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Your brain craves certainty when making decisions. It wants to know you’re getting it “right”. But often times that feeling of certainty can feel illusive, almost magical, and certainly not anything you can control. But certainty is just a feeling, and like any other feeling, it comes from the way you think. In today’s podcast I’m sharing with you how to cultivate certainty when making decisions, there are just 4 things you need to know.
Topics in this episode:
Certainty is something you control
Why your gut has nothing to do with certainty
4 things you need to know to cultivate certainty
Specific questions to use when making certain decisions
A simple framework, even your 7 year old could use, to feel certain
Show Notes & References:
You can learn to be a decisive and powerful decision maker. Book a free breakthrough call and I will walk you through the process: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
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Transcript
Hey, real quick. If you like the show and have found the content to be useful in your life as an ambitious working mom, would you take two minutes to rate and write a review? This is the most useful way to get this show in front of other working moms that are looking to create balance. So, if you've adopted me as your working mom coach, I'd appreciate it if you take a moment to rate and review the show now. Thanks for your time and onto the episode.
Our brains crave certainty when we make decisions. And most people would say they feel certain about a decision when it feels good in their gut. But that makes certainty feel almost magical or elusive and certainly not anything we can control. But really, certainty is just a feeling. And like any other feeling, it comes from the way you think. In today's podcast, I'm sharing with you how you can cultivate certainty when making decisions. There are just four things you need to know. And I'm covering it all right here. You ready to become a powerful decision-maker? Well, let's get to it.
Intro
Welcome to the ambitious and balanced working mom podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you’re looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home then this is the place for you. I’m your host Rebecca Olson, let’s get to it!
Hey working moms, I hope that you had a wonderful weekend filled with some extra rest and maybe even some snuggles this weekend. In California, the weather just took a really big turn where we had been in like the 70s, maybe even the early 80s and enjoying some shorts and some evening walks. And now we're back to where we should be kind of in late February, low 50s, late 40s, wind drizzle, fog…so I am definitely taking some extra snuggles with my kiddos, reading a good book and drinking a warm cup of tea at night. It feels good, I love that I get both ends of the spectrum and that I actually enjoy both ends of the spectrum. I really love it when it's warm and we can be outside. And I kind of really love it when I get to snuggle up in a blanket too. So it always feels kind of good this moment where we kind of go back and forth where the weather is trying to decide if it's going to be nice and stay nice. Or if it's kind of going to go back and forth. I don't mind this time. I don't mind this in-between season that we have here.
Our brains desire certainty.
Now there is a topic that has been running through my head ever since I gave the purpose workshop that I held a few weeks ago. And that is our brain's desire for certainty. When we're making really big decisions in our life, like changing jobs, or changing careers, or even taking a break for a while or moving or going back to school - It makes sense that our brain really wants us to feel certain that we're making the right decision. But what struck me as I was teaching about understanding your purpose in this workshop, and analyzing yourself and understanding your internal motivations and desires, it really struck me how difficult it can be for our human brains to feel certain about the little things and the little decisions.
No one else knows what motivates you as a person, no one else knows what it feels like to be inside your body, and is able to analyze that like you can. You are literally the expert of understanding yourself, who you are, what you desire, what you want, what brings you energy. And yet when it comes to self-exploration, and I do see this time and time again, when you're trying to make decisions about you, your brain sort of gets stuck there too. And it really wants to feel certain about those answers as well. So no matter if we're talking about big decisions in life or things that we are literally the experts of, our brains prefer to stay stuck in indecision until we feel certain. And that's what I really want to focus on in this podcast, that magical feeling of certainty that we all crave and why we need to stop waiting around for it. Because it does feel like we're waiting around doesn't it? As if the feeling of certainty is something that happens to us instead of something that we create and that we have control over.
I'm gonna get into four steps to creating certainty in just a couple of minutes. But I really want to start with understanding why your brain wants to feel certain as you make decisions.
Certainty is knowing without any doubt.
When you think about what it is you really want with that feeling of certainty, It's really about knowing for sure. Knowing without any doubt. Now, why is it that you want to know for sure when you're making a decision? Almost always the answer is because you want to get it right. Now there may be lots of reasons why you want to get it right. There could be financial implications, an impact to your family or other people that you love. You don't want to waste time, you don't want to look stupid, right? There are all sorts of reasons why you want to ensure that you don't make a wrong decision about something. But the idea of rightness and wrongness, that's completely subjective. You just simply get to decide what is right or wrong for you. Because what's right or wrong for you isn't going to be right or wrong for me. I could probably do a whole nother podcast about this idea of rightness because it's really important to understand. But for now, I just want you to run with this idea that there is never a universal right or wrong to any decision you're making. Because you just simply get to decide for yourself what it is you want, and why you want it and decide that that's right or wrong for you. So when we talk about not wanting to get it wrong or wanting to ensure that we get it right, that comes with certainty. What we're really saying is that we want to make sure that we reach the desired outcome. That's really what it means to be right - to meet the desired outcome. And for most of us, that's how we talk about decisions, we made the right decision if it reached the desired outcome. And if we made a wrong decision, if we didn't reach the desired outcome. So when we want to feel certain about something, what we want to know is that the decision is going to get us where we want to go, it's going to meet the desired outcome. The problem is, we can never be 100% sure about anything. It's possible to be 99.9999% sure about something. But there's really no way to ever predict the future and say with 100% certainty that this outcome is going to happen.
Certainty is a feeling.
So even though our brain wants to connect certainty with the outcome, it isn't actually we're certainty lies, because you can never be certain of something in the future. Certainty is a feeling. And this one even more than others, I think most of us know what that feeling of certainty feels like in our body. Because most of us connect the idea of certainty with our gut - like there's a deep down gut feeling, you just know that you know. Oh my gosh, do I wish that we can feel that with every decision. I wish that that magical gut feeling would be felt easily with every decision that we make. And actually, I think that we can, it just simply requires effort. Because that magical gut feeling that we all crave. When we want certainty about something, that feeling isn't really magical. It doesn't just happen to us, we create it with our thoughts.
I remember the very first day of Coach Training that I went through, about eight years ago. Up to this point, I was not 100% sure I really wanted to be a coach, or even that I wanted a business. But that very first day, I walked away 100% certain that this is what I want. I knew it. And that feeling of certainty came from the way I was thinking about my experience that day and forecasting the rest of my experience. I remember having thoughts like, oh my gosh, I was made for this, this is going to be so much fun. I'm going to touch so many lives, God is going to be able to use me in so many ways that I never even imagined. Notice how all of these thoughts are confirming that I was in the right place? I wasn't thinking about how I was going to start the business. I wasn't thinking about how I was going to make money at it. I wasn't thinking about when I was going to leave my full time job and how do I cross these two things over? And how do I not burn myself out? My brain wasn't thinking about all of those unknowns. They were all still there, there were lots of questions to be asked in due time, but that wasn't where my brain was. And because my brain was solely focused on how amazing this experience was and how connected I was to it, I felt very certain that I was on the right path. So although I know that this kind of deep down knowing, this feeling of certainty, this gut feeling I know it feels like something that is somewhat magical, but it's really not. It’s just like any other feeling, it comes from the way we think.
And that's really the first thing I want you to walk away with as you think about certainty for you. It's a feeling and just like any other feeling, it comes with the way you're thinking or not thinking about something.
The second thing I want you to know is if you want to feel certain about something, if you want to know for sure that you're making the right decision, you actually need to focus your brain on the things that you can in fact be certain about, instead of focusing on the potential outcome, which you can never really be 100% certain of.
Focus your brain on what you know, instead of what you don't.
I teach all of my clients, whether I work with them one-on-one, or they're a part of the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms Collective - that's my group coaching program, I teach them to always focus their brain on what they know, instead of what they don't. You never want to be making decisions based upon what you don't know. Because what you don't know is almost always based out of fear. So let me give you an example. If you're thinking about changing jobs, or making some kind of change in your career, likely a big thing holding you back from making that change, even if it's what you really want to do, are thoughts like, I don't know if I'm really going to be happy there. I don't know if it's the best thing for my resume. I don't know if this is going to be enough of a change. I don't know what the team is like, the boss might not be any better. You're thinking about all of the things you don't know. And that ultimately you can't even really control. If those are your dominant thoughts, It makes a lot of sense why you feel nervous changing jobs and why you kind of feel stuck in making the decision because your brain is thinking about all of these things that are unknown to you and it's causing you to feel very uncertain. Instead, I want you to be asking your brain, what it is that you do know. You do know that you're unhappy in your current job and it's time to move on. You do know that this next job that you're looking at matches your skill sets and that you'd be an asset to their company. You do know that it's not a job that makes you happy or unhappy and that you actually have a lot of control over that feeling. You know that if for some reason this job doesn't work out, you'll find another. From here, you want to start taking it deeper and deeper. Start thinking about how each of the various job duties are things that you love to do, or pick out the ones that you love to do so your brain really sees what you're good at and what you love and connects it to the job. Now all of a sudden, this job is starting to sound a little bit more appealing isn't it? The framing of it is everything. So you want to be focusing your brain on the things that you know to be certain already.
More information does not necessarily lead to a better decision
And that leads to the third thing that you should know about certainty is that you get to omit some information. The more information you give to your brain, the harder it is to actually generate that feeling of certainty. I know lots of you out there love to research the heck out of things before making a decision. And I used to as well. But more information never leads to a better decision, you're not going to feel more certain about a decision when you research it more. In reality, what you're doing is you're creating more confusion. Let me give you a simple example, if a professor asked one student to read five books, and then out of those five books to write an essay, and to another student says read this one book, and then out of that one book, write an essay, which assignment is going to be easier, it's going to be the one that only has to read one book, because not only because it will take a shorter amount of time to just read one book versus five, but because there's not a whole lot of information that person has to weed through in order to write their essay, versus the other student that has to pick and choose the various pieces of information that are relevant. They have to weed through the various concepts in order to come to some cohesive thought. There's a lot more work that your brain has to do when you input more information when making a decision. So it's okay to omit some information.
Here's how I want you to think about it. I want you to think about your brain as being almost like an entirely separate person from you, we're gonna call that person the decision maker. And your job is to frame the decision in such a way that the decision maker is going to feel certain about going in the direction that you want them to go. You literally are convincing the decision maker of your side, the side that you want. Think about this, maybe as a child, like my seven year old right now is getting very good at arguing her points around things. So she isn't allowed to eat candy at will so she has to come to me as her mom, the decision maker about if she can have a piece of candy or not. And she comes to me with an argument. She says things like, ‘well, I haven't had a piece in a couple of days. I ate all of my vegetables today and ate all of my lunch. It's small, so I know it's not going to spoil my dinner…’ That's kind of the argument she would give to me so that I would be more likely to say yes to her eating the piece of candy. The information she's omitting is how it's gonna rot her teeth. Maybe she's even omitting to me the fact that she had cookies earlier that day. For her all of that information isn't relevant to me saying yes to her piece of candy. It doesn't mean that that information isn't still out there. It still isn't true. She's just framing the argument in such a way to persuade my decision. Now this is the same thing that you want to do when you're approaching your brain, who's the decision maker. With a decision, you want to give as many relevant details to make your argument as certain as possible and omit the rest. The problem I know a lot of people have when I talk to them about making decisions in this way, is they think that they're lying to themselves. They think that by not looking at all of the information by omitting some of it, that they're somehow cheating their brain or tricking their brain into believing something. And on some level, it's sort of true…my seven year old is in fact, trying to trick me on some level. I don't like the word trick a whole lot, because it makes it feel very deceptive in some way. Is my seven year old really being deceptive in not telling me what kinds of treats she ate earlier that day, or reminding me that the candy is bad for her teeth? Not really, she's not lying to me. She's just giving me the relevant information so that I will make a decision that she hopes will be in her favor. Oftentimes I will, in fact, ask some follow up questions like what kinds of sweets have you had today, and I will add that into my information while I make a decision. But it's not as if she's lying to me, or that you're tricking your brain, like you're trying to tell your brain something that isn't true. You're just pointing out the relevant details, that gets your brain to the decision that it wants. If you wanted to spend time arguing the other side, you could easily come up with an argument for why you should stay in your job if that's the decision you're trying to make right now. You can show your brain all of the relevant details for why staying put right now is the best thing for you. And I know you can do that. Because remember, decisions are completely subjective, there's no right or wrong to any decision.
Ultimately, the question isn't about getting it right or wrong, it's about which one is going to get you to the desired result. So you could make an argument for why you should stay in your current job right now and give your decision making brain all of the relevant information that says things like, this is a safe place to be, you've been in this company a long time, there's opportunities to move up, you're known, you know your boss, you're not that unhappy, you could probably shift the way you're thinking or working to make it work for you right now. It's better for your family if you don't rock the boat. And you can just continue to focus all of your attention when you're not at work on your family. Like you could come up with probably a pretty good argument for staying in the same way that you can make a pretty good argument for why you're leaving. That's why the decision is subjective in the first place, it's not really about getting it right or wrong. It's about what do you want.
Making powerful decisions.
When it comes to something like a career change, my guess is what you want is to be happy. You're not fulfilled where you're at right now, in the way at least you're thinking about your job right now. So something has to change, you just get to decide if you want to make that change in your brain and stay where you're at. Or if you want to change jobs all together and just make that whole process easier. So in this case, really the decision isn't about whether you should stay or go in your job, the decision is, is staying or going to make you more happy? Or is it going to make being happy easier? That's almost like an entirely different question. I in fact, often spend time with my clients looking at a decision from both sides, coming up with arguments for why both sides are right, because if both sides are right in the end, and you can find all of the relevant details for why you would make a decision one way and make the decision the other way and feel really good about either way, then all of a sudden you have two options, you just get to decide which one you want. And that puts you in a powerful place to be making powerful decisions for yourself when you have options and choices. I really don't believe that you can ever trick your brain. If you are 1, being honest with yourself and 2, it's getting you to the desired outcome.
Certainty can change.
The last thing I want you to know about certainty is that it's changeable. If you make a decision today based on what you know, and then you change that decision later based on more information coming in, that doesn't mean you were wrong or that you weren't certain when you made the decision the first time. All decisions are changeable. I had a client that I worked with and coached and by the end of our time together she had landed what she felt was like the perfect next job for her. It was a company that she absolutely adored and that she had really wanted to work with. There was a lot of potential in that job, it fit the bill in so many different ways. But just after a month or two of being in it, she knew that it really wasn't the place for her and it took getting into the job that she realized this really wasn't the place for her And unfortunately, a lot of the things that she learned she couldn't have known in the interview process. And in fact, some of it felt very misrepresented in the interview process. So she made a decision with a lot of certainty and a lot of clarity. It did not get her to the desired outcome. But she didn't go back and beat herself up for all of the reasons why she had made the decision as if she had made it wrong in the first place. She just said, this isn't working for me anymore, and so she changed it. That is okay. And you can feel certain back then when you make a decision, and you get to feel certain today, certainty is available to you with every decision you make.
Before I leave you, I want to give you a few questions that you can ask your brain to help cultivate this feeling of certainty. The better your question is, the more nuanced it is, the deeper and deeper your reasoning is going to be that will help that feeling of certainty to be cultivated for you. So here's just a few that I like to use with my clients a lot. Now, just to be clear, you're using these questions to deepen your argument for whatever way you want to go. So let me just use the example that you're thinking about leaving your job. So let's assume that you really do in fact, want to leave your job, and you're just spinning in fear and indecision around that. So you're going to use these questions as if you're making that decision to leave. So you want to ask things like, what do I already love about the idea of leaving? How am I already on board with that idea? Why is leaving the best thing for my family? Why is leaving the best thing for me? Why is leaving the best thing for my company? How does this benefit me in the future? You see, I'm just framing questions that are giving more and more evidence and are framing the decision to leave in a really positive light. Now you could use the same questions and argue the other side and find all the reasons why you love staying and so forth. As I talked about earlier, you can for sure do that. But this is really the foundation of how I help my clients create a lot of certainty for them by asking really powerful questions that mine their brain for deeper and deeper reasons that help it all settle in at that gut level.
Conclusion.
That is all I have for you today. Amazing working moms, you make over 30,000 decisions a day, and becoming a more powerful and certain decision maker is one of the most useful skills that you can learn to cultivate. For sure, I'll be talking more about making powerful decisions and how to do that in the coming weeks and months and podcasts. I just can't wait to continue to teach you more and more about the power of making decisions. So I love it. And I wish you all a great next week. Let's get to it.
