The Total Cure of Confusion Over Life's Difficult Choices

It's not a difficulty for every woman to make major decisions without much reflective concern, and not much at all to most when it comes to minor decisions. Yet, for those who do have their reasons for hand-wringing - to date, or not, to marry, or not, to break up or divorce, or not, to change jobs, cities, or whole careers - ambivalence, confusion, worry or overwhelm about life's choices are among the most painful experience a woman can go through. These can even be ever-present sources of inner conflict long after an irreversible decision has been made.

Did she do the right thing? No. Yes. She doesn't know. Can she change her mind? Maybe it wasn't quite what she needs or wants. Yes. No. She doesn't know. This thought process may not be very common at all for a woman with the personality style we call that of a Warrior - the CEO, the attorney, the City Council President for example - but for the rest, it has likely happened at least once in your lifetime. We learn about personality styles such as this in the KWML Mastery Program.

Now is the time to put decisions to rest as your enemy, for once and for all. Now is the time to end the warfare that goes on in your mind about what to choose in a career, a man, friends, your lifestyle and every major personal choice.

The process of organic processing and growth that goes on as a part of natural feminine instinct sometimes doesn't feel so natural in a modern world where our attention lasts seconds, and demands choices at the speed of modern computer technology. We cover how very normal and natural it is to stop to listen to feminine instinct once in awhile in the Complete Feminine Empowerment Program. In the end I think you are going to find that you really can have a working method that always comes through for you - a cheat sheet to store in your pocket for occasional, or even constant use, depending on what degree of conflict you get into.

We are going to find that it's natural to make use of a network of friends - we certainly have a robust group of over 2000 women in our Women's Happiness On Demand Program - and major decisions are far more than just "based on facts," or what "looks good on paper.

The Enemy Called Ambivalence

Sometimes in clinical practice at helping a person work on a dilemma, a cognitive therapist will have a patient make a list of plusses and minuses regarding their decision - and as a result, there will be a very visual accounting of what one really ought to do. This "looks good on paper," but may not offer much relief to the ambivalent person in conflict over the emotionality of a major choice. Looking at data alone may feel dry and lacking in spiritual depth, emotion, and all the other felt experiences surrounding a dilemma.

One of the best bits of instruction that I ever got from a teacher in clinical practice was the notion that the "cure for ambivalence is a decision."  Which is to say that often ANY decision is better than NO decision. We can always adjust our course as we gather new data along the way, but being "stuck in a rut" renders us motionless, actionless, and powerless in the fading momentum that otherwise could have moved our lives forward toward a better marriage that could have been worked on, a divorce that could have been the marker of a new life, a job that was once in a lifetime, or a friend that would have been one in a million.

In the end, we can't make a choice if we can't act, and we can't act if we can't concentrate. If we can't concentrate then there's "nobody at the wheel" of life, which then of course, leaves us more worried and ambivalent as ever.

Cool Under Pressure, and Keeping Your Cool

In all of the coursework at Women's Happiness, we usually introduce the skill that therapists call Observing Ego - an awareness of ourselves and our situations around us that helps us observe and act from a balanced, informed place. It's THE prime, core skill of all personal growth, and without it, we cannot risk, grow or change.

All of these things are going to happen in a major life's choice, yes, including risk - for when we choose one thing, we often have to let go of another.  Then in a way, we suffer a loss of a sort. We can't have it all and keep it all on the menu. If we were in a restaurant, that would make us fat, if we were at a gym it would make us exhausted, and if in a library, it would make us sleepless with all we'd want to read.

So we have to say YES to some things and NO to others as we go - a second skill that's necessary, called boundaries.

The Enemies Called Control and Certainty

Both boundaries and Observing Ego are extensively covered in the teachings called the MindOS Mastery Program. They amount to a capacity to keep "cool under pressure," and to also have the finesse and balance, the diplomacy and authenticity to do so in a world of others with different agendas for our choices than we ought to have.

"Keeping" your cool implies that you have something protecting you - security - and from that place, we can afford to "make mistakes" with our decisions, knowing that it will be alright no matter what happens. There's actually a tongue-in-cheek saying in surgery training programs - where all manner of things can go wrong with life and death decisions made continually.

"It's not what you do. It's what you do NEXT." Which is to say that for every mistake that can be made during surgery, there is usually an immediate correction for it.  The same could be said for much of the choices of our lives.

A strong boundary helps to "contain" our resources and safety against the possible things that can go wrong in our lives. It acts like a shield against stress and a tank to contain our resources - to store them in "safe-keeping." It marks what we control in life from what we don't, and to learn to both say NO to what is not right for us - the mirror flipside of what we ultimately need to determine in a big decision - clarifying for us what we then DO have to choose.

For many - this lack of control is one of the enemy combatants in the war between our ears that is most fearsome, the other scary opponent being uncertainty. All humans have a miraculous tool for decisions, called the brain, which one might easily argue is not just a mere decision-making organ, but an elegant "generator of certainty." We've been evolving as a species for a very long time, and wouldn't have survived the wild for this long without the ability to forecast future events accurately, assess danger and opportunity, all of which are based on seeking "certainty" in life as inexorably as a cruise missile seeks its target.

Still, our need for certainty sometimes gets the better of us, and it makes up stories to justify what's happening. The husband who has lost attraction must certainly be cheating. The friend who got a promotion most certainly must have been gossiping negatively about us, or else WE'D have gotten that raise and new title. The ache in our head must be a tumor as opposed to a sign that we are staying up too late at night working - a choice. But a cheating spouse, a betraying friend, and a tumor all relieve us of personal responsibility, and the choices it brings - so great is the fear of decisions for some.

One thing I often say and believe to be true is that we sometimes are forced in life to choose between "being right, or being happy." A cheater makes us right (it is not our lack of attention to our attractiveness), a Judas makes us right (it couldn't be our lack of job skills), and sometimes even a tumor makes us right (I couldn't have been the one to harm my own health, after all.) Our need to be right is sometimes so overpowering that it causes us to ignore another major goal of our ability to make hard choices - that they really ought to be making us happy - otherwise, why are we doing this anyway?  This decision.

Instead of remaining in the dark, confused about our decisions, trying to escape them, pawn them off on others (which may be relieving, but is poor boundaries), or stuck in ambivalence as if it were quicksand, let's just start with Observing Ego ability, "face the music"  - they're real, they need to be addressed, they are by their very nature, NEVER absolutely certain - and just go ahead and make them as best we can.

We can use the Four Methods of making decisions instead, and move forward. All of which also need good boundaries to be brought to bear.

The Four Types of Skills for Decision-Making

If you haven't guessed by now, you know that you are going to hear me say that "what looks good on paper" is not always the most important bit of preparation in making a major decision. It involves at least three others: our intuition (or gut feelings and instincts), our emotions (especially the pursuit of the one called "happiness"), our conscience (or guilt, or morality - an awareness and attention to the notion of what is right versus wrong in treating others well.

Here's the ultimate method: you are going to need to discover which of these four methods of decision-making are central and most powerful for your decision at hand, and THEN - when you run into ambivalence, confusion, overwhelm, second guessing and other obstacles - use one of the rest of the four to tip yourself over into security and certainty with your decisions.  In this way, you have found a more sophisticated antidote to ambivalence than the advice of "any decision is better than no decision."

These four contributors to any decision will help you immensely if you remember them in your difficult times. They make everything crystal clear, including what to do:

1.) Facts" ("looks good on paper") 

The woman told a story about buying her first used car. It was an incredible deal "on paper" - an unheard-of price on a vehicle with low miles and a relatively new year. It fit her like a glove. Why did she have a sensation in her gut - something was wrong. She remembered that when something is "too good to be true," it's too good to be true. She worried that "the engine would explode, or die, and what money she spent would be lost."

I asked her what she ended up doing. She had made the purchase, even though she had an instinct - an intuition that it was a bad deal.

What eventually happened?

"Well, surprisingly, it lasted many years," she said. "I was surprised. Apparently, sometimes what's good on paper really is."

This story speaks to why most of us really do "stick with the facts" in making our decisions. Facts are necessary. They are valuable when there is uncertainty, and even when surprises come up, and we can't possibly know everything about the relationship, the job, the friend, the relocation, or anything else we face, at the very least the facts can bolster us enough to dare to act on incomplete information and move forward anyway.

This is one of the great gifts of the function of our brains - the creative storytelling function, with its ability to fill in the gaps with what we've seen happen before, and making a complete narrative that equips us to function where otherwise we'd be paralyzed.

The unfortunate bit is that when we have had negative events and experiences happen (as owner of two prior lemons for cars, I can attest), we fill in the gaps in our explanation of the challenges we face with negative likelihoods. And understandably we worry that the wonderful deal in a car we've just found will fall apart, and the vehicle will break down.

Again, you can use Observing Ego skill to remind yourself that this car is not the one before it, or the one before that.

After doing so, our intuition becomes quite useful.

2.) Intuition ("gut feelings and instincts")

He said that he was just hauling some scrap steel to the junkyard to make some extra money, when out of the corner of his eye, three young men passed by.

He thought nothing of it until they returned a second time, eyeing him carefully.

A third flyby and they jumped out of their car, and threw their tee-shirts over their heads - an attempt to hide their identities, and triggering a horrific sensation in him - one that can be called the survival instinct.

His gut operated lightning-quick, telling him to drop the cart of steel and RUN.

One of them chased him and pulled out a gun.

Again, even though the police were nowhere to be found, his gut told him to start calling for them anyway, shouting, "Police, police, police!"

In a few moments, the youth lowered his firearm and turned back to his accomplices, and the steel.

His intuition had saved his life, and that was what it was for originally - to point out opportunities for mating or other pleasures, and to spur us instantly to action to save our own lives. In times eons ago, the forces of nature were an everyday threat - weather, and wild animals, or even the attack of a neighboring barbarian tribe could attack at any time.

Call it the "fight or flight reflex" if you like, but this primitive reaction causes us to act anyway, even in modern times where usually there are not 24/7 threats on our lives.

It remains valuable, and lightning-quick as it is evolved, that is for the reason that we ought to not ponder at length the vicious dog chasing us, the raised fist facing us, or the loud boom behind us in the dark, where we cannot see anyway. We need to do the illogical, and shudder or duck, run, or throw our arms out instantly in defense.

This reflex may not be "logic-based," as in thoughtful and wise, but is nevertheless beneficial in situations of high uncertainty.

As it is different from the first assisting factor in decisions - review of the facts, useful when there is TIME to think - this factor is highly effective to use in cases where there is a high degree of uncertainty and we have to act anyway, or where action is necessary in a very short period of time.

Athletes and military personnel know this very well. It's perfect for decision-making in times of quick action being necessary, danger to the body or mind, and certainly in cases where there is hostility or anger expressed that could become hostility.

But you can use it too.

3.) Emotions (leading toward happiness)

If most of us have trouble refining and using our instincts as a major force in our decisions, just as many of us consider making decisions based on emotions even less reliable for finding successful results. That is too bad because if you think of it, why would the emotion of happiness be a major goal within every other goal.

Still, it's not surprising. And for at least two reasons:

For one, we have all seen enough angry people and the poor outcomes of their decisions made out of anger or lack of self-control that can easily come with it. In MindOS Mastery we review a whole system of understanding anger and aggression called the Anger Map, and in there, the choice of passivity in the face of anger is depression itself, and aggression as a choice for using anger leads to brief relief of our negative feelings, but long term harm coming back to us in return.

Instead, when we choose assertiveness over aggression or depression, we win, because assertiveness is seeking our goals - meeting our own needs - without using or harming others.

Many don't use it however, and when we see them receive punishment for their violence, some part of us figures that anger is an emotion, and emotions are bad to use in making decisions.

And since happiness is an emotion too, we had better not let that be a reason behind a decision.

When there are choices to make in your ambivalence, or no harm possible to others, it is best to bring out this instinct, and do whatever will make you happy.

That is reason enough itself to decide something.

We need excuses and reasons for every decision, we figure.

And that's a second problem with valuing our emotional decisions.

We were once children. Back then, we would often or always "ask permission" to do anything we wanted to do - cross the street, eat dessert, stay up late, or spend our allowance.

The more we did this, the more adults called us a "good boy" or "good girl."

This was a great reward, emotionally. It filled our self-esteems, and let us know that all would be well - for if we were "good," we were dear to adults, and more protected in the ways that adults do for children.

Cut to our adult years, and many of us persist in using this old, reliable way of feeling good by way of the approval of others.

We go on for years and decades beyond childhood - making excuses for the things that we do not follow through on (often because they do not make us happy), and listing reasons for the things that we DO strive for or win at.

This is a variation of still "asking for permission" for doing what we do, and reliving those rewards in the approval of others.

It makes sense why we would do this, but it is still one of the most common causes of people's unhappiness today.

In the adult world - unlike the world of childhood - you have every right to do what you do with no reason whatsoever, just because you want to, or just because it seems as if it will likely give you some happiness...

...so long as what you do is legal, ethical, and basically does not hurt either yourself or others.

As a result, when your challenge or decision or goal offers two or more alternatives that do not harm yourself or anyone else - for example choosing spaghetti over chicken for dinner, or chicken over spaghetti - it is best to bring emotional decision-making to the fore, and to choose the item which is most likely to make you happy.

4.) Conscience ("the guilt and praise which let us know how others feel they are treated by US")

Is it possible to make decisions that make another person happy, but you unhappy?

Yes, think of child-rearing. Or volunteering, or going back to school, or getting to work on time.

And is it possible to make decisions that make us happy, but risk making another person unhappy?

Most certainly, as this scenario is even more common.

They need to understand conscience as a measure of ethics, goodness, fairness, and politics.

Even when you make great strides in your career, "might" does not make "right," and the way you treat others will certainly result in your decisions' growth of sophistication and wisdom - that sooner or later we need others in order to reach our dreams, and they remember how we treat them.

Our decisions need to be ethical, and when they are, we get more of those rewards we became so used to in childhood. When they aren't, our lives dwindle, and we "miss the mark" more and more and more.

Conscience is good to lead with as a decision-making resource when our choices are not neutral, but deeply affect the lives of others.

The Ideal Decision

If there were such a thing as an ideal decision, it would most certainly be built from facts, honor the intuition that has served us for so many eons, use our intuition to judge the most fit environments in order to make our next moves in life, and the normalcy of choosing what will definitely treat others well.

Think of these drivers of decisions as possible steering mechanisms, like having both the steering wheel (facts) and rudder (conscience) of a boat, with emotion like its' gasoline, and intuition like having the "sea-legs" to dare to go out to sea.

So fact-based decisions will give you certainty even if it can never be certain, emotion gives you happiness, whether at the cost of others, or in championing yourself, intuition gives you the timeliness, innovation, and flexibility to change your direction or approach to a challenge instantly, when it COUNTS, and finally conscience gives you a lack of guilt, and the freedom therein to make mistakes, but learn from them.

This is all material in the comprehensive model of understanding psychology - called "MindOS."

With these measures carrying statistical, and scientific value, it is very hard to go wrong with any decision.

See you on the forums of Women's Happiness Magazine for more information. Tony@womenshappiness.com and i will be glad to see you growing.