How to start trusting yourself to make decisions

I didn't trust my decisions. Which meant that when I made them, I second guessed them. If I wasn’t second guessing them, it was because I got the approval I needed, but then I’d wish there were better options because those decisions didn’t make me happy. 

Ever feel this way? Here’s why it happens.

The noise

There are so many things calling out to us every day, from work to family to screen notifications. Current events add an extra layer of worry to our day and fog up any amount of clarity we have left. Our strain and exhaustion causes us to disengage in our relationships because we’re shot. Which adds guilt…  more noise, this time coming from the inside. 

Discernment feels unavailable to us, and we often default to the least uncomfortable and most urgent option. 

The problem, of course, is that you get better at making decisions the same way you’ve been making them, and not so great at making decisions the way you haven’t been making them. Your ability to tap into your internal navigation system, cut through the noise, and make decisions based on your own sense of purpose and desire gets so rusty that it feels like life is falling apart, mainly because you don’t trust yourself to make the right decisions and follow through on them. Sometimes this can look like commitment phobia, and sometimes it looks like adversity to rules and authority. Key word left out of that: Self regulation. Self authority. 

Given that we get better at what we do, it would be great to find a more “controlled setting” where we can build our self trust muscle. 

Where can you start practicing making decisions repetitively that will strengthen your trust in self and where the stakes aren’t too high? 

Your daily meditation practice. 

Decide how long and when. Then follow through. 

By making and following through on this one simple decision, and sticking with it especially when life gets crazy or when you simply don’t want to, you become reliable to yourself, and you build that trust into your psyche. You start to trust your ability to decide on something that’s good for YOU and to see it through each and every day. When you make this commitment unshakeable, you gain an unshakeable trust in yourself. 

On the other hand, if you negotiate with yourself regularly, it gets easier for others to negotiate you out of yourself as well. When you “snooze” on yourself, it gets easier to delay what’s important to you. When you go with your mood, it gets easier to confuse inconsistency with flow. But your body always knows, and your mind-body dissonance feels the ache. If you listen to it, you’ll pull yourself out. If you don’t, you stop trusting yourself.

It begins with you first. Which is why those that have discipline (daily practice) have healthy boundaries, have trust. 

The right time to practice 

What you do first thing in the morning between waking up and breakfast is what sets the tone for your day. It impacts your mindset and sets your nervous system, so make your first decision of the day a good one. 

If the first thing you do is open up your inbox or scroll, you’ve set the tone for yourself to respond to the calls of others - and wear yourself out sifting through the junk - before everything else. You become learned in putting your attention on the loudest and more urgent. It makes you more vulnerable to being swallowed up in dread. You’ll want to pull the sheets over your head, to stay in bed. You habitualize yourself out of the equation. You’re too important for this b.s.

Practice daily morning meditation. Don’t tell yourself you’ll try. Tell yourself you will. You’ll get yourself back. 

Love, Savitree