

What was the first one? The first one is to proceed with the project right.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, do it now, move forward, do it now. And meaning it now, and meaning, like you know, figure out what you want. I don't know if you want to hire somebody, whatever right, but think we could proceed with the project now. We could put it on a shelf. For I'm just giving you a time. I mean you make this your own, but six months, what else? Just brainstorm for a minute, what else? Like, what are other ways that you could handle this landscaping? There's always options. I can think of one right now. I want you to think of one. Really, you think outside the box a little bit. Remember there's always things that we often don't think about what else could you do?

Susan:

either do it or don't do it, or delay doing it, unless I sell my house could you get help?

Marika Humphreys:

could, could you get help to do it? It's an option, right, it is an option. I mean again thought about yeah, that's that's why you got. That's why where you are, I think, with this decision, is identify some options and get creative, consider things that you wouldn't consider normally, like in your mind's, like we either do it or we don't do it. Now I want you to get more options. Maybe you ask I don't know if you have grown childers or a friend you could get help. And I'm just, I'm just throwing stuff out there, right, because you want to have more options on the table when you're only thinking we do it or don't do it. That's where you're stuck, because you don't really like either of those options. It sounds like.

Marika Humphreys:

So you could get help from a friend or whoever you think, potentially, and you don't have to figure out the how. You just need to figure out some options. What else? Sometimes options are a combination of those things. Maybe you put it on the shelf for three months while you figure out who could help you. That's another option. You can combine some choices or sell the house. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, I mean, these need to be yours, right, they need to be your options, but don't not write it down because you think, oh, we're not going to do that. Give yourself those choices, because then you open yourself up. You always have choices. There's probably lots of others that we aren't even thinking about.

Marika Humphreys:

You could ask some friends for some ideas, but you want to kind of first just give yourself options and be willing to consider what you normally wouldn't. When we get in this binary thinking, I either do this or I don't, it's really limiting. So that's what I would do with that. Right, give yourself choices, give yourself options. You could do the same thing with your trip, with going to Taiwan. First, give yourself options. I could go now, I could stay home, I could go in six months, I could for a week and come back, but try to come up with a few of them and then you can look at them and knowing that you don't know how any of it's going to turn out we don't know the landscape is going to turn out Like there's no perfect choice here, it's just recognizing. But when you see your options, then you can recognize okay, well, what do I want from this? Maybe seeing your family is really, really important right now, or they could come here, I don't know.

Marika Humphreys:

You know I'm like again I'm coming up with I don't really know, but you want to first give yourself choices, and then that's where I would think about okay, what do I want? What's the end goal? The landscaping I don't know what your end goal is there. Is it just a personal decision? Maybe you want to sell the house down the line. Whatever it is, it bothers both of you really identify. What is your result Like?

Marika Humphreys:

Why do you want to do this? And get clear. And then how can we, knowing there is no right way and I'm not going to know how any of it turns out? That's where you choose and I can give yourself a timeframe and it's okay to delay as well, meaning I'm not going to decide this now, but I'm going to look at it again in a month. That's also another way to put your brain to rest. Give yourself a time and then you have to schedule it. Though I would schedule it literally, put it on your calendar or something, because it's not, we can do that as a delay tactic. But you really do want to say, okay, I'm going to not make this decision right now. We got too much going on. I'm gonna look at it in a month and redefine, or a week, thank you, whatever, thank you.

Susan:

I just thought about another option, because the reason why we want to do the landscaping project is because there is like a bold part in our front yard that whenever it just it was bold, we done all the all the grass on it and then after a few months it's full. So we just didn't like that part and right. But so one other option will be just to find out another way to fix that area and without thinking about the whole thing. Because I was thinking about the whole thing, because I was thinking about the whole thing, if I want to do the fixes, I might as well do the whole thing yes, see, okay, I just want to point out see, once you started getting your mind, thinking out what are my options, you came up with options yeah, thank you I was yeah, that's brilliant, instead of like we don't have to do the whole thing, we can do one section.

Marika Humphreys:

Really, susan, write those down, like write them down when we get off this call. Write down, just kind of while you're in that thought, because you want to get them out of your head too. I didn't talk about that a lot. I do talk about that in coaching a lot. We don't want to keep things in our head. You want to get it out of your head. Write it down, just stick it on paper. It doesn't have to be pretty, you just get it out of your head because your brain will want to keep it in your head and so you'll keep thinking about it.

Marika Humphreys:

This is why you want to schedule.

Marika Humphreys:

If you're going to delay that decision or reevaluate it, you want to schedule that time so you don't have to keep remembering. Oh, I got to think about that again. So yeah, brilliant, right, so that's another option, so you don't need endless options, at least right now, but you do want to have more than two. Either do it or don't.

Marika Humphreys:

Now, you've already got a third, a third solid option, which is we do it, but we only do a small section. And a fourth option could be okay, we do it, we only do a small section and we don't do anything for the next three months because we're recovering from surgery and whatever. So that's another option. Got it, thank you, you're welcome. You are welcome.

Vidya:

Yeah, vidya, do you have a comment or question? Both, like Susan's example of doing landscaping or not, or something like that. That's one type of decision-making, but when? What are your recommendations about? When people have to make their career choices, if they have two, three different options, possibilities, because that's a very serious thing. It completely changes your life's tour, right, the path you take. So, and how do you figure it out? How do do you? How do you call that storm that goes on in your head Okay, this is no, this has these positive things, but there is always something negative about something, right. So, and then, how? How to call that and say, okay, this is the most. Looks like this is the one that I should follow.

Marika Humphreys:

So I will. I want to offer to you first that decisions about our careers, where we live, moving cross country, moving cross world they are no different than any other decisions and we give them weight. You just said to me those are big decisions and, yes, obviously they're bigger than what you're going to choose to eat for breakfast. Okay, but we still can't know the outcome and, yes, there might be the consequences, right, of those type of decisions are bigger. If I choose this job and I don't like it after a certain amount of time, then I'm going to have to get a new job. But they're not. There's nothing that you can't make a new decision on, and the thinking that this is't make a new decision on, and the thinking that this is like a super important decision so how do I make sure I'm making the right one is what's going to hold you back. So I first want to just show you that you're thinking right now. This is a more important decision and it is a bigger decision in the sense that the consequence might be harder to change. Right, I have something for breakfast. I can have something different for breakfast tomorrow, landscaping less of a life altering decision, but they're still just decisions and I will share like.

Marika Humphreys:

I think I spent most of my life trying to make the right choices with my careers. What I did where I lived drove myself crazy, because you can't live a perfect life. The thinking that you can is what will hold you back now. So that's the first part, right, but knowing that you can still make new choices and sometimes in life we have to make decisions only to discover that's not what we want. And I'll give you an example. My sister is an example of this.

Marika Humphreys:

So we grew up in a small town. She lived there and worked there all her life. This was in California, northern California. She got an opportunity with her job to move to Texas work for Apple. It was an amazing opportunity. She'd never lived out of California before, let alone she hadn't really traveled much. So she's like this is an amazing opportunity. She took it, she moved, she hated it. She didn't hit the job. She didn't like where she lived in texas. And guess what she did? After a year she moved back. But that was not a fun time in her life. She was kind of miserable, she was alone, she had a health issue. I'm not saying that was good time, but how could she know. There's no way she could know that. Guess what she knows.

Marika Humphreys:

Now, when we're willing to quote, unquote, fail, we will be much more forgiving. And sometimes we do have to fail big. They always say fail because we tend to think of failure as bad. But again, you go to any CEO of any successful company and they will tell you lists of failures, big failures they've had right, because that's how they learn. Those business owners of successful companies have failed several times before they got it right. I use that example because I'm in business now as working for myself.

Marika Humphreys:

There's endless information out there of how you should do things, but you still don't know what's right for you and you sometimes just have to choose in order to find out what's right. And then the last thing I'll say about this is really identifying your choices. That's a big step. Write them down Now. This goes to like concrete steps, right. So write down what are my options as far as a job?

Marika Humphreys:

You talked about choosing a job or a job choice. What are my options? Identify three to five and then you can do a pros and cons list. I didn't talk about that a lot because I talked more about mindset, but I do think a pros and cons list is good to do. It's very helpful, helps you clear up your thinking on it and then think about what's your result. What kind of job do I want? Is working environment important to me? Is money important to me? Is being able to work from home important to me? What are the things I want there?

Marika Humphreys:

And that's where you have to give yourself grace.

Marika Humphreys:

You can only know so much. And then you have to choose. But again, going back to the cost of indecision. When you stay in that indecision, that is costing you time and energy too, and it's good to just recognize that, because the biggest thing that will get you off the fence or if you're advising someone to get them off the fence is to is to come back to.

Marika Humphreys:

There is no wrong choices here. It's just a choice. It may be a big consequence, right, like I don't have to go to work. There might be a consequence to that, but it's still just a choice, and sometimes we have to make choices and to see the consequences. And then we get very clear, right, because we get new information. You choose the job, you've identified your values, which you want, you get in the job and we have to move forward in order to get new information. And then when I talk to people and that happens in companies kind of a lot at least the bigger companies and people really identify yeah, they don't want to be in that environment, but they only know that because they found themselves in it you know.

Vidya:

So yeah, and there are things that are even beyond that that can happen in life. From the left field you can get hit with things, For sure.

Marika Humphreys:

For sure. So I will tell you the story with my sister where she was living. Later, after she moved back from Texas about two years later, our hometown burned down Like campfire. It was in the news in 2018 in Northern California. Since then, a lot of Californian towns have burnt down. But I mean, and now we live in Washington state, so she relocated again because she literally lost her house.

Marika Humphreys:

So yeah talk about things not being foreseen. Who? Nobody expects things happen in life, and I really find it helpful to remind myself of that a lot of times, because we have this idea that we want to make right choices and all we can do is just our best at any given moment, knowing that either life's going to throw us a curveball or things might not turn out the way we wanted, and that's okay. That's what makes us stronger. It's not fun, it's really not fun, but it does make us stronger. It's those quote unquote bad decisions that make us stronger and clarify what we want in our life.

Vidya:

So you live and learn.

Marika Humphreys:

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Vidya:

That's where that saying comes from yes, yes, thank you very much. Very, very, very good, really thought provoking.

Marika Humphreys:

Good.

Vidya:

Yes, good.

Marika Humphreys:

I'm so glad.