Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another Mindset show. I’m your host, Dr. Kasey Jo. My goal with this podcast is to take the science of mindset and behavior change and distill it down into actionable takeaways for you. Together we’re gonna unpack research around motivations, self-sabotage, willpower, and so much more, and we’re going to take all of that and translate it into strategies you can immediately apply to your health fitness.

Relationships, business, marketing clients, all of the things. But just to be clear, it’s not all serious and Sy around here. We’re gonna have a ton of fun too, and I’m so excited to share all of this with you. All right, let’s go ahead and get into the episode. Hello my friends. Welcome back to not another mindset show.

Today we’re talking about making decisions. Making decisions, and I’m not really just talking about what am I going to wear today, where are we going to eat for dinner? But more or less those bigger decisions in your life that feel like life or death scenarios where if I choose one direction, it’s wrong.

If I choose the other direction, it’s going to be right. Have you ever struggled with making a decision before? If you haven’t? I’d be very surprised. Or maybe if you feel like, oh, this isn’t really for me, I don’t really struggle with making decisions. Perhaps it’s just because you don’t make the decisions because you’re scared you’re going to make the wrong choice.

And listen, I have been there. I’ve been there a lot. I don’t really, honestly, here’s the thing though, growth mindset perspective, I don’t think you can really ever sidestep. Big decision making and risk taking and still be successful. I think that that’s so much just part of it. It’s part of growth and development and learning and success.

You know how they say your greatest strength is also your biggest weakness or biggest strength is your greatest weakness, whatever. You know what I’m saying? Mine is. Mine is definitely trying to get ahead of mistakes. So there’s been many times in my life, whether it’s through business, through relationships, through life decisions where I overanalyze, big surprise, I overanalyze.

I’m like way too logical trying to see, you know, pros and cons, lists and all of the things because I’m worried I am going to make a mistake. I think, again, greatest strength because if I am constantly trying to get ahead of mistakes, I’m thinking, I’m projecting out into the future. I’m thinking what could happen?

What would happen if I did this or that, or this other thing, or if I took this path versus this other, like really trying to play out the script in all of the different directions. I do think that that’s a big reason and plays a big role in my success, but at the same time, it can be paralyzing. It can be paralyzing.

So when you have to make a big decision, what do you do? What’s your first go-to strategy? Typically, you know, people are overthinkers. That’s not, I’m not alone in that, and I can say that pretty confidently. You run through all the scenarios, you gather more information, play out the script, pros and cons list like I was talking about.

Maybe you lean on others and seek advice. You find someone who has made a similar decision and figure out how they came to that conclusion. What we’re doing here though. Is really not making a decision at that point. We are trying to find. Find the decision in something or in someone else. So to what degree are we just wanting to offset the responsibility of making the decision to something or someone else rather than just trusting ourselves?

Because if we can give that responsibility to something or someone else and it doesn’t go the way that we wanted to, then we’re not the ones to blame. That person is chat, GPT is to blame instead. And that feels better. That feels safer than thinking I’m making this decision and if it goes wrong, then that comes back down on me.

And that is actually kind of a fixed mindset way of looking at things. If you don’t believe in your own ability to make the correct air quotes decision on your own, and if you outsource and it goes poorly, then it’s not on you, and that feels better. Rather than just believing in ourselves, it’s a fixed mindset about our own abilities to make a correct decision.

Right. And I’m, I’m calling myself out here too, as I just said at the beginning with my greatest strength slash weakness. So an example here, I. For all my health and fitness coaches out there, since I know that’s a large portion of my audience, it feels better if we or our clients are blaming genetics for inability to lose weight.

Because then if the attempt at weight loss doesn’t end up working, you lose it. You gain it back, you go through that cycle, then we can offset the responsibility to, oh, that’s just my genetics rather. Than our own efforts. So even though I tried a bunch and it didn’t work, it doesn’t matter ’cause it’s just my genetics that feels better.

It feels safer. The problem with this is if we truly don’t believe that weight loss or correct decision making is possible for us, then you might just get stuck there. And even if you do try, you won’t really put in. Lot of effort. You won’t do all of the necessary things go out of your way to really develop skills on your own.

Because what’s the point? What’s the point? If I can’t, if I’m not going to be successful, if there’s something that’s holding me back that’s out of my control, then suddenly it makes no sense to even really try as hard or again, go out of your way to do something different. Because again, what is the point?

And that’s what’s going to make you stuck there, make you stuck there when it comes to weight loss, make you stuck there when it comes to making a decision. Maybe you just don’t. It’s that’s analysis paralysis type of situation. So whether you want to lose weight or you want to get better at trusting your ability to make correct decisions, it really does start with your mindset.

You have to believe in your abilities. To do so and take full responsibility, even if it’s uncomfortable. And I know that’s so much. I say that out loud and I know, I know, I know it’s easier said than done. But here’s the thing, if you never go after a goal, whether that’s weight loss or otherwise, all you’re doing is guaranteeing one thing.

You won’t be successful. You have to be okay with failing. To even have a chance at being successful. So coming back around to this idea of decision making specifically and how we tend to overthink and lean on other people, there’s nothing wrong with using friends. Having a therapist, using them as sounding boards to help you arrive at what you feel like is the best decision.

And like talking things out can be really helpful. And I have recently proved this to myself that, you know, just letting it like linger internally rather than putting it out into the 3D and talking through it with friends really does help, but it can add to that analysis paralysis, especially if you’re having other opinions from other people, like come into the mix.

So with all of that though, to what degree are you simply just not trusting yourself because ultimately the best or correct decision. Is your choice. It’s not your friend’s choice. It’s not your therapist’s choice. It’s not Chachi PTs choice. Regardless of the outcome, you assign the meaning to that outcome.

You decide whether or not it was a correct decision in the end. So we’re trying so hard to find the correct decision. The reality is whatever the decision is that you make, you get to decide whether or not it was correct. And I know that’s like kind of mind twisty, but it’s the truth. So that really naturally just brings me back to mindset, because your mindset is the lens that you take to see the world through.

It’s how you assign meaning to things. It’s how you make sense of things. So although mindset remains the foundation, there are. A lot of other variables at play when it comes to making a decision. We overthink because we don’t wanna make the wrong decision and later regret it. So we try to weigh all of the options and run the gamut of possibilities beforehand, and perhaps because we don’t trust ourselves enough to just choose, like, could it be that simple?

Could it be that simple that you just make the decision and then whatever comes after that? You just assign meaning to whatever comes after as this is what was supposed to happen. I really think that it could be that simple, but unfortunately I’m not really sure that we’re wired that way because our brains carry some pretty old software.

Like think back to like caveman cave woman days where decisions were often actually life or death. Like should I eat this berry? Should I move my family? To a different cave, is that going to be the best solution? Because it’s all coming down to like survival at that point. And so today, although we’re not choosing whether or not we should eat this berry or move our family to a different cave, excuse my silly examples.

We’re still kind of wired that way, that if we make this decision, is it going to be the end of us? That’s, that’s often what it feels like with these big decisions. So in today’s world, these decisions can feel so hard because our brain is still interpreting it the same way, and ultimately your brain is just trying to help you survive.

So we seek decision making information from others because we trust their insights, obviously, and. Perhaps we don’t trust our own enough and this can like kind of go down a rabbit hole of trusting your intuition and gut feelings and not allowing too many cooks in the kitchen and all of that. But also we’ve kind of been directed to offset the responsibility of decision making our entire lives.

And it makes me, it makes me think, like when I say that when we were young. How often were you really making decisions for yourself? In fact, like I think about when I was growing up, like really wasn’t allowed to make very many decisions myself. I grew up with very strict parents. Like we’re talking be home at 9:30 PM on senior prom night, type of strict.

So if we were essentially groomed. To get used to other people making decisions for us. To what degree are we just carrying that into adulthood? But it’s all things that I do believe, and again, this is like a, a podcast for myself as well. I do believe that it doesn’t have to be so complicated, and that if we really just tune in and think about our future and what makes the most sense, what feels the best for us?

And I know that kind of gets a little woowoo at this point, but. To what degree are we just like overcomplicating it with more people and sitting on chat GPT for two hours, not saying I haven’t done that before and working through all of that when the reality is we just need to like trust what we’re feeling and trust what makes the most sense in the moment, and then whatever comes after that.

We will decide it was the correct way to go about it. And a lot of times, as you, as you know, and many of you have probably been in these situations before, where you don’t realize that the outcome was what it needed to be at the time. So even when things were not necessarily your decision, they were other people’s decision.

And in the moment it felt like this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Even then, you go on with your life months, years down the line and you’re like, damn, that was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. So those things happen. And we’re able to like reassign meaning to things as time goes on.

But when it comes to making, when we’re in charge of making that decision and it’s the responsibility falls on us, then suddenly it feels. Like we need to make sure we choose the right thing in that moment. But when we’re not in charge of making the decision, we don’t get to choose. Later on, we find a way to make sense of that situation and why it did happen to us.

So why can’t we do that with ourselves more so in the moment. This entire episode, this relatively short episode. I’m gonna end it off here because I just, I really want you to think about this more. Um, this isn’t a podcast to tell you like how to make better decisions or how to become a good decision maker, and more or less about your, your mindset when it comes to making decisions and where in your life you put off making decisions because you’re worried about making a mistake or making the wrong decision.

And how can we better arrive at a place where it doesn’t matter. The decision that we make, it doesn’t make, doesn’t matter the path that we choose. And instead just being more, just accepting more of what we do decide for ourselves, and just letting it be and letting it ride, and seeing where that takes us.

So literally, I’m like, I need to go back and listen to this entire episode myself, just not me playing my own voice. Next time I’m trying to make a big decision. Um, and also reminding ourselves that risk is so important, obviously to some degree, like calculated risk, but just like, don’t overcalculate.

Okay. Um, risk is so important for living like a fulfilling life and being successful and doing things that you have always wanted to do. And sometimes you just gotta jump before you know what’s at the bottom, which is terrifying. But how often do we actually know we don’t? And if you just wanna play it safe all the time with always knowing what’s at the, the bottom, like how, where are you actually gonna go?

You’re just gonna stay at the top. I. Of the cliff. I’m like trying my best with this analogy and just looking around wondering what’s down there Like that sounds boring. That sounds boring too. You don’t wanna just live never knowing. So at some point, you just gotta do it without knowing and see what happens, and then accept the result and confirm with yourself that that was the best thing for you in that moment.

So all this said, the best way to start trusting yourself, your intuition, whatever, is to just decide. Just do it and over time you’ll see how things pan out and how they, how they do, how they pan out is entirely up to you and what you do with that outcome. There really are no wrong decisions when you’re at like a crossroads.

It’s just the decision that you chose in the moment and that my friends is the correct decision. Okay. I hope you enjoyed this quick episode. Kind of like philosophical type of, meta way of thinking episode, but I hope it did get you thinking and thinking about decisions you’ve made in your life and reflecting on them, any decisions you’re currently sitting on, and I hope it was helpful.

I. Please let me know though, because sometimes with these types of episodes I’m like, I hope my people are actually getting something out of it. So if you enjoyed this episode, if it, it got you thinking in a different direction, if maybe it’s helping you make a decision, please, please, please let me know.

I would love to hear from you if you’re, you would be so willing you can leave a review. We do choose winners every single month to get free DIY programs from me if you leave a review, but you have to leave the review. Screenshot it real quick and toss it into the review form, which is in the show notes of every single episode.

So please do. That means the world to me also just makes it possible for the show to get out to more people when I have more reviews. So, or you know, just shoot me a DM and talk to me about it. ’cause I love that too. Okay? I’m gonna leave you with that. Um, and best of luck. With all of your decision making.

I’ll see you next time. And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Not Another Mindset show. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you get notified of the next one, because if you’re anything like me, if the episodes aren’t popping up for you automatically, you’ll keep forgetting to come back to the show even if you really, really enjoyed it.

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Alright, my friends, that is all I have for you this time. I so appreciate you being here and love to see you prioritizing your growth. I’ll see you next time.