Episode 92: Overcoming Confusion and Making Decisions

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price, you might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to episode 92 of the 100% awesome podcast. I'm April Price and I want to welcome you to the podcast today. I am so happy to be here, how are you? For me it feels like it has been a difficult month, a pain filled month. But I also think that that has presented a lot of opportunities for me to get coached, and to coach myself. And I feel like that is leading me to believe some really new thoughts about myself that are helping me put all of these challenging things to good use. It's like forced me to decide new things, to think about myself, and my life. It's requiring me to think about myself differently, my capacity differently, my business differently. And I definitely feel like a different person at the end of this month, than at the beginning. Which is like so exciting, even with all of the challenge, maybe because of all the challenge, right?

And like, just as an aside, what's even better about that is I feel like the shifts that I've had in my own beliefs have really impacted my coaching as well. Like right now I feel like there is just such powerful coaching going on in my practice, and my clients are getting such big changes, and that is amazing to witness. So, on Tuesdays, right before I record this podcast, I have my group coaching session, and it is the coolest thing I have ever done. I love it so much! Watching each other be coached is powerful for our brains. It changes your brain to be able to see your own thoughts in someone else's head, and then to recognize the flaws in it. And it is such a privilege to be in that room with those women. I hope you are planning to be in the next group, because as one of my clients texted me this morning, "It is life changing." And I could not agree more.

Okay, anyway, as I said, I have been getting coached a lot this month, and it's interesting to notice that I sometimes notice myself not wanting to get coached, or really judging myself, or needing to be coached, right? Like I could tell, my thoughts were not serving me. I felt a lot of emotional pain, right? But I thought that, that was kind of embarrassing, or shameful, that I should, like, find the thoughts, and figure it out myself. Like I was sort of telling myself, obviously, I shouldn't be having these thoughts, right? And I thought, maybe you are having the same experience. And I just want to speak to that for a minute. So, when we come to thought work, and we realize that our thoughts are creating our experience, we assume then automatically that the thoughts we are having are wrong, or bad, and that we're wrong or bad for having them, and we kind of get mad about what we're thinking. And ironically, this doesn't ever help us change the thoughts, or the results that we are getting.

3:27
So, I've been thinking about this, and thinking about this the other day when I was at the gym, I kind of had this, like, moment of awareness. And I want to share this idea with you that will maybe help you stop judging your thoughts, okay? So, like don't you hate it when people make a comparison about mental work, and physical work, right? Sorry, here I am about to do it again, but it was really useful for me and maybe it will be for you too.

Okay, so I want you to think about your thought, whatever it is, like a muscle. So, I have a muscle that can lift a certain amount of weight, right? The muscles capacity is what it is, and it shouldn't be any different than what it is, right? That muscle is there, that's what I have worked for it to be, and it has the capacity to lift so much weight, right? The amount that it can lift is not bad, or good. It's just that muscle is just capable of lifting that certain amount. It's not shameful, that's just the muscles capacity. And if I want to lift more, then I have to grow that muscle, and increase the capacity. Okay, now I want you to think about this in the same way with your thoughts. Your thoughts capacity is what it is. The thought you have can generate or lift, if you will, a certain result into your life. That thought that you have is only capable of producing that amount of result. The thought isn't good, or bad, right? But if I want to lift a bigger result into my life, I'm going to have to change that thought, or grow that thought. I have to push that thought outside of its comfort zone, I have to grow my belief to be able to produce more results in my life.

Okay so, like David will say things to me like, "Okay, I know I shouldn't have this thought, or I know I shouldn't think this," and there's like no should about it, right? It's just that this thought only has the capacity of producing a certain result in your life. You can only lift so much, right? There aren't thoughts that you should think, and thoughts that you shouldn't think. It's just that each thought has its own capacity to create results. And so, if you want a different result, you need a thought that will support that result, that can carry that result for you. Do you see? It's totally fine for you to have the thoughts you do, right? That thought gives you your current results, that's what it can lift, and that's not a problem, right? But if you want more result, a different result, a bigger result, you have to be willing to work on the thought practice reps with it. Hold a bigger thought for longer periods of time until the thought changes, and then the capacity of the new thought is bigger to create the thing in your life that you want.

And then slowly and surely you build. You don't build by thinking, I can't believe I have this muscle, and it could only lift this thing. You just say, okay this is where we start, the more I lift, the more weight I carry, right? And you don't change your life by thinking, I can't believe I have this thought, right? And this is the result I'm getting. You just say, okay this is where I'm at, this is the thought I have, and this is the result it carries into my life. Now, how do I want to grow my belief to carry something else into my life? Your thoughts aren't good or bad, they just have a certain capacity. They have a capacity to create different things in your life, which is why I think you should always be expanding your capacity to believe new things. This is why, of course, I love having a coach, right? To push me to take that next step in belief, to challenge me, to add a little weight, do a few reps with it, hold it a little longer, and lift more amazing results into my life. Okay, I hope that helps you.

7:32
All right, so, that was kind of a long introduction, right? Like maybe we should just call it. But I did have a couple of other things I wanted to share with you today about decision making. Okay, this episode is supposed to be all about overcoming confusion and, making decisions in our life. Okay, this has come up a lot for my clients recently, for some of my children, and for myself. I have made a lot of decisions this month in my business, and in the things I want to believe about myself, and so making decisions has been on my mind a lot. And I thought it would be really helpful to talk about this with you as well.

So, I just want to say to start out as a blanket statement that confusion is always a lie, okay? Whenever we think, we don't know what to do, we don't know what decision to make, or we don't know what we want, that is always a lie. Our brain says I don't know, and I don't know is what it says when it's trying to avoid some sort of discomfort, okay? Now, of course, confusion itself is uncomfortable, it doesn't feel good to be confused, and to not know. But still, for the brain, confusion is preferable to many other negative emotions. The brain would actually rather be confused than a lot of other things. The brain would rather be confused than be rejected, the brain would rather be confused than fail. Sometimes, the brain would rather be confused than be lonely, sometimes the brain would rather be confused than possibly feel regret, right? And our brain is using confusion when it thinks that the course of action we are thinking of taking might produce some negative emotion for us.

For example, if I want to change my eating habits, my brain might be all confused about what's the right eating plan, and how to do it. And should I split my meals up into smaller portions, right? Or is this even working right? When should I weigh myself? All kinds of confusion, right? Instead of feeling deprived, or hungry, right? Our brain would rather feel confused. Okay, another example, like if we wanted to change our kids screen time usage, right? My brain might be confused about what's appropriate? What age can handle so much screen time? How am I going to implement this? What are the rules going to be? What are the consequences going to be? How am I going to get my kids on board, right? Instead of feeling uncomfortable that I'm going to have to like expend some effort, and institute consequences, and people are going to be mad at me, it's much easier for our brain to be confused.

I'll just give you one more, if I want to market my business, my brain might be confused about which social media platform I should use? What I should post? How often I should post? Should I pay for ads? It's very confusing, right? Instead of possibly feeling rejected, or vulnerable, or embarrassed, it's much easier for my brain to be confused. OK, do you see? I don't know. Is always a lie. It's our brains way of avoiding what it thinks will be a more uncomfortable, negative emotion. So, whatever you are confused about, ask yourself if I took action on this, if I did something, what would I be scared of feeling? What emotion am I really trying to avoid here? You are never confused, right? Even though it feels like you are okay, it feels really true that you don't know what to do, but we have to be on to our brain. Whenever I say I don't know how, my coach says, "But if you did, what would you do?"

11:32
So, when I was launching my group coaching program, I told my coach, "I've never done this. I don't know how." And that felt 100% true to me. And she said, "Okay if you did know how, what would the steps be?" And I was like, "No, really, I don't know how. And I'm not just saying that, like, I literally don't know how." And she said, "Okay, but if you did, what would step one be?" And it turns out I knew the steps, right? I just didn't want to take them in case I failed. My brain was trying to avoid failure by not knowing, and it will not know for as long as we let it. I could still be saying, "I don't know how to do that right now if I let my brain have its way." But if I did know, what would I do? Is a really good question to ask yourself. If you are confused, like for example, every week my brain says I don't know what to say on the podcast this week. And I say right back to it, "Okay, but if I did know, what would I talk about, right?" And then there it is every time.

So, I think it's really helpful to imagine rooms in my mind, okay? There are all kinds of rooms in my mind, and one of them is the, I don't know, room, okay? And there are no answers in the I don't know room. There are zero answers in the I don't know, room. You can't find a single one. Answers are kept in the knowing room, that's where all the answers are kept. And so, you have to walk your brain across the hall from the, "I don't know room," into the "knowing room" and you have to sit in the knowing room, that's where all the answers are. You have to stop saying, I don't know, and walk yourself to the place where, "Okay, if I did, though, right? If I was in a place of knowing, what would I do?" Now I want to apply all of these ideas about confusion directly to decision making. Decision making is the action. And remember, the brain is going to produce all kinds of confusion when the action that we might want to take might lead to some negative emotion, okay? You want to make a decision, but your brain is scared to do that because we might feel a negative emotion if we do. So, then our brain says, well I don't know what to decide, I don't know what the right decision is here, okay? But what emotion are we really afraid of here? What is the brain trying to avoid by not deciding.

So, decide, right? Like the root of decide is that word "size" right from the land which means "to cut off." So, when we decide we are cutting off all the options, we're eliminating all the other options except the one that we've chosen, except the one that we've decided. And so, what we're really afraid of is we're afraid of regretting that, we're afraid that if we make the wrong decision, we're going to cut off our path to happiness, right? And then, we're just going to feel enormous amounts of regret. And so then our brains like "I don't want to feel regret, right? So, instead offers confusion. And then we think, like, I don't know what to decide, at all because the brain is trying so hard to avoid that regret. But I want to teach you something powerful here, whatever we feel after the decision, whether it's regret, or joy, or peace, or contentment, whatever we feel after that decision, that is never created by the decision itself. Regret is not created by whether it was the right decision, or the wrong decision. Regret is not created by what happens in our life after we make the decision. Regret is always created by our thoughts. Regret is a feeling, it's created by our thoughts, by what we think after we make the decision, how we think about what we've decided determines our feelings about it. Your decision is only ever a circumstance. Your decision doesn't have the power to create your feelings, and even more powerfully, your decision doesn't have the power to create your results.

15:56
So, I want to give you a real-life example of this that I have shared before, but I think it's super helpful to see because it's a decision that on the outside look so wrong. But every decision is up for interpretation, and you'll see in the example that it's the interpretation that ends up mattering. So, in 2005, we moved into a new house at the height of the housing boom, we decided to buy this house. Then a few years later, my husband lost his job, the market crashed, we had to move. And the house when we moved was worth less than half of what we paid for it. We lost the house, and all the money that we had invested in it. Now, four years after that, I had the thought we made the wrong decision, okay? It felt like the outcome, or the loss of that money, right? And our credit was negative, and so that must have meant the decision was wrong. I felt regret, and shame, and embarrassment for the decision. But notice that never changed the decision, it changed how I felt about me, and about how I felt about our financial capacity, our ability to succeed financially.

Notice how the only thing that made the decision wrong was me thinking that if it was right, nothing bad would ever happen. I was making the result of losing the house mean, I was bad and therefore the decision must have been bad. But I want to show you a couple of things. First, losing the house isn't even bad, it's just a thing that happened in the world. And I get to think about that anyway I want I get to interpret that circumstance. Even after losing the house, I could still believe it was the right decision, and be happy that I made it. If I lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I ruined my credit, that's not even bad unless I think it is. And you might be saying like, well, that is delusional. April. Maybe, right? But thinking that it was exactly what we needed instead of this terrible mistake we had made, changed how I viewed myself, and my ability to handle money. And like my ability to be financially successful, like, I was able to move forward with confidence when I decided to be proud of that decision.

Regret only keeps me arguing with what should have been. Which should have been different, and then stuck in a terrible story with me, and the decisions that I make with money. What I want you to see is that it's the meaning we give our decisions the way that we think about them that matters, that makes them right or wrong, like for all of you that come from the Judeo-Christian tradition, I want you to think about the first real decision that started everything for us here on Earth, right? Adam and Eve made a decision to leave the Garden of Eden, and technically, we could say that their results weren't as good as they might have been if they had stayed in the garden, right? The results were they introduced suffering into the world, right? They were cold, they were hungry, childbirth was hard. They had to work for their bread, one of their sons killed another of their sons, they both died. Like technically, if we're deciding if that decision was right, or wrong based on the results, then it feels like it might have been the wrong one, right?

And what happens to Adam and Eve if they spend their lives thinking this was the worst decision ever, right? Then they blame each other, they live a life of regret, regret that is only added to the standard pain that comes with Earth-life. And the other option is to do what they did, and to think about it as a very good thing to think about as the way to think about it as the vehicle of progression. To think about it as a gift to every human who gets an Earth-life experience, they said because we made this decision, we will no joy, we will no growth. Okay, so how you think about your decisions matter, you make them right by how you decide to think about them. The results are irrelevant in general. We give way too much power to the decision, both to determine our experience of our life, and our results. You create both of these, by the way you think, and knowing that will make you powerful in your life. If we see our happiness will only come if we get this decision right, then we give all our power away. We are paralyzed by fear and we can't decide because we are at the mercy of something outside of us. In a sense, in those moments, you have given your agency your power to choose how you think and feel and act over to a decision, right?

20:56
When we're afraid to make a decision, we are really afraid that in the future we will have regret, but that feeling of regret is created by our own thoughts. So, what we are really saying when we are afraid of making a decision is that we are afraid of our own unmanaged mind. We are afraid of what we will tell ourselves after we make this decision. We are afraid we will think thoughts that make us feel bad. We have to remember that we are in charge of how we feel in any future, always, and this knowledge will help you to set aside your fear as you go to make decisions.

Okay, so step one, when you need to make a decision is to recognize that the determining factor about whether it will be right, or wrong, is you. It's your brain, right? It's to say to yourself, no matter what I decide how I feel will be created by me, right? The job, your house, where you live, who you marry, none of that creates your happiness. What really matters for your happiness is how you manage your mind, okay? So, you take your power back in your decision making. Then step two, if that is true, if my experience and my feelings are created by me, then the decision doesn't really matter, and I can just choose what I want to do, okay? How do I figure that out? How do I figure out what I want to do? I like to ask myself if I knew I could be happy either way, what would I choose? It helps you see what you really want, if you knew you could be happy either way, with either choice, what would you choose? The next one is, if I promise myself not to create regret, or shame, what would I choose to do, right? If I just promise to take regret off the table, what would I choose? If I knew it didn't matter what I chose, and it wouldn't impact my emotional well-being, which one sounds like more fun, right?

Like this, it kind of goes back to the first, if I knew I could be happy, which would I choose? Like, if it's not going to impact my emotional well-being, what do I what just sounds fun. What do I want, okay? And then finally, if I trusted myself to create the experience of my life, no matter what, then what would I choose? You know what you want, you do, you're just in the room of not knowing, right? It's just covered up. What you want is covered up by fear, and anxiety, and you have to clear that all up, and understand that your brain creates the fear, and anxiety, because I think your happiness is dependent on things outside of you, but it never is. And then step three, once you decide what you want, you have to commit to how you're going to think about it no matter what, okay?

24:04
So, a lot of us think that if we choose the right thing, then our brain won't give us any doubts. That's not true, doubts come up. We are going to have thoughts, right? But those thoughts don't make the decision wrong. The doubts, again, are just trying to protect you from some future negative emotion that your brain thinks you might be unaware of. But they are just thoughts, and they aren't even real, they're like a made up story about some possible future negative outcome. So, remember that you make your decision right, by the way you think about it. If you're constantly saying maybe I shouldn't have done that, maybe I made the wrong choice, then you are going to feel doubt, you're going to feel uncertain. But you can just commit to thinking it was right no matter what, okay?

So, I want to give you a quick example of this. I recently hired a virtual assistant to help me in my business, and my business has grown. I have a very full coaching schedule, and I just need help with some of the backend stuff, and she's amazing. So, I got this recommendation, I interviewed someone, I thought she was amazing, and I hired her pretty much like in twenty-four hours. So, that night David came home from work and I was telling him, "Hey, I hired this VA today." And he said, "Oh, how much does it cost?" And I told him, and he just like (Gasp) like that. Like even the dog started barking. He just like gasps and he's like, "April, that's too much." And I noticed that when he said that, "April, that's too much." My first thought was maybe he's right. Maybe I made a mistake, right? Like, there's the thoughts my brain wanted to offer me doubt about my decision. My brain wanted to say that it's possible for you to make a wrong decision here, and if you do, you might feel bad later.

So, this is what happens to all of us when we decide our doubts come up like our mother has an opinion, our husband has an opinion, Dave Ramsey has an opinion. Everybody's got an opinion, right? And then our brain says maybe there's a right way, and we aren't choosing it. And then we're going to suffer later. We are going to feel bad later if we get this wrong, and I just don't let my brain stay in doubt. When my brain said maybe I made a mistake, I reminded myself that I get to think about this any way I want to have my own back here. If I think I made a mistake, then I feel scared, and insecure, and stupid, which is not really good for my business, if I'm the CEO. If you make a parenting decision, and then someone disagrees with you, you think maybe I'm making a mistake, then you feel scared, and insecure, and unsure, and uncertain, which is not good for your parenting. If you have a fight with your spouse, and your brain says, maybe I made a mistake here. Then you feel scared, and foolish, and angry, which is not really good for your marriage, right? Doubt never serves you.

If I think I'm the CEO and all my decisions are the right ones, this is how I grow my business, then I feel empowered, and joyful, and smart, okay? And no matter how things turn out, I always get to support my own decision, and know that I made the right one. Of course, that was the right one, it was the one I made. And I can't make a wrong one because if it is right, or wrong, that is just going to be a judgment call I make in my own mind. And I choose to believe it's right. Do you see you are in charge of that, you are in charge of knowing if it's right, or wrong, and you exercise that power by how you choose to think about things? It doesn't mean we are perfect or infallible, but it means that we don't have to be in order to be happy, and decide how we are going to view ourselves, and our decisions.

28:09
The last question I want you to think about is this if it was the right decision, how would I know? If it was the wrong decision, how would I know? Notice how it's almost always that we think things would turn out perfectly, and I will be happy. Or if it was the wrong decision, we think, okay things go badly, and I feel regret. But I just want to point out how your brain thinks ease and a lack of problems are the symptoms of a right decision. But the truth is sometimes the right decision is characterized by one setback after another, actually, every decision is. No matter what you choose, it's going to be characterized by ease in some parts, and setbacks in other, right? And as we face the setbacks of any decision, we are supposed to have made that decision so we can face the very difficulty we are facing. You need to stop equating ease, with rightness.

It kind of reminds me of Paul, and how, like the Corinthians were saying, like, if you were really a prophet, you wouldn't have so many problems, right? You wouldn't face so many trials, and we kind of think that, right? That if we were doing it right, and making all the right decisions, we wouldn't have problems. We wouldn't have suffering that we'd only have good outcomes. The truth is, the path with the least trouble doesn't make it the right one. Every path is 50/50. Every decision on either side of it is 50/50, where there is ease in one part that would be difficult in another. Your brain will find a problem with every decision you make, that's its job. And the right decision won't change your brain on that fundamental level. You just have to know that whatever you choose, the circumstances, the outcomes are going to be 50/50. But your experience will be created 100% by the way you think about that. If you find yourself really nagging yourself about a decision, and beating yourself up about it, or the outcomes that you got, you can ask yourself, how would it change things if I knew for sure it was the right decision?

Like, if I could get a note from God, or a printout from the universe that confirmed, yep, stamp of approval, that was the right decision. How would it change what you were thinking, and feeling right now? How would it change, like how you feel about the outcomes you are in right now if the outcomes are negative in your mind, but you knew it was right? How would that change things for you? How would it change your experience? Notice how it would change your experience of the negative outcome, and then notice how it would change your feelings about yourself. That's why it's so much more useful to think of your decisions as right rather than live in regret, because it changes your experience of where you are and who you are. The way to give up your fear, and overcome your confusion, and make a decision is to understand that you are the only one that gets to decide if it's right, or wrong. And the way you think about it will make the difference, there are no right decisions. There are just the decisions that you make right by the way you think about them, and yourself. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome! I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you want to take the things I've talked about and apply them in your life so that you can love your earth life experience. Sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com This is where the real magic happens, and your life starts to change forever as your coach. I'll show you the believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!