Death by Chocolate Or…?

If you have seen my posts on social media you may know that I love chocolate! Some may describe me as a chocoholic

but I prefer to call myself a chocolate gourmand… anyway imagine my difficulty recently when I was out for lunch and faced with a choice between “Death by Chocolate” or ” The Chocolate Platter”.

How was I going to choose what to have? What if I got it wrong? What if I missed out because I made the wrong decision?

How good are you at making decisions?

We make hundreds of decisions every day – what to have for breakfast, what to wear, what to listen to on your i-pod, where to sit on the bus or tube, which supermarket to go to, whether to go out or stay in, whether to open an email or not.….the list goes on and on.

Many of them are unconscious so we are really good at making decisions and most of the time you just do it.

So why when it comes to your business/career or your relationships (or dessert!) is it often so difficult?

because making decisions should be one of the easiest things to do. Either you want something or you don’t. Even if you’re not sure it doesn’t really matter, you can always change your mind afterwards but it becomes difficult because we often worry and become anxious about the outcome and are so focused on “getting it right”.

Do you ever feel that you seem to make so many “wrong” decisions? But what if you couldn’t fail? What if whatever you decide turns out to be the best thing?because you make the best decision based on the resources you have available to you at the time.What can make things easier is realizing that no matter what you decide you can almost always change your mind. You already know what to do when you let go of trying to get it 100% right.

In his book “The Dice Man” Luke Rhinehart describes a man whose every act in life is determined by a throw of the dice. I’m not suggesting that you do that but we can have some fun with the idea………………

Are you up for a challenge?

This challenge is to make a decision whilst letting go of “getting it right”.

Think of a decision you want to make. Keep it fairly simple e.g. what to have for dessert – Death by Chocolate or The Chocolate Platter. If you don’t like chocolate then think about deciding what to have for dinner e.g. lasagne or pizza.

You are going to make this decision whilst you read this article and to do this exercise you need a coin.

So take the coin.

Decide which of your options – e.g. lasagna or pizza, corresponds to “heads “ and which to “tails”.

In a moment, not just yet but in a moment, you are going to toss the coin.

You must agree to abide by the result.

So now toss the coin…….

• What is the result?
• How do you feel about it?
• What did you want the result to be?
• Do you feel relieved? excited? disappointed?

The way you felt before you tossed the coin, when it was in the air and afterwards tell you all you need to know.

Next time you are undecided use this exercise and see what happens. You might just be surprised!

By the way I decided to have The Chocolate Platter and it was delicious!

Until next time,

Cath.

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