How to Make the Hard Decisions

A funny thing happens when you do the hard and gritty personal work – the wrestling with your insecurities, taking risks, creating boundaries (that many people don’t like), being scared and doing it anyway, cultivating compassion towards the Mean People, discovering your Inner Badass; opening to the suffering in the world and thinking about how to make a difference in your own unique way, and knowing your own suffering is real and worth tending to as well…

…when you start working towards all those things: You start getting what you want.

Or at least what you think you want.

This can be a kind of test, a final exam of, “How well do you know thyself?”

I decided to write this piece because a client of mine (let’s call her Emily) recently posted in our Facebook group that she is being asked to step into an even greater role in her profession, one that she was surprised to even be considered for, one where she would stand side by side next to badasses in her field. Yet she wasn’t sure what to do. While it was an incredible opportunity, it was also going to create more work, less free time, less opportunity for self-care, and more stress. And a big part of her work in our Adventure Mastermind was putting her needs first (for once). But a part of her really wanted this, and liked being acknowledged for all her hard work thus far.

She wanted to know how to navigate making these Hard Decisions. The Big Decisions. The Unclear Decisions.

I’ve always said it’s easier to say “No” when its a “Hell No!” and is really obvious. It gets a lot trickier when it’s a “maybe,” “sort of” or “good enough.” Same could go for Yesses.

In case you, like Emily, are presented with a test from the Universe, one with a temptation that seems so good on so many levels yet feels not-so-good on many others, here are a few of the tips we reviewed:

How to Make Hard Decisions

:: Create clarity around your Ideal Life. Create detailed lists for: 1) how you want to show up in the world, how you want to feel, how you want to BE 2) What you want to be doing with your time, including work, play, spirituality…all those important arenas 3)What you want to have – in detail. Home/shelter, environment, what kinds of friends and community, family?

:: Write about your Perfect Day – how do you want to feel and what do you want to do form the moment your eyes open to when you fall asleep? Since I’m a big fan of the dreamworld, I even advocate for being clear about what you want to dream about or use your dreamtime for!

Doing the 2 above exercises can help you remember what it is your trying to create in your life – then you can step back and see which decision would best move you towards that. Sit with this question – aka The Hard Decision – you have, and ask your Wise Self (your most Magnificent Self, your Self who has already achieved everything you could ever dream of), “Does this decision move me closer to my ideal life?”

:: Get out of your head, and get in touch with what “yes” feels like in your body and what “no” feels like. Spend a couple of days feeling into what is a Yes and what is a No in your body. You’ll start to learn that your body has very specific ways to tell you something is going to be bad for you – from food to people to movies etc. And ways to tell you something is awesome and a hellz yes!

Which decision feels like a Hellz Yes! in your body?

:: You can also use tools like oracles or Angel cards etc to help tap into your intuition on the matter. When we leave some things up to Mystery, it can be interesting to observe what comes up and how it stirs our hearts and minds.

:: Remember not to get caught up what society says you “should” be doing. Don’t get caught up in the accolades, promotion status, ego-driven feel-good vibes (which are always so short-lived and precarious, because they rely on others’ perceptions of us). Ask your Wise Self about if the whole shebang (the life changes that would occur, the schedules and colleagues etc) actually feeds your needs. Your SOUL’s needs.

:: And of course, because ultimately I’m more of a Death Coach than a Life Coach 😉 … Remember – life is short. We are all going to die and we don’t know when. No time for bullshit.

People always want me to work more because I am good at what I do. I know to say, “No, but thank you for offering!” because I know the level of freedom I need in my life and what makes me happy. If I wasn’t so clear on that, I’d be saying “Yes” way more often, because on paper, only an idiot turns down the offers I get. But my heart and soul – and my body’s knowing – they watch out for me, and I can’t go wrong.

I hope you can get more clear with these exercises. Print this out and tuck it away somewhere. I know that with all the hard work you’re doing to cultivate radiant inner confidence in yourself, you will someday be given The Test to see if you really know yourself, what you crave, desire, and long for…or if you’re easily swayed by The Distractions.

For more Clarity + Courage tools like these, donate any amount you like and dive into my acclaimed Ultimate Confidence Course. I’m working on a project to help mamas and babies in Nepal, and all proceeds go to this amazing work!

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Days 19, 20 and 21 – Freedom or Security? Duh.

I had a great past three days which were also crazy busy, so thanks for your patience as I catch up here! Lots of things went on…from skiing to gathering with friends to contemplating a Full On Change: selling my house in Ashland. A re-cap:

Day 19: skied at local mountain (aptly named Mt. Ashland)! It was raining in town, and I went uphill and it turned to snow. Skiing was awesome at our little mountain, only 30 minutes away. My telemark turns are getting better. My left knee is a little sore but still usable. And I slept supah well that night;)

Day 20: Pizza and Champagne Party at my friends’ house. AND I walked there. So much more fun than driving!

Day 21: Simplifying. Hmmmm. I am a big proponent of this. But I am not as good as I used to be at implementing this. I admit that have created a pretty sweet life. However, I think I have a few too many forms of shelter. Here they are (I apologize for the crazy layout. I can’t figure out how to get them to line up. NOT my Zone of Genius):

 

Archival image of my megamyd on a sea kayaking trip in Baja (during 911 BTW. Didn’t know it happened for 3 days!)

 

My kick-ass Marmot Thor 4-season tent…and my beautiful friend Kristen

 

 

A small but much-loved 480 sqft condo in Telluride

 

my sweet cottage in Ashland
And yes, I do consider my trusty Subaru Outback as a form of shelter. I love sleeping in the back of “Dapple”

 

 

 

 

 

 

So…embarrassing. This is excessive. For me, at least.

One thing that is very important to me is free time. That’s where so much Full On living happens! And when you have lots of “things,” you tend to have to work more, which cuts into your free time. So, I’ve embarked on a mission to cut back on “things” to help free up more time so I can play, love, and connect more often during my days.

I cannot do without my two tents. They serve two very important purposes…one is lightweight and the other is bombproof, and both help me play in the mountains. My Subi, Dapple, I still need to drive. Plus, all three of those are already paid for.

So I’d like to get rid of a mortgage. Who wouldn’t?!

I thought a long time about it. I’ve been thinking about it since last summer, actually.

The winner of the “I’m going to simplify” mortgage dump is (drummmmmmrrrrrollllll) the Ashland Cottage!

Do I HAVE to sell it? No. Would I get foreclosed on if I didn’t? No. Am I stressed about paying the mortgage? No.

Will I lose a lot of money? Yes.

So why do it? Because of FREEDOM.

Some people value security. Some people value freedom. Many people value both. I happen to value freedom more than the average Josephine. It was fun having a secure life for the past few years (did I mention only have had one full-time job EVER and that wasn’t until I was 34?). I showed myself I could do it. But now I am ready to have my freedom back.

And it is much harder to have freedom with debt. Normally a mortgage is considered “good” debt. But when you hang out thinking of ways you can be so much more free without the “good” debt, it doesn’t seem so good anymore. Tim Ferris mentions the freedom that a mobile lifestyle can give you is his awesomely-named book The Four Hour Work Week. I have understood that for years, which is why I intentionally lived out of my car for so many of them.

So, I called my realtor today, and decided to put my home on the market. I’ll eventually look for a property I can get without a mortgage, or rent a sweet little place for a while. But in the meantime, the money I lose from selling my place when the market is what it is doesn’t seem so bad. I think about how I’ve had a lovely place to live for the last few years (rent would have gone to someone else anyway), I will still be able to be here with my friends and community, AND I will have more freedom to work more or work less, connect more, have more meaningful moments instead of “having” to work to pay my mortgage, and my life will be more…simple. More options open up.

I realize that many would not choose this, and usually for them security or not losing money is more important than freedom. And that’s cool. It just makes a good point of how one needs to know what you really value, what you really want, and what living Full On looks like for you. This needs to be CLEAR. That way, your decisions are much easier to make, and the path to take is more obvious. Its so much easier when you know yourself and what you want (and don’t want)! (BTW you can download my free Getting Clear Guide to Your Ziji Life by clicking here).

I also reminded myself I don’t HAVE to sell it. I am in a very good place. If this starts to feel like the wrong decision, I’ll change my mind. But I have to start somewhere. My being is screaming GIVE ME FREEDOM! and I must heed its call. Always remember you have a choice. Always remember you can change your mind. But NEVER let fear stop you from taking action. Fear is different that instinct and intuition. More on that later.

Full On.

 

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, guide and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Jedi Juice™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her Full-On 365 blog posts stem from her commitment to living full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download  her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting FreedomJunkie.com (note: it’s new look will be up to rock your world soon)! Sign up for her next FREE Jedi Juice Training call on the Law of Attraction at FreedomJunkie.com/jedi-juice

F.O.M.O (Fear of Missing Out) and Other Four-Letter WordsThat Keep Us From Making Decisions

Those of us who strive to live Wild Awake often tend to have a lot going on at any given moment–if not outwardly, at least in our heads. There are just so many bright shiny objects seemingly screaming for our attention. And they all seem so important, FUN, urgent, exciting, or fleeting. There’s family and friends, work projects, movies, concerts, hikes, symphonies, potlucks,dance parties, climbs, plays, river runs, sunsets, star gazing, wine tasting, traveling, books to read, and SO MUCH MORE! And when it comes to the big picture of what we should DO with our lives, our purpose, there can be even more confusion! Should I set out to be an entrepreneur? Should I stay at home with the kids or go back to work part time? Is my calling to be a teacher or an inventor? An engineer or a ski bum? Should I take the risk of leaving my job that is sucking me bone dry? There are so many decisions…so how do we balance it all? First, let’s get clear on the
question.

What do I want?
When taking in all our options, we often feel overwhelmed and end up attempting to do it all, or do nothing at all. While F.O.F (Fear of Failure) is often at the root of doing nothing, for those prone to the former, my friends introduced me to the term F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out). FOMO leads to very busy schedules, very little sleep, very little sitting still, and can certainly also lead to a whole lot of good times. It seemed we often fell victim to this “affliction” of FOMO. We tried to do it all due to a fear of missing out…but missing out on what?

If we’re considering FOMO, what exactly is it that we are afraid of when we try to pack in so much? For many it is a fear of missing out on that one thing that would have really lit up our spirit. It isn’t always easy to tell in advance what that might be, so we just pack it all in. While the realization that life is precious and thus wanting to make the most of it is a beautiful practice, eventually it becomes clear that it doesn’t mean packing in every single moment with more and more events. But how do we narrow things down?

Decisions are harder to make when we aren’t clear about what we want. At the same time, the question of “what do I want?” can be so ambiguous. In considering all this, I wondered if my particular FOMO was not so much fearing that I’d miss out on “what I want” per se, but rather a resurfacing of my most dreaded childhood fear: the Fear of Being Bored (FOBB). As a kid I would cry from from boredom. I didn’t care about chocolate chip cookies or barbie dolls so much as I just didn’t want to be bored. It slayed me.

What would excite me?
Tim Ferriss says in The 4 Hour Work Week, “The opposite of happiness is boredom…The question you should be asking isn’t, ‘What do I want?’ or ‘What are my goals?’ but ‘What would excite me?'” He even refers to ADD as “Adventure Deficit Disorder.” Most psychological theories and spiritual traditions agree that we humans do the things we do because of one common goal: to be happy. If we strive for happiness, then what, conversely, are we avoiding? What are we fearing? Why does Tim think its opposite is boredom?

Let’s consider some alternatives for the opposite of happiness. What about sadness? Well, it doesn’t really seem to be the opposite of happiness. There are people who are not happy who aren’t necessarily sad. Same goes for anger. And anxiety. And fear. Sadness, fear, anxiety and anger…these are generally transient emotions you can have even while generally being happy. However, when someone is totally lacking happiness, they seem to have lost the spark. They have lost what excites them. I can start to see where Tim is going here…perhaps it is that we want to avoid being bored.

One of the most common things I hear from my coaching clients is that they want more. Not more stuff, but more zest. Their current jobs, relationships, or lifestyles are missing something. I began to notice that whether artist or engineer, student or CEO, climber or knitter: the most common way this unmet need is phrased is a lack of creativity in their lives. Things feel flat. Dull. And this doesn’t feel right! Why doesn’t this feel right? I believe it is because our baseline is to be creative, whether you think you’re a creative type or not. Our baseline is to be excited by life, whether that’s in quiet moments with our families, starting that business you’ve been dreaming about, going back to school, climbing an exposed rockface, seeing a project come to fruition, dressing up to hit the town, taking that year-long trip around the world, or heading out on a date with your partner. Even falling asleep after a long productive day can feel exciting!

To be “excited” by life doesn’t mean you need to always be jumping up and down and dancing all over the place (although those who know me would say that is how I tend to manifest excitement). Rather, it is a feeling of aliveness, of being Wild Awake, no matter what you are doing.

Live the Questions
So, my friends…if you’ve got FOMO, FOF, ADD or FOBB or any other such three and four-letter words, instead of asking “What do I want?” try asking yourself, “What would truly excite me?” Give it some time, and space, and silence. The soft still voice in you will speak (or shout!) and you will know. Sometimes its not what we want to hear. But you really do know deep down what excites you–on a day to day level, and a life purpose level. And if no answer arrives just yet, then do as Rilke says: “Live the questions.” But whatever you do, don’t ignore it. There is a saying, “The quality of your life is directly related to the quality of the questions you ask of yourself.” So keep asking! And allow the answers to shift and flow.

With summer, even more opportunities to experience life blossom, and you get to practice asking these questions each day. When you’re focused on doing what truly excites you in the moment, the decisions around what to do will be more clear, and you will be more present with whatever and whomever you are spending your precious life moments with.