When was the last time you made a really difficult decision? Accepting a new job, deciding for or against a partner, going on vacation or investing instead? Many people find it difficult to make really "big" decisions. But why is that?
The answer to this is that decisions are often associated with pain and sacrifice. What makes decision-making so difficult for us is the illusion that it should be easy, without pain. The hope for the "perfect" solution, the perfect job, the perfect partner—all of this should be waiting for us somewhere. But deep down, we know the truth: none of this exists.
How we would love to leave everything open sometimes...
... and delay decisions, especially when it is particularly important to decide now. But what price do we pay for this? In my opinion, we miss out on favorable opportunities. Procrastination causes frustration, and everyone knows how exhausting it is to feel torn between two options.
An undisciplined mind will always focus on what is wrong. Looking for the fly in the ointment. Desiring what we don't have right now. I'm sure you know the feeling that the grass always seems to be a little greener on the other side: the trainee envies the company boss for his expensive car. The company boss, on the other hand, looks longingly after the trainee in the afternoon as he immerses himself in the nightlife of the big city. While he himself hears from his wife once again why he has been working so long. However, the trainee ignores the fact that the boss works over 60 hours a week for his luxury. In return, the company boss overlooks the fact that a queen of the night is not waiting for the trainee every evening and that he often crawls into his bachelor apartment alone the next morning.
The desire to have everything at once is widespread.
But very few are willing to pay the price for this. Working little and earning a lot of money, vacationing in the mountains and still having a sea view, a fascinating man as a husband, protector, lover, father, macho and softie. But where does our energy go? Into fantasies about the possibilities we have rejected, about the life we are currently missing out on. The playwright Christian Grabbe said very aptly: "Only once in the world, and then as a plumber in Detmold!"
What really makes deciding so difficult is giving up the optionthat is not chosen. If I choose Sarah, I can no longer make out with Jana. Choosing means closing a door! And all too often, we resist this loss by devaluing the option we didn't choose: "It wouldn't have worked out anyway..."; "He wasn't the right one anyway..." – But acting like this has nothing to do with real choice.
Make powerful decisions and appreciate alternatives
We often encounter situations like this in our seminars: Start-ups present themselves as being more individual and friendly than "the corporations." Working women undermine themselves by devaluing others who are "just" housewives. Only when we begin to appreciate the alternative and then make a clear decision between two serious options does a decision have power and dignity. When you appreciate all the alternatives, a choice has power. Otherwise, it is not a real decision, but an escape. When we affirm the price we pay, we add something valuable to what we have decided.
This is exactly what we would like to invite you to do. To make your decisions even easier in the future. Don't sit there shaking your head over your soup until a hair actually falls into it. Walk through an open door and close the other one at the same time, with everything that goes with it.
That's why you're not really happy.
Why success and fulfillment have nothing to do with each other.
