Whether you’re an internal processor, an overthinker, or a little indecisive, it can be difficult to decide your next step. It might be a business decision, quitting your job, or a myriad of other microdecisions during the day, if you’re a more introverted type, there’s a good chance that you spend a lot of your energy just trying to work out what comes next.
If you’re not please email me and let me know your secret 😉
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Learning To Love Your Deep Thinking
You might not realise it, in fact, I don’t think I did for a really long time, but we can see ourselves as overthinkers and consider it a bad thing. If you’re anything like me, you might have grown up being told you were too quiet, too indecisive, that you spend too much time in your head.
But it’s your choice what you focus on.
You can absolutely believe those things and view your life and business and all the decisions you make day-to-day as challenging for you because you need to think it through and it might take you longer than others. But what if you considered that your need for time and space, your deep thinking, and your ability to make an intentional decision was not better or worse than how anyone else might decide, but just different?
Here are some ways to work with your deep thinking mind and decide your next step from an empowered and energised place.
1. Step Back To Decide Your Next Step
If you find yourself facing a decision and getting all up in your head, trying to think it through might work, but often causes more indecision and overthinking. This is – I’m sure – where the saying, “Not being able to see the woods from the trees” comes from.
All your energy is up around your head. There’s a good chance you’re almost completely disconnected from your body. That frazzled feeling starts to creep in. More thoughts take over. And, before you know it, you’re spiralling. Or – as my friend Jo and I call it – squirrelling. That feeling that suddenly everything is urgent and you’re behind, failing, terrible, the worst.
Step back. Take a breath. Go for a walk or take a shower. Call a friend. Draw your energy back down into your core and into the Earth to reconnect and reground. It can take just a moment to suddenly feel that frazzled state melt away.
2. Get It Out Of Your Head
When all those thoughts are playing on a loop in your mind, of course it starts to feel overwhelming. The longer you try to hold onto them, the faster they fade away or just add more decisions or concerns to the equation.
Write it down, however works best for you. It might be journaling it out and letting all the thoughts and emotions come too, make a list of all the things, mindmap, whatever it is that gets it out of your head and onto paper (or some digital equivalent, I love Trello)
3. Be Okay With Making A Mess
For some reason when I think of decision making and business building, there feels like this invisible pressure for it to be linear. Am I alone here? It’s been a real focus for me this year to embrace a cyclical approach to my business, the same as the seasons, and also understand that sometimes we have to make a mess before that clarity comes. It’s a much better place to decide your next step from.
Recently I made a big mess in my business, pulling apart my website, offerings, back end systems and reworking a lot of it. It’s like when you’re decluttering and you have to get everything out before discarding or re-organising things. Can you be okay with sitting in the messiness sometimes, knowing that it will start to come together?
4. Listen To Yourself And Let Go Of What Everyone Else Is Doing
This year, more than ever, we have been experiencing some collective unravelling. But our personal experiences and circumstances have still been individual within that. I don’t think I’ve ever cared less about what anyone else is doing than this year, putting blinders on and focusing just on my mission and my message. It’s also important to listen to what we need and let go of expectations that it ‘should’ look a certain way.
Take a moment, even now, where are you putting pressure on yourself that you can take it off? What can you drop or say no to that will immediately increase your happiness? Who or what do you need to follow or unsubscribe from so that you can tune more into your work and your alignment?
5. Decide Your Next Step And Move Forward
It can be hard to just make a decision. I’m a Pisces and notorious for being terribly indecisive, but I’m not letting that be my story any longer. When you get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper in some way, you can get perspective from everything going on in there. You can discern what is true, what is a story you’re ready to let go of, what you’re most excited (or frustrated) about. And then choose something.
If it turns out that, in six months time, you change your mind. That’s fine. You adjust course. But we can get so caught up in the decision process, the overthinking, and trying to make sense of it. Sometimes we just need to close our eyes, point at the list, and then go with it. At any point in time, you can shift your focus. You can drop your idea and pick up another. But nothing works if we don’t actually get started.
I’ve found it helpful to create a Projects board in Trello where I list my current projects, what’s next, and future ideas. It helps to remember not everything needs to be done NOW, but that there is a plan in place. Every business decision I’ve made has led me somewhere, and I’ve learnt something. Even if it wasn’t what I went in expecting.
Let’s Go
I have seen far too many quiet, sensitive souls who are excited about their business fall into a hole of indecision and overthinking. We can worry and fret that we might make a mistake or the wrong choice, but we will never really know unless we try. Being an entrepreneur, or business owner, is living in a world of uncertainty, failing forward, and adjusting expectations.
The more that we can embrace this, find safety and security in our foundations, our energy, and our nervous system, the more we can be okay with the unknown and confidently decide your next step and move forward.
I have always found having accountability and someone to talk it out with infinitely valuable. If you’re looking for some extra support, I have 2 spots available for coaching for the rest of the year. Let’s chat and see if this is the right option for you.
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