Anyone who knows me, especially from my younger years, will tell you that one of my (endearing?!) qualities is that I take a while to make decisions. And by a while, I mean quite a while. I like to call it incubating. When given the time, I like to think about things a lot, play options out in my head, run through various scenarios, possible risks and anticipate different outcomes, especially with big life decisions*. While it might look like I’m not taking any immediate action, there’s a lot going on internally. I’m gathering information, consulting different sources, evaluating options, angles and combinations and imagining the consequences of each choice. Once I’m clear on what I’m looking for and the decision I want to make, I think I’m pretty quick to create a plan and power through a series of efficient steps to achieve my goals. This can seem like a long process for people who make quick decisions, but I see it as a strength! Any other “incubators” out there who agree? :D
However, one of the occupational hazards of this approach is that it can be quite a cognitive-dominant process, in that I can get caught up in my head, ruminating and over-thinking, which can lead to analysis paralysis! I’ve noticed that this is a pretty common pattern with many of my clients too. This is when some somatic work can be so helpful. It sounds simple, yet we often forget that we have a body that sits underneath our powerful analytical head with so much information to give us if we can be still and tune into the sensations and intelligence there. On the days that I remember to meditate, even if it’s for 5-10 minutes dropping into conscious breath cycles, I feel so much calmer, steadier and clearer. I’ve got a few favourite experiential narrative coaching exercises that I take myself through too which also help to ground me when I feel really stuck in my head!
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with another way to circumvent my extended decision making and thought it might be helpful to share with my fellow over-analytical friends! I’ve been using it particularly once I’ve made a decision and then things seem like they’re going a little bit wrong and I start wondering “Did I actually make the right decision?” Rather than fixating on the past and playing out how things could have gone if I’d made a different choice, I’ve been playing with reframing the question to “Is there another decision to be made?” In this way, I imagine I’m further along a decision tree rather than at the final point. Given I’ve gathered more information, insights and experience since making my original decision and now I’m weighing up whether I’ll make another choice to get me further to where I want to be. So far it’s helping me to be more focused in the present, have more agency and momentum to craft what I want, and it’s a good antidote to my well-honed art of rumination and analysis paralysis! Will I actually get faster at making decisions though? That’s the big question ;-)
I’d love to hear what you think, and especially any tools that you use to help you speed up your decision making!
*When asked, my husband will repeatedly declare that it took us six years to buy our house, but I think it only took us six months ;-)
