Managing Your Self
Lesson 5: Decision making
1. Everything Is a Choice
2. How to Make Good Choices
3. Social Choice
Exercise One
4. Your Point of View
5. Possibilities
Exercise Two
6. Payoffs
7. Speaking to Authority
Exercise Three
8. Investing Yourself
9. Confusion
Exercise Four
10. Say It, Mean It, Do It
11. Managing Risk
1. Everything Is a Choice
As an adult, you decide what you want to be, do, and have in your life. You decide. No one else decides for you. You may try to meet the expectations of others, or you may give in to various pressures or demands, but, that is your choice. You are the one who is empowered to choose in your own life.
Very simply, everything in life comes down to choice. All that you know, all that you've experienced, all that you've learned, has brought you to where you are. You have made choices at each step. You are making choices now, and you will do so in the future. But, the place you always get to choose is: here, now.
You can only choose in the present moment. The past is past. The future is not yet here. You only have the present to choose in. Still, you can make choices which help you to better deal with the past, and which create better options for you in the future, now. You can't change the past, or control the future, but you can do the best you can, here, now, in the present moment. That is all anyone can do. And it is enough.
If you want to know what the quality of your choices have been in the past, look at your life in the present, here, now. It has come about as a result of all of the choices you made in the past, the things you chose and the things you chose not to choose. It's all a choice.
Decision making is a choice to make more conscious choices. Many choices we make are unconscious or habitual; we never really think about them. But we tend to think about what we consider to be important decisions. We appreciate — at least in those — that we have a certain responsibility or power in choosing. And so we try to get it right.
Decisions are not just about "important" things like what job to take, or what car to get. The most basic decisions you make are about what you feel you deserve in life, what you put up with, what dreams you pursue — or not. This is a chance for you to decide to do what is best for you, now. That can be a troubling thought, or bring up various feelings, to the extent that you may not have been in a place to do what is best for you, before now. All other decisions you make are much more superficial, and much less important, than the ones you make about you.
So, the first requirement of decision making is to honor your self and your own truth.
What would our lives be like if we sought to align ourselves with what is right, good, and true for us at each moment? What if that was the choice and commitment we brought to the present moment, here, now, always? What if we truly accepted responsibility for our choices and our results, and for choosing differently if we wanted different results?
The fact is, the same old choices tend to bring the same old results. This does not favor our problem solving, decision making, learning, growth, success, or progress. Instead, we need to be open to something better. We need to be open to change. And the way we do this, in practice, is by actually choosing something different — not the same old thing that we have always thought, always done, and always gotten the same old results from. Something new, different, non-obvious.
Decision making is not about satisfying desires, or getting what the ego wants. You are not your desires. You are not your ego. Honor your self, and learn to make choices that step out of desire, ego, emotion, selfish ambition, pride, bias, prejudice, and social conditioning. Be more true to who you really are.
2. How to Make Good Choices
Decision making is similar to problem solving. The first thing you need to do is to open your mind to all the possibilities — beyond the most apparent or immediate ones. You need to expand your creative vision to encompass as many possibilities as possible. Only then, after you have done this, do you go about a process of choosing between them. As in problem solving, you do not merely take the most obvious thing in front of your eyes and figure out how to make it work. That is ultimately the least workable and least creative (and usually least fulfilling) thing you could do.
This process of decision making which involves being open, being centered, and being true to your self applies in all areas of life, work, relationships, and so on. It is practicing being your self and making choices that you feel are right, good, and true for you. Of course, even then, there is no guarantee that your results will be exactly how you might expect — you simply cannot know the future or how everything is going to be. The future is only a set of probabilities; nothing is certain.
In decision making you work with the unknown, and become comfortable with that. You don't fear it and you don't try to only go with what you know. You literally work with the unknown, in a way that works for you, and make the best choices you can.
Decision making is about choosing what is right. That sounds simple, yet it may be difficult in practice, especially when your choices are largely dictated by your conditioned reactions to outside pressures and expectations. Choices must be aligned with what you know to be right, on a deeper level within your self.
Notice the difference between choosing what is true to your self, what is right, versus choosing only: what you like, what feeds your ego-pride, what justifies or rationalizes your position, what appeals to your intellect or satisfies your emotions, what you selfishly or willfully desire, or what denies the truth.
In order to make good decisions, you generally need to:
- get the information you need
- consider all your options
- consider whether it is not only better to go with a given option, but whether it is better not to
- see past the misleading influences of your past conditioning and programming
- get past emotions and egotistical desires — step back — long enough to get a greater perspective
- rather than thinking about what you want, think about what is right
- come closer to the truth within you
- listen to your heart, the deeper intuitive self.
The "heart" is that place in you which draws upon your inner knowingness, your conscience, your intuition, your sense of what is right. It isn't relying upon emotion or ego, but your true inner self. Get a feeling for what it is like to choose what is right; notice what you feel around the area of your heart, in the middle of your chest. Find a truer place, beyond emotion, anxiety, stress, desire, willfulness, or superficial considerations — and allow yourself to know and do what is right. Breathe, relax, and feel. The discomfort we might notice in making a decision is not the pressure of doing what is right, it is the pressure of what is not.
We are not saying to abandon reason or rationality or critical thinking, in decision making or problem solving. We are not saying to go along with emotions. We are merely saying that each of us has a place within us which allows us to know what is right for us. Call it conscience, intuition, the heart, common sense, the voice of experience, or self-awareness. The more familiar you are with that place within you, the easier it will be to make decisions which you feel are right for you.
3. Social Choice
How often do you place your individual choices in the larger context of helping society? Do you think of social needs when you choose to satisfy your own needs? Have you ever thought that every choice you make — what you choose and what you do not choose — goes towards structuring the society in which you live? Have you ever thought that you actually make a difference?
The way society, and its many institutions work, is to try to ensure that tomorrow is like today and today is like yesterday. It perpetuates the status quo, the way things are as the way they should be, and the way they will be, tomorrow as well. If you don't choose to make a difference, who will?
Most people are content to have all of their most important choices made for them by others, by parents, family, bosses, leaders, authorities, and society in general. All of the most important choices in their lives are made for them by others, and then they get to choose the beer they like.
You need to realize, you have to go against that, to make progressive choices in your own life, or to make a difference in the world. In the same way, you may need to go against — or diverge from — choices you may have made in the past, to make more progressive choices, now.
Exercise One: This is an exercise in
awareness. Allow yourself some time to be with the
following questions. Sit with them, and be aware of the
thoughts, feelings, and desires that come into your awareness.
Questions: Ask yourself, what is the nature of your
"loyalty" to past choices, or to having others choose
for you? Is it some kind of loyalty, or is it more a lack of
responsibility, lack of self-esteem, lack of independent
thinking, lack of a true sense of self, lack of
self-directedness, or the effect of fear, pressure, apathy, or
unawareness? Do you know what it means to be true to your
self?
Do you let others choose for you? Social institutions of government, education, religion, business, and so on, seek to perpetuate the same influence they had in the past into the future. They seek not just continuity but more and more power, taking a greater role or influence in our individual lives. They do this intentionally. They want the past they are familiar with to be their future — and your future. That is how they deal with the unknown, by trying to hold entirely to what they know or think they know. They do not want the future to depart from the past. They do not want unpredictability, divergence of thought or action, or change.
The choices you make in your life may be largely governed by these institutions, or the context they present you for choosing. They do not like it if you choose out of them. They do not like you to have a different context for choosing, a different way of thinking, a different choice — they perceive that as a threat. And it is a threat to the status quo. But that's how things change. That's how something better, new, or unexpected comes along and is eventually accepted. Systems that are set up to effectively resist change experience a lot of discomfort or fear about change when it gets too close to them.
Again, this happens within an individual as well. You have certain systems or patterns of thought and behavior which are entirely beholden to the past. They are ingrained, accepted, believed to be working for you, and resistant to change. We are all that way. The idea is to challenge your old thinking, behavior, choices, and meanings. Be open to new and more progressive directions.
Society prefers to give you direction from outside of you. Even in decision making, which affects them personally, people give over their power to everything and everyone outside them — especially the "experts" and "authorities" — rather than taking responsibility and that power for themselves. They accept the thinking, decisions, and "truths" of others, and in the process of doing so, they deny, ignore, or suppress their own inner truth. In other words, the more we obey — or our choices obey — the thinking and will of others, the less they follow our own inner guidance.
We each have a means to know what is right, good, and true for us, within us. Society does not. You have a heart. Society and all of its institutions do not. You have a conscience. Society does not. The artificial organizations that dictate your choices, and tell you what to think and what to believe and how to act and what to do, only conform you to external, unreal, non-living, unfeeling, artificial institutions. That can never replace your own inner alignment with the truth, goodness, peace, love, and light within you. You must not let anything or anyone take that away from you, even if they give you the illusion that they are solving all of your problems for you, or that you benefit from their making all of your decisions for you. You have to be more wise than that.
As we observed, the first requirement of decision making is to honor your self and your own truth.
Sure, you'll make mistakes, and you don't know everything, or how everything will turn out. No one does. But, the more you respect and trust your self, the better you will become at this. The reason your decisions may not turn out as you might have expected, is most likely that they have been made out of habit, going with the known and familiar, out of programming, conditioning, and indoctrination, or trying to meet others' expectations or demands of you. All of those influences tend to push you out of your center, and cause you to act in a way that is not entirely true to your own self. The solution is to come back to your center, your true self, not to doubt yourself more and more. That is how you make decisions that are best for you and everyone else.
4. Your Point of View
We all make decisions in our lives, and we each bring our own point of view. Most of the time, we assume that our point of view is right, good, and true. We assume that, out of habit, or simply because our thinking agrees with that of others.
Don't assume you are right just because your thinking agrees with that of other people.
Of course, this is the opposite of what you "learn" in school. You were programmed to believe that your thinking, decisions, and solutions to problems, are only right when they match what an authority figure dictates, and what others have learned to mimic in their own thinking and behavior. This is not the way to encourage, cultivate, or allow expansion of thinking, awareness, creativity, and perspective. And, this is why most children lose their true creativity and inner-directedness in school, which is designed to make everyone have the same point of view. Realize, you may have had your own perspective, your own creative way of looking at things, nearly destroyed by a process euphemistically called education.
Something valuable gets lost in this process: wisdom, truth, awareness of a greater reality, and the inner self.
In a world which rewards conformity and a common view, you have to make a great effort to see things differently, to think differently, to believe differently, to choose differently. Yet that is the only way to allow yourself to develop a greater, truer perspective. Do not imagine that all there is is what is presently within view. If you have a kind of tunnel vision which excludes what you consider to be less important, and exclude the larger portion of reality from your view, you may fail to manage well in reality.
What would cause you to think that the way your given society has programmed you to think is right, good, or true — or the only way of looking at things? It certainly is not the only possible point of view; and from this, it can be deduced that it is not necessarily somehow a complete picture of what is right, good, or true. Consider how people in different situations, societies, cultures, or eras might look at things.
Other perspectives can shed light on a situation, and help to reveal the truth. The opposite of perspective — that is, a mind and an awareness that can see all around a problem, and see it for what it is in a larger context — is a closed mind. Whenever you are tempted to latch onto or hold onto an old point of view, ask yourself what investment you have in it. What is the purpose of holding on to what is old, to deal with what is new?
Ask yourself what you are afraid of finding out, what you would find troubling, what you would rather not think about. If you cannot see it, it nevertheless exerts its influence or control over you. Wouldn't you rather see things for what they are and be free from what oppresses you? Are you really more comfortable being in the dark, rather than in the light? Are you in a place of weakness or power? Are you being reduced to being just an effect of the problem? Have you lost your self in it? Think about it. See what is running you.
Seek a larger perspective, rather than being content with choosing between poor options.
Decisions almost always come down to what is in view, or perceived to be in reach. We mainly see what is right in front of us and do not look beyond it. The narrower our view, the narrower our perceived options, the weaker our position, the poorer our choice.
5. Possibilities
Making a decision often becomes a process of selecting between limited options. Appreciate the greater number of options you have before narrowing yourself into deciding between a few. Do not unduly limit yourself in this process, out of a feeling of need to resolve the situation, or to relieve conflict on some level. Otherwise, when you get to the point of making a decision, you will have limited yourself to a few — or only one — options, by losing sight of the greater possibilities. It is much better to open yourself to the larger possibilities, first, and realize your power to choose what you really want.
Good decision making requires, above all else, an awareness of possibilities.
All things are possible. But what you wind up choosing is often a very limited subset from endless possibilities.
At any given moment, you could do a very great number of things. Yet you choose to do only one (or a few).
Exercise Two: This is an exercise in
awareness. Allow yourself some time to be with the
following questions. Sit with them, and be aware of the
thoughts, feelings, and desires that come into your awareness.
Questions: What are the constraints that bind you?
What causes you to keep choosing or doing the same things, over
and over? What other possibilities are you aware of, which
you might be overlooking, dismissing, or ignoring in your daily
life?
If you wish to choose something different, to experience something different, to have different results, then the first step is to realize and appreciate the many options you have.
People keep choosing, over and over, to do the same thing, to pursue the same thoughts and feelings and desires and behavior, hoping that they may somehow obtain a different result. Yet, they are most often disappointed. The same thoughts, feelings, desires, and behavior produce the same results, over and over. And this is why people are unhappy, unfulfilled, disappointed, frustrated, and defeated by the very choices they make.
If what you are doing now, thinking now, feeling now, or wanting now is not making you happy, now, then what would make you imagine that it will make you happy later? There is a small possibility, but is that what you want to keep choosing? If you were to realize that what you are choosing cannot provide any ultimate (or lasting) happiness, then what is the point in doing it?
If all things are possible, then you are somehow responsible for choosing those things you do — if you could be choosing something else. In a very real sense, if you have problems or difficult decisions, then you need to look at what you have already been choosing (perhaps for your whole life). You have to consider how the choices you have made, each and every day, at every moment, have brought you to this place, or have structured the present situation. And if you want something different, you have to be willing to conceive of something different, think differently, aspire to something better, and act differently.
6. Payoffs
There is a payoff in every choice you make, in every decision. You choose what you do because of that perceived payoff, benefit, or advantage. But, the payoff may be quite delusive, illusory, or ultimately unreal.
Consider the example of a person who is addicted to something (and most people are). The person will choose, over and over, without a second thought, whatever thoughts, feelings, desires, or behavior they happen to be addicted to. In many ways, they keep choosing their addiction, at each moment. They have the possibility of doing a nearly endless variety of other things, but they just keep doing the one they are addicted to. They are conditioned to act, unthinkingly, to obtain the familiar payoff — whether it is sensory or physical gratification, pleasure, emotional excitement, or the possibility of some great payoff.
This is why people gamble, why they are promiscuous, why they use drugs and alcohol, why they see "partying" as having some ultimate meaning or value in their lives. There is something which bypasses the inner mind, the rational mind, and the conscience, which promises some ultimate satisfaction or reward for giving in to the basest instincts. The perceived payoff, some imagined happiness, is never quite real or lasting. So the behavior is repeated, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, with no real possibility of any other result or any true happiness.
In fact, this is how most people make most choices in their lives, on a daily basis. They are rewarded — or reward themselves — for making erroneous choices, satisfying ego, emotion, physical pleasure, and fleeting "happiness."
What is the payoff that you are getting, which is determining your choices, your thinking, your desires, your behavior? Is it real, is it lasting, or is it just an illusion of satisfaction or happiness you are pursuing? Do you get to feel "right"?
You are never taught to question your choices, your habits, your behavior, your desires. You are merely presented with an assortment of items, as if at a buffet, and told to pick and choose what you want, to satisfy your tastes and your desires. And so you go from one thing to the next, choosing this or that (or just this, over and over), labeling this process "success." But you are merely trading in all of your infinite possibilities for just another meal at the trough of life. You are giving up every possibility — everything — for very little or nothing.
So, if you find that you have problems, or difficult decisions, consider what you have been doing with every choice that you have been given, at every moment of your life. Consider what it is you have been getting, and what you have been losing in the process. You may find that the payoff is merely postponement of suffering, delusive satisfaction, or imagined betterment. And the real payoff is just more problems.
Many if not all of your choices come from conditioning, programming, and social indoctrination. None of them may ultimately be true to you. None of them may have any inherent goodness, rightness, or truthfulness. This is especially the case when your illusions begin to shatter, when you begin to see things for what they really are, when you are faced with the hard choices. You begin to see that things are not at all what you might once have thought or expected or hoped.
This is the basis of choosing something different, something ultimately more real, right, good, and true. This is how you solve problems and make real decisions.
7. Speaking to Authority
By this we mean "speaking up," or "speaking to power."
It is easy to make decisions in your own little world. We all do this, all the time. It is a lot harder to look in the face of authority, and speak your own mind, your own thoughts, your own wishes, your own needs, your own decisions.
As children we are often taught not to speak up, not to speak out, not to interrupt people with more authority or power, not to question, challenge, or confront elders. Nonsense. That is merely the programming, conditioning, and set-up of the society in which we may live. It has no ultimate truth, validity, or value. It is just a way that people who have power try to hold on to it.
Regardless of the intentions of parents, teachers, authority figures, relatives, people we know or people we do not, it does not serve us to buckle under the pressure of authority. Maybe as children we felt we did not have any other choice; children who "disrespect their elders" tend to be punished for speaking their mind, and as a result, many give in. They choose to not push too far or too hard.
As an adult, you have the right to think what you wish, believe what you wish, choose what you wish, act as you wish, and live the life you choose for your self. No one else stands in a place of authority over you — unless you allow them to.
Part of what we "learn" as we grow up in our society is to give up our power to others, to those who demand that we do, implicitly or explicitly. We go to other people to solve our problems, and to have them make important decisions for us. How many people will challenge what a doctor tells them, the procedure or surgery that they are told is "necessary," the medications they are prescribed, and so on? We are not saying that what doctors recommend is not in good faith, or not helpful, or not appropriate. We are saying that this is just one example where you are the final determiner of what is right, good, and true for you — regardless of the apparent superiority or authority of a doctor. You are responsible for making your own decisions about everything that affects you. What anyone else has to say is merely a suggestion. You choose.
Giving up your power — your power to choose — because you are programmed and conditioned and indoctrinated to do so, does not ultimately serve you.
At some point, many people wake up in life and realize that they have given all of their power away. They do not know who they really are, they do not know what they really want, they do not know what their true purpose is, they do not make the most important decisions for themselves, but they let everyone or anyone else do that for them. This way they avoid responsibility, they avoid having to think for themselves, they avoid confrontation or disapproval, they avoid taking power back in their life.
When was the last time you confronted authority? Enforcing your power over those you feel are weaker than you, and giving in to those you feel are more powerful, does not solve the problem. It is the problem. If you want to make a difference, challenge authority. Speak to power. Speak in the face of power. Speak the truth. Speak what honors you, rather than being afraid to speak up and as a result denigrating yourself.
Exercise Three: Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes,
and relax. Think of a time when you may have had a decision
to make, when you felt disempowered, when you could not tell
someone what you really wanted, when you felt intimidated —
where the words you would have liked to say could not cross
your lips. What did that feel like? Be aware of the
thoughts, feelings, and desires that come into your awareness.
Now, mentally go back into that situation, and say what
you would have said then, calmly, clearly, without upset
emotion or ego. Just say what you needed to say. Be aware
of the thoughts, feelings, and desires that come into your
awareness. What does that feel like?
If you wish, you can continue to do this exercise,
bringing to mind times when you could not face or speak to
authority, and doing so here, now. Perhaps, you may find it
easier to honor your self, and get used to what that feels like
in your body, so that you can do so in future situations.
When you are done, you can open your eyes.
The most basic goodchoice you can make is to honor yourself, and do what frees you, uplifts you, supports you in being you. Do it in every choice, every decision, every action.
Ultimately, no one knows what is right for you better than you. You may have been invalidated so much or for so long that you lack confidence in yourself; you may have lost sight of what it means to stand up and be you. If you don't speak up for yourself, who will? If you speak up to authority, it may try to put you back in your "place." See that for what it is; don't expect it, but if it happens, don't be surprised. Speaking to power doesn't mean you get to change the person or institution you engage, not directly, not immediately, or maybe not ever. But, it changes you.
It gives you true power of choice.
8. Investing Yourself
What is difficult about decision making is the extent to which you may need to invest yourself in the decision. You have to make a commitment. It can feel very restrictive, once you make a choice and decide to go with it. You have to give up all the other options.
The act of committing yourself to a given choice makes it "real" for you. And, until you do, it is only conjecture. The better you know yourself, the more easily you can get a sense of what is right for you, and choose it. You feel less risk in choosing something that might not be workable for you.
The fact is, most decisions, most of the time, tend to be fairly workable. It isn't so much about whether one option is so much better than any other, it is a matter of what you can believe in, what you can invest yourself in. You have to believe in your decision, believe in its "rightness," enough that you are willing to commit your time, energy, and resources to it.
There are many people who are considered very successful, who are not really smarter, more creative, or better at things. They are simply willing to commit themselves to something, once they decide. It isn't just a choice or a decision to them, it is a commitment which requires perseverance. They decide — when they make a decision — that they will do whatever it takes to make it happen.
And, if they find, after implementing a decision, that their chosen option is not likely to produce the results they want, they are flexible enough to modify it or change in whatever way is necessary to have the results they want. They keep their goal in mind, rather than having allegiance to a particular option. They pursue what works for them.
Ironically, given that we do invest ourselves in our decisions, society almost demands that we abdicate our decision making responsibility in favor of letting others make decisions for us. Or we are "helped" to make the same choice as others, whatever is most popular, whatever works for others, whatever the experts and authorities recommend.
The more we are taken out of our own decision, the more the decision is made by things outside us, the easier it is to make the decision — because we don't feel the responsibility, or the investment. We may, in fact, not be making a personal investment. And we may be prone to abandoning a decision we have made for lack of true commitment. After all, we didn't really choose it, or the style has changed, or public opinion has changed, or people's expectations have changed. So, we change. But, not necessarily in a good way. We adapt, conform, go along with popular thinking, do what others do, ... and somewhere along the way, we lose our own sense of investment in our lives, or accountability for our choices. We follow the herd.
In making decisions it is much better to take time to explore your own inclinations, what you feel you need, whether you really need it or not — or if you just want it because others have it. Step back from that group mentality which tries to rule your decisions. Stand in your own self, and see how your decision is really going to serve you. And if something else might be better. Remember, even when you can choose between a few different things, sometimes it is better to choose none of them. That may be the best choice. Honor your self enough, in decision making, to invest your self wisely. Beyond time, energy, or resources, what you may really be investing is you.
9. Confusion
This may surprise you, but confusion is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways, it is a clear sign that something better is making its presence known or felt.
Every decision is made in the present moment, without foreknowledge of the future. If you were to know exactly, with total certainty, how something was going to be in the future, there would be no possibility of making a decision. What would be would be.
But, in our lives, we generally do not know how things will be. We make decisions, here, now, in the area of the known — regarding the unknown, uncertain, unpredictable, undependable, or unimaginable.
We do our best to deal with the unknown, by what we know. There is nothing wrong with this. But a problem may arise if we habitually rely upon what we know — and think, and believe, and choose, and act the same way — all the time. This precludes change. This is a way of trying to deal with the unknown by sticking with the "tried and true." It sounds good. It may feel comfortable. But it closes us to change, learning, growing, new opportunities, progress, or a greater success.
Different and new and non-obvious results come from making entirely different choices. Confusion is sometimes part of this process.
Do not avoid confusion by refusing to step into the unknown. Do not try to avoid confusion by "solving" all of your problems, and not allowing anything to be different from what you expect. Do not try to avoid confusion by trying to control everything. Do not try to avoid confusion by trying to eliminate uncertainty from your life.
Ambiguity is part of problem solving, and part of life. There is no "one and perfect answer" to a problem, which you have to find. We work with what we are given, make the best choices we can, see how they work, and choose again if they do not work to our satisfaction. Decision making may seem like a "final" process, but it is iterative; you get to choose more, later.
If you feel confused when you need to make a decision, solve a problem, or choose a direction, that is okay. Give yourself permission to feel confusion. It may be accompanied by various emotions such as worry, doubt, fear, or guilt. If that is the case, give those feelings a chance to be heard, and a chance to be felt. Feel them, hear their message, and then let them pass from you. Do not try to make decisions based upon the erroneous desire to merely quell your emotions. That is only emotional reactiveness, and is not necessarily a real decision.
Exercise Four: This is an exercise in
awareness. Allow yourself some time to be with the
following questions. Sit with them, and be aware of the
thoughts, feelings, and desires that come into your awareness.
Questions: Think of a time when you may have had a
decision to make, when you felt confused. Recall what it
felt like, and what you did in response to that feeling. Did
you give in, make a poor choice, or do something you later
regretted? What would be different if you stepped back,
quietly centered yourself, and allowed that confusion and that
feeling to pass from you? How would you choose
differently?
If you feel confused, allow the space for what is old to leave you, and what is new to arrive. This may take a bit of time. It may require you to clear some space, by letting go of some old thoughts or beliefs or desires you might have held closely, whose time has passed. Do not hold on to confusion as a way of avoiding making decisions. Some people do this, habitually, their whole lives; their confusion is a product of their underlying fear of making a decision, fear of being wrong, fear of making a mistake, fear of being disapproved of or rejected. It is necessary to get past such limiting fears and confusion, not base your decisions (or indecision) on them.
Be willing to receive something new in decision making and problem solving — it is called "inspiration." It is a new idea, a new and more progressive belief, a new direction, a new possibility. This is why it is essential to not merely choose between the most familiar and known options you can see in front of you. You have to give yourself a chance for something new and better — something unknown, unpredictable, unexpected — something wonderful. Keep yourself open, in a place of wonder, and curiosity, and inspiration, and inspiration will find you.
Honor your self in your decision making, and your decisions will honor you as well.
10. Say It, Mean It, Do It
The "problem" with saying what you really want or intend is that you may feel you need to do something about it. That's the whole point. You really do have to act to fulfill your highest purposes, and come to know who you are and what you are capable of. You have to say and do what is true to your own self, always.
If there is something you want to manifest, speak well of it; speak words of encouragement about it, to yourself and to others. If you are sincere and truthful, you will find that your spoken word will attract support for whatever true purpose you may have in your heart. What is right will unfold.
Believe in your self and what you know to be right, and speak up about it. You are seldom in a position where you can not speak up, but you may often be in situations in which you will not speak up. This is a lack of will, or willingness, to be true to your self, to do what is right.
Consider what others may think or say, but don't let their own doubts and fears have greater weight than what you know to be right in your own heart. What is true to your self, inside, what is progressive and creative for you in life/work, must be a stronger voice than the voice of doubt or fear.
If you need to say something to someone to gain their cooperation, find the common purpose you may have in doing what you need to do, and let them know about it. If you don't communicate your need, they can not know to respond to it.
You may need to push the limits of your comfort zone, to allow yourself enough freedom to think, be, do, act, and have what you truly want. Speaking up means saying what is right and true for you, and not being afraid to say it. Speak up when you have something you truly need to say and someone you really need to say it to, in a progressive way — remaining centered in your self. Speak with truth, simplicity, and love — not from upset.
Speaking up in the right way is empowering to you; it's saying what you may have not said in the past, out of fear of not being approved of. It is hard to be true to your self, or to do what you know to be right, unless you are willing to speak up about it — to whomever you need to speak.
If there is just one person who you will not speak up to, even though you know what is right in your heart, you may be unempowered in speaking up to anyone else who may possibly be stronger or more willful than you.
You only need one person to whom you will not speak up, to lose courage in your self. Not speaking up conditions you to be intimidated by those who are stronger — or strong with those who are weaker than you. Notice how this breeds a similar pattern of intimidation with everyone we relate to. By not speaking up to wrong, you thereby accept or allow it, and even encourage it.
Not speaking up or standing for what is right perpetuates wrong.
Speaking up is not beating someone up with words or emotion. Rather, it is an honest sharing of the truth with someone who really needs to hear it — who may have so intimidated or confused or suppressed everyone around them that they have never had a chance to really hear the truth from anyone, for themselves.
Just tell them what you need to tell them — not to blame them, not to get even with them, not to try to get any particular response from them (including love or acceptance), but because it's right for you to speak up, and they need to hear it, too. Tell the truth.
You can simply be true to your self, and express the truth of your experience. And, do it with whomever you have been unable to speak up to in the past. Otherwise, you will not be able to speak up to anyone who is like them — anyone at all. Say your piece; then you will have your peace.
It's best to speak up at the moment you need to, in the present moment; but if some time has passed, you can speak up whenever you have the opportunity. It doesn't matter how much time has passed; you may feel completion, in you, even if you fully expect them to disagree with what you say or deny it.
Whatever decision you make, you need to be able to say it, mean it, and do it.
11. Managing Risk
Life is a process of managing risk. The future — even just a moment from now — is unknown, uncertain, and unpredictable. The way we usually handle risk is by minimizing it.
Risking means acting on your opportunities when there is some degree of uncertainty, either in you, in the situation, or both. Risking is essential to growth in life. If you never risked anything you would never gain anything. There are no guarantees, and there is no absolute certainty in life.
Basically, everything involves risk. If you wait until everything in life is certain, safe, and "risk-free" before you act, you will never even cross the street. However, if you are heedless of all risk, you may never make it across. Risk must be considered, weighed, and balanced, reasonably, unemotionally.
Many people will not risk anything great (or small) in their lives. They will not risk losing the security of keeping things the same, in favor of pursuing their dreams. They avoid all risk to minimize any possibility of loss. You may realize that this is a way of avoiding responsibility and growth in life.
The possibility of risk must not keep you from doing what you know to be right, what is true to your own self — in work, relationships, or in any other area of life. Do not habitually give in to feelings of fear and self-doubt, or past conditioning, that immobilizes you; learn to manage and work with risk.
You need to realize what is truly at risk, to effectively manage it.
There are risks in your behavior ("personal risk"), and there are risks inherent in situations outside you ("situational risks"). It is important to realize what is truly at risk — in you or in your situation. You need to be aware of which risks relate to, or inhibit, your self — and try to reduce them.
In terms of your self, there is little risk when something doesn't mean much to you, but great risk when it does. Risking means risking having new ideas, and risking acting on them. You can successfully risk in areas that matter most to you, in work, in love, in all areas in which you truly want something more.
Risk must not be interpreted as some form of ego challenge. Originating action in life/work from a place of power, not weakness, is the prerequisite to seeing the risk in any situation you face. Otherwise, you misinterpret the outer risk in terms of the risk or lack you feel internally.
You must be prudent, cautious, open-eyed, alert — and act that way, always. Do not abandon these qualities in your actions once you decide to go ahead. Risk is overcome by prudent action, not by a reckless disregard for it. Be aware of any changes, or increase, in the amount of risk, as you proceed. And do only what you know to be right in your own self.
Managing risk does not mean getting a charge out of taking risks, seeking a "high" from extreme emotional excitement or ego investment. Managing risk — not enjoying or encouraging risk — very simply means being true to your self.
When you are willing to risk being true to your self, and learn to be centered in your self and act from there, you are not really risking. The real risk is in not being true to your self, or failing to do what you know to be right. Doing what you know is right — regardless of the outcome — is true responsibility.
Effective risk management gives you the courage to pursue your true purposes in living, and minimizes your ineffective or inappropriate choices. This smooths your path, and reduces situational risks.
Your personal risk is minimized when you learn to be in your power, in your center, and act from there. Then you can effectively deal with situational risk. If you are affected by everything outside you, your personal level of risk is maximum — you are not in charge. Reduce the risks in your own behavior, before seeking to minimize the risks that may be inherent in an outside situation. Otherwise, your overall risk is increased.
Identify the "down side" of a risk. The main factor in risk is the value of what you may gain versus what you may lose. A "good" risk is the risk of something of lesser value for something of greater value. A really bad risk is the risk of something greater or more valuable for something lesser or less valuable.
The other factor in risk is uncertainty. There is a risk in every action, plan, or course of action, because the future, and future conditions, are unknowns; in other words, everything has a less than perfectly certain probability. You have to learn to work with this uncertainty, and learn to let it work for you.
In reality, you cannot manage or plan away all risk; trying to do so can stifle real possibilities for growth and creative change. It is often precisely what you can't take the risk out of which offers the greatest potential for growth.
Remember, if you successfully avoid the risk of the unknown, or conform to the commonly accepted, you will miss the rewards of far greater possibilities.