Breaking Through Indecision: Tips for Midlife Decision Making

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:02]:
This is episode number 261. Well, today's episode is really being recorded in real time in my real life situation where I had to make a decision after some personal life circumstances caused me to need to delay going on a trip for a day. And this whole affair this past week in my personal life has made me think long and hard about how we make decisions in midlife. And I thought I'd share my reflections and tips for you on this very issue. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:47]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:30]:
So today's topic is making decisions as a person in midlife. And this topic has been the topic for me this past week as I was slated to go to Arizona for a conference. But then some family issues arose and there was some question as to whether I was going to be able to go to the conference. End of story is that I decided not to go to that conference. But what I learned in the intervening time I thought was worth sharing with you because I know if you're like me, that you will run into situations where you will need to make decisions, sometimes on the fly, sometimes they're involving some financial investment, sometimes they're involving other people in your family and or your life. And then all of a sudden you feel like you're not just making one decision, you're actually making a bunch of decisions all at once. And then you want to play this game with yourself of am I making the smartest move? Do I have all the information I need? Am I using my best mind and mindset to make this decision? Will I regret this decision later? Who will I impact with my decisions and how do I keep all my possible options open? So instead of making just one decision, we're feeling like something heavy is going on where there are some consequences. And it's not just about time pressure and making that one decision.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:16]:
We're now afraid that we are going to make the wrong decision. And I think sometimes fear is really our biggest hurdle in life, that we have to constantly be checking in with ourselves and making sure we're not sunk because of our fears. So let's talk about how to understand decisions and sometimes our avoidance of making decisions. Researchers at Stanford found that uncertainty activates the same stress circuits in the brain that physical danger does. That means when there is no clear best choice, your brain actually tries to protect you by freezing. Freezing you. That might look like feeling like your mind is going in loops, constantly comparing different options, letting clutter pile up because you're not making decisions, keeping options open just in case you might be able to use them, and then also delaying making a choice because you're afraid to. And time is going to take over anyway, so.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:33]:
So you may wonder if you're in this kind of situation or if you have been. You may wonder, why can't I just decide? I want to let you know that it's not because you're flawed or it's not because your brain isn't great, but it's because your brain thinks it's keeping you safe. It is trying to protect you from the danger that is the open decision. But I thought I'd bring in another element of how decision making plays in with our psychology. Because there is a cost to staying in that in between zone where we're saying maybe to ourselves, but we're not actually settling on a decision because we think that we have a lot of time and that we still have time to spare and to use while we're in this maybe middle position. But what ends up happening is we're paying the cost in terms of actually losing time because we're staying stuck in the middle. We are experiencing this invisible stress of not knowing what we're doing. Are we going? Are we staying? What is happening? You also lose out because you don't have any momentum when you are stuck.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:47]:
So you have this lost period of time where you could be headed somewhere. You're instead losing that time and that energy and that movement forward. And then of course, you feel stressed because your mind is cluttered and emotionally you're feeling really heavy. That indecision is like you standing at a fork in the road and saying, I'm not gonna move forward. And that is not really how we deal with real forks in the road. When we're traveling, we always make a decision. So I'm gonna suggest that if you're feeling like you're waiting for the right decision, that maybe you can decide for yourself. I'M gently going to create my best scenario choice right now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:32]:
Instead of staying in this messy middle, I'm going to make a choice for myself. Because in midlife, time is really a factor. We no longer want to be wasting time. We no longer have all this decades ahead of us. Hopefully we do, of course, but as you know, if you're in midlife, we. We're just more sensitive to the fact that time is limited for us and that time is so precious and valuable and the fact that we don't really like being stuck in the middle. So we wanna reframe this whole scenario and we wanna decide that making a choice is not so scary. It's not actually our enemy, we're not actually in any danger.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:16]:
And actually, in fact, when we make a choice, we actually open up opportunities for new things, for new energy, for new roads, and for new options to come our way. Choosing is the only way we are able to unlock and unblock our energy. It is the way we can reduce our mental load. It's the way that we can actually pick one route and go forward so that we keep growing, we keep gaining clarity, we keep trusting ourselves to move ourselves forward, and we keep writing the book of our life. It's no longer just the beginning of the book. We're right in the middle and we're traveling. We're getting to live our life full out. We're not stuck at the fork in the road.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:04]:
So if you want to feel more empowered, if you want to feel like you have more energy and more goals to go for, and if you want to feel more freedom in your life, I'm going to suggest that you make your choices consistently. You want to make them consistently on a regular basis. You're going to take some leaps, you're going to take some experiments, you're going to take some risks, and you're going to do things that other people are not even going to understand sometimes. But you're going to follow your intuition, you're going to follow your gut, you're going to follow what you need and, and you're going to make that choice or those choices. And that act of making those choices is really, I think after this week of going back and forth in my own mind hundreds of times, making those choices is what life is really made of. So here's some guidelines for getting better at making some choices and decisions in midlife, especially if you've been on the more indecisive side of the spectrum. So the first tip that I have for you is you want to Give yourself a time limit. For me, I had the time limit of the plane departure time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:22]:
So I knew that I couldn't just go on thinking about going to Arizona forever more. There were specific time frames I needed to abide by, and I wanted to make a good decision for myself. So I thought long and hard about it. And. And I feel like I came to the right decision for myself. But know that for yourself, you could just arbitrarily and artificially create your own time limit. It doesn't have to be a plane taking off without you. It could just be that you're going to give yourself until Tuesday to think about it and then you're going to decide.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:57]:
It can give you great comfort to know that there's going to be an end to the indecision. The. The second tip that I have for you is that you can ask yourself what would help you to feel lighter right now? Which decision would help you to feel lighter? I have to tell you that when I pressed cancel on my flight reservation, my entire body relaxed. And I wasn't expecting that because I was also looking forward to going to that conference in Arizona. But you know, your body knows when you've been holding on to too much. And maybe you're thinking about doing too much in one short window. The third tip that I have for you for making decisions in midlife is to choose the option that you know you can support yourself through. You know that this is your story.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:49]:
You are the author of this book, and the decisions are just going to be little plot changes. But you need to know that you can play the next scene the way you've written it. So know that your next choice is not going to be a total violation of your values, of your path, of your larger goals, and of what you really like to do with your days and with your times. And tip number four is you want to decide. I'm going to decide. You're going to actually close the loop that is wide open when you're being indecisive. You want to say to yourself, maybe out loud, even you want to say to yourself, I choose this. And then decide for yourself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:33]:
And your brain will listen, and then your brain will cooperate. No more being stuck at the fork in the road. The final tip is that you want to be in acceptance of your final decision. All that goes forward is going to be your energy towards that choice. You're no longer going to regret. You're no longer going to fear. You're no longer going to have that fear of missing out, which is so popular all the time. No matter what we do.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:02]:
You're just going to decide. I'm going with my decision. I'm going to create momentum from this point forward and you're going to be just great. Because that's what we learn in midlife. That is actually the power of midlife. That we have the power of choice, that we have the power of rerouting ourselves if we need to. We are not in physical existential danger and we are actually crafting our lives so we can enjoy our choices that much more. There are so many opportunities for us in this precious time called midlife.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:37]:
So it's up to us to say we're going to tamp down the fear, we're going to ramp up our intuition and our decision making power and and we're going to see what's ahead for us. Because midlife is for the mastering, it's not for the hiding. And I hope you got something from my reflections from this week of indecisiveness and life choices amidst family transitions and conferences in Arizona. And if you yourself are in indecision right now, I hope this episode help to calm you down, soothe your heart, and inspire your brain to make some really wonderful choices. If you would like a free download to go with this episode and this week's content, I invite you to go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/decisions with an S maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/decisions and I will get that free download right over to you. I look forward to talking with you next week when the next episode drops. Take care. Have a great one.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:50]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website Make Time for Success podcast for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to and let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making Time for Success. Talk to you soon.