This is a topic I have been teaching on a yoga teacher training course at The Practice, plus recording for The Practice Online, and now I am here to share it with you.
If you improve your decision making abilities, it has the potential to have a HUGE impact on the results you experience, as a result of the quality of the decisions you make.
So pay close attention…
BETTER DECISIONS = BETTER RESULTS
(Effectively, more of what you want, and less of what you don’t want)
Power Up Your Decision Making #1: Are you ready? (Part 1)
It’s like this. Imagine you have an important game of sport you are about to participate in and you are not in the right head space, or in the right physical state (you are tired, low energy, and lethargic). Are you likely to play your best game? Probably not.
However if you are physically, mentally, emotionally and perhaps even spiritually (aka: connected to a reason bigger than yourself) powered up before the game; are you likely to perform better? You betcha! Bring it on!!
So…when you have an import decision to make, ensure you are in the right state to do so. If you have 50% energy, when you need to make a big decision, you might not come up with the best solution, and therefore may not get the result that you desire.
If you want to have the best access to the solution finding part of your brain, make sure that before you need to make big or high value decisions that you take care of the following physical things:
- Make sure you are well hydrated (the brain is over 70% water)
- Make sure you are not hungry (i.e. you have good quality fuel available for your brain)
- Your brain is well rested (take a break for 5-10 mins and walk in nature to rest and cool down the brain)
Don’t think you will make your best decisions if your brain is not in the right physical state to do so.
For the decisions that really matter, get INTENTIONAL about preparing your brain for the task ahead.
Power Up Your Decision Making #2: Are you ready? (Part 2)
The emotional state you are in can determine if you have the brain power of a human (you) or mans best friend (your dog).
The first thing to be aware of is that STRESS and CREATIVITY don’t mix well together. They don’t like hanging out in the same place together. So if you are stressed, you are likely to have less access to your higher mental facilities (which are pretty useful when it comes to making GREAT empowered decisions).
The other thing with being in a negative emotional state (where you have activated the stress response of the sympathetic nervous system), is that you will go tunnel vision.
So here is a question for you…
Are you likely to make a better decision if you have tunnel vision or if you can see the whole picture?
Another word for the whole picture is PERSPECTIVE.
So the tip is to do whatever you need to do to change your emotional state from one of fear (or survival) to an elevated emotional state, like peace, calm, compassion, excitement, enthusiasm, curiosity, wonder, joy, etc. This will put you in an emotional state that will allow you to have broader and clearer perspective, plus access the parts of your brain related to creativity and joining separate ideas into a solution.
Examples to change your emotional state include:
- Take 3-5 deep breaths through the nose
- Take a walk in nature
- Talk with a calming friend
- Slow everything down
- Do some ‘tapping‘ (emotional freedom technique)
- Meditate
- Do some yoga poses
Do what you need to do, so you are not making any major decisions when you are stressed. Get out of your stressed state, THEN make your decisions when you can see the whole picture.
Power Up Your Decision Making #3: What’s the reality?
It is really, really hard to make good decisions when you are working with assumptions, partial facts, or the wrong information.
Get clear of the REALITY of the situation, looking at it from as many different angles as possible. And work on taking any information that is not a fact, or that you are not 100% certain of, as close to a fact as possible.
Don’t rush into making a decision before you have the maximum number of FACTS. Slow down. Asks question to clarify. Do research. Ask friends or experts that have dealt with something similar for solutions that worked for them. Increase your knowledge.
Use a powerful question to bring your mind back to the facts, as opposed to assumptions and dreamed-up catastrophes.
“What is the reality?”
Use this powerful question to anchor you in the current, present and real situation you are working with. That is what you want to base your decision on.
Keep asking that question until you get to the other end.
The Choices we make heavily influence our destiny
If the choices we make, moment by moment and day by day, have a huge impact on the results we get in life, then it is in your best interests to be very conscious about what state you are in BEFORE you make a decision.
Be a conscious co-creator of your destiny, by making sure you are in the right physical, mental and emotional state to make the best decisions you possibly can. And if you are not, then defer the decision until you are. Get intentional about doing what you need to do to get into a peak solution-finding state.
Then and only then will you truly be tapping into your creative genius!!
Right state + right information & knowledge = empowered decision.