Ever opened your full fridge and wondered what you should be eating tonight?

Or sat at your desk completely undecided on whether you want a salary increase or a career pivot?

Indecisiveness is a big thing, and it could be jeopardising your life’s progress.

I have had many instances in my life where I have had a terrible bout of indecision because of decision-making fatigue. In fact, the COVID19 pandemic threw me into the pits of decision fatigues:

• The kids’ home-schooling schedules
• What to wear each day when I’m not in track pants
• Meetings to be scheduled
• What’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner
• The grocery lists
• Whether to take the kids to immunisations or delay it

The list is endless. Pre-planning sounds glamourous, but that too needs… yes, you guessed it… decisiveness.

So how can we overcome indecisiveness and how do we stop indecisiveness from affecting our career progress?

I start by recognising the factors that contribute to my indecisiveness.

So here are some things that are contributors to my indecisiveness (see if you recognise yourself in any of them):

1. Fear of failure

I have shared on the blog post “Your Schedule Holds A Key To Your Self-Care” how my boarding school days are a foundation to why I believe in and maintain a daily routine. But they are also a contributor to why I have a fear of failure. I knew that if I maintained a tight and disciplined routine, I would be able to achieve my goals and be where I need to be. In the context of school, this worked. But in my adult life, I have to develop my routine and map out my path towards my own success. Added to that, I have to determine for myself what success looks like. This for me was and is daunting.

I have to wake up each day and decide which measures, decisions and routine work best to align me to my best self and then execute on them. This brings me to point number 2.

2. Self-doubt

Self-doubt creates this guilt and imposter syndrome like life. I hate it.

I have read books on building my confidence and books on being well routined in order to align with your purpose. But the first step to getting over self-doubt is ridding yourself with the illusion of perfection.

You will read later on perfectionism, but the longing to do things perfectly affected my ability to do me and this bred self-doubt in myself. Even when I knew what worked for me and the kind of life I wanted, I doubted it to be true because of comparison and the trap of wanting to emulate – the greatest thief of joy. So, you look into someone else’s life and their story, and see what looks like perfection, and want that.

God has a different perfection for you though.

I love what they say in a yoga practise – “take what you need”. You do not have to bend, flex and move like everyone else; your wealth and abundance is from what YOU unlock inside of you.

I am a huge advocate of the principles set out in 5am Club, but do not subscribe to waking up at 5am. I took what I needed and trusted myself with other aspects. It is important to acknowledge when something does not work for you right now. For example, I’m such a night owl so rising early and being a peak performer during the day wouldn’t work every day. So, I have started trusting myself with the decision to rather sleep a certain number of hours a day and then flow into my routine and be productive.

I’ll tell you now, insecurity isn’t easy to tackle. It’s a beast! It finds you when you are between phases of your life and kicks you, but you can start by acknowledging your skills and accomplishments – write them down and switch up your flow. When you begin to build up confidence, you’ll find that it’s much easier to execute on your decisions.

Try respond to that client’s email without second guessing yourself.

When you have a meaningful contribution to make, speak up and be heard.

Push back when you need to, don’t wait for things fall apart. Suggest and try out that new restaurant and new hang out spot

3. Overthinking

I remember during the conceptualising of Art of Superwoman Shop, we were calculating the shipping costs, margins, storage and the overheads that would go into running an online store. Did I not start thinking about where this money to start up would come from and whether we would be able to sustain ourselves after two years and whether we would be able to get buy-in from certain brands I wanted… I was crippled with fear and anxiety. I remember being so stressed about the launch and whether we would be able to go live on that day – 5 July 2020.

Look at us now! Thriving! My wanting all the answers, overthinking the simplest of things and yearning for perfection could have easily crippled my ability to just start.

Stop overthinking, just do it. There are pros and cons to everything, there will never be a “perfect” decision, but there will always be an opportunity to learn and grow.

4. Perfectionism

For many people like myself, things not going according to plan and not going the way that had been initially planned can be so intolerable. I literally lose it!

I get paralysed and almost useless when I am not 100% sure that the decisions, I make would not yield a favourable result. This has time after time always taught me that there is no perfect decision. I have now decided to weigh out my pros and cons in decision-making and rather decide which cons I can live through than doubt myself.

The pursuit of perfection has hindered many from shifting into their destiny and stepping into their light. In the blog post Establishing A Collaborative Partnership, I speak about The White Light of Love. In this context, let’s direct this into our careers – the energy and frequency of creation and wisdom. Somethings need us to do them, execute on them and then send them into the earth with a prayer, light and love.

5. How we were raised

I grew up in a staunch Seventh-Day Adventist home. My parents had very different parenting styles that altered as we got older, but there was a constant within me… I wanted to please my parents. I was the perfect daughter, with the perfect school grades and the most pleasing and affirming teacher reviews to match.

I went to varsity wanting to study to be a Quantity Surveyor but to my parents’ delight as they had planted the seed in my high school years, but thinking back now I doubt I would have been as happy as I am now in the career I am in.

Or perhaps the reverse was true for you. Perhaps you grew up with indecisive parents that could never make their minds up and just always settled for the safe options.

Perhaps you emulate these behaviours. Perhaps you reject them.

The best for me is to completely separate myself from who my parents are and see myself as a completely different human. This is a long journey, but it takes making your own individual decisions as a whole new human.

This is an ongoing practice, but one that has rewarding long term benefits.

Indecision is such a vibe killer and completely undermines the skills you have, your natural abilities and your innate talents.