Hello my friends. Welcome to this bonus episode. I'm so excited to do this. Look at me getting a bonus episode out. Um, I have actually wanted to do bonus episodes a lot of times and I never have the time to make 'em and I'm counting this as a win. I think sometimes we tend to beat ourselves up for what we don't accomplish and I'm just here to tell you, I'm four years in now and I finally got a bonus episode going. So we're gonna count that as a win cuz I really just look at all my wins and I don't look at the things I don't do right. Um, join me. Okay, if you're new here, welcome . I was gonna say this isn't normally how I am but it probably is. So I'm excited to have you all here. I wanted to talk about decision debt and I wanna talk about this because I am doing a live three day challenge next week and as I'm outlining the challenge, I'm realizing how much we give in decision debt and I'm gonna talk about that today.
So I wanted to do a quick episode and be able to give you all that so that you can sign up and stop this ridiculousness of going back and forth and never making a decision. So if you have felt stuck and if you listen to this and you realize that you are paying a hefty fee in your decision debt, then I want you to join me in the love it or leave it challenge next week. You can go to quitter club.com/challenge and we're the three days is gonna be spent talking about how to make a decision. Finally, even if you don't have all the answers, even if you don't know what you're gonna do, even if all of the excuses we love to have come up for you, I know you love to believe that your situation is different and I promise you it's not.
So if you found yourself going back and forth, not knowing if you should stay, if you should leave not knowing if you can make it work here or if you should go somewhere else, I want you to join me in this challenge because it is gonna be three days of coaching and teaching on this exact topic and you're gonna learn how to make a decision. So go to credit club.com/challenge. Now let's talk about this whole thing called to decision debt. I was thinking about this because I was thinking about what it costs you to not decide for so many of us when we are stuck in situations. Now obviously I'm talking about it in the context of careers, but the this can be applied to anything. This can be relationships that you're in with friends or family or spouses or romantic partners, anything. It can be in decisions about how you want to take care of your body.
It can be decisions about how you wanna spend your money. All of these things require constantly making a decision and for so many of us making decisions is extremely difficult because we're waiting until we know the right one because we've been taught to second guess ourselves because we believe that we don't know how to make a decision and so we stay stuck, we stay spinning. And here is the thing that so many of us have to understand from the get-go is not making a decision is making a decision. It doesn't feel like it sometimes it feels like if I'm stuck in this career, I have to have more information before I know what I'm gonna do. So I'm sort of biting my time, I'm staying here while I figure out can I start that business? Am I gonna go to another field? Should I stay here and try to make partner or get the promotion or whatever the next step would be?
And we think like I'm just waiting until I can make that decision. But every day you are deciding to stay. That is a decision and that decision costs you as much as deciding to leave does. There's always a cost always. And it's really un understanding what that cost is because I think for so many of us, we're very well aware of what the cost could be if we leave, right? For most of us, the reason that we are stuck for so long is because we are terrified of the cost that we're gonna pay. If we go to another job and say we don't like it or we go to another job and it's worse than it is here or we go to another job and we feel like we can't cut it, whatever the fear is, we think about what we're giving up, what we're giving up with the place that we're in, how much money we might lose.
We think about how it will look to other people and what people will say. We think we know those costs. We may not know them kind of consciously, but it's the those costs that keep us stuck cuz we're too afraid to pay that I'm too afraid of that payment. Uh, in embarrassment, in shame, in regret, in losing revenue, losing my income, whatever the thing is, I'm so afraid of what that cost could be that I'm gonna stay. But staying also has a cost and staying in quote unquote indecision even though I've told you now that it is a decision. But oftentimes we're not really deciding to stay. It's not like a conscious decision where it's like, Hey, I'm gonna stay here, I'm gonna make the best of it, I'm gonna kill it in this career. I'm gonna get that promotion or I'm gonna set boundaries. I'm gonna use this as an investor in my life. We don't do that. We're sort of just one foot in, one foot out and that level of, how do I say this? decision and decision. That level of like deciding to not decide costs a great deal. I want you to think about it before we even go for further, I want you to think about how long you have felt stuck.
How long, how many years is it? 1, 2, 5, 10, 15 For so many of us, for many people that find me, it's not as though they're like have been unhappy for one month and they found me. It's like I just became unhappy and I'm now I'm searching for a solution. It's like I've been unhappy for years. I've known that this is not it for years and I just don't know what else to do. And so I want you to like think about it and gimme a specific number. Okay? Like how many years have you spent thinking about these things, spinning about these things, ruminating constantly going back and forth, having one foot in one foot out, wanting to make a change, getting overwhelmed, not making a change. How many? 1, 5, 10. And I want you to think about what that costs exactly where you're at right now. What does that cost you in stress?
Think about how much that decision weighs on you. Think about how much mental energy that it creates to constantly ruminate back and forth to constantly weigh the pros and cons, to constantly talk about it with this person and that person and this coworker and that coworker and my family and my friends and my spouse and complain about it. What does that create in your life? What does that take away from? What is it costing you in time that you could be spending doing other things? What does that take away from in time that you could just be resting? Think about the hopelessness that that creates when so many of us think that there is no right decision. When we even use the word stuck, I want you to think about how that word feels.
That is a hopeless place to be, to tell yourself you are stuck because you are not. And we like to believe that we are like there's nothing I can do right now that's a lie. Of course there is. And yet we create this sensation, this feeling as if we are literally stuck in the mud. Like there's nowhere to go. And I want you to think about like what that hopelessness feels like in your body, what it feels like in your day-today, what it feels like in your life when you're, we're sort of dreading Mondays, we're waiting for Fridays. And think about the ripple effect of all of this in your life.
So many people are so exhausted in our society right now and it's not because we're doing physically difficult tasks, it's not even because we don't get enough sleep. Like a lot of us get eight hours of sleep and we still wake up exhausted. I want you to think about the stress in your life and how that causes to you to feel drained all the time. For so many of us, myself included, when I was going through this, I was never present in my life. I wasn't present at night when I came home. I wasn't present on the weekends because I was constantly worrying about the next thing and the next thing and having to go back and Monday's gonna come and it's already over and I have only have one more day left And whatever it was, I would ruin the time that I had, the weekends that I had, the nights that I had worrying about what was coming in the impending week. I would come home at night and I would waste that night worrying about what I had to do the next day.
And so you have to think about like when we have chosen like I don't know what I wanna do so I'm gonna stay here, but I'm just gonna spend my time ruminating and obsessing. What is that causing in how I show up with other people in how I enjoy myself and you know, do I get snippy? Am I snapping at my husband or my kids because I'm stressed because I don't wanna be here and I don't know what else to do. And that's just what it's cost us up until now. I want you to think about what it costs for your future.
For so many of us, when we sit in this indecision, there is nowhere to go. I just did this episode on indulging in confusion, right? If you didn't listen to that on Tuesday, I would definitely suggest you listen to that because part of what our brain is doing is keeping us stuck, keeping us confused. Because if you stay confused, you cannot take any action, right? For most of us, we don't like get in a car and just aimlessly drive around hoping we figure out where we wanna go. We go because we decide like I need to get to the gym, I'm gonna go drop off my kids. This is where I'm going. I'm getting in a car with a purpose to go somewhere. That's the power in a decision, right? When you have a specific place that you want to be, you decide that cuts you off. I think um, the word decide,
The word decide comes from the a Latin word. I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it. I mean it sounds very similar but I know I'm gonna mess it up. But it means to cut off, it comes from two different words that taken separately are off and cut, right? You're cutting off other options. That's what it means to decide and that's actually why we think it's scary. Why most of us are scared to decide because we are scared to take off other options. But there's a power in cutting off options because it allows you to take action. It allows you to move in one direction, it allows you to move. Going back to my car example, if I don't take off, if I'm gonna get in my car and every option's on the table, I could go get food, I could go to the gym, I could pick up my kids, I could drive around and just listen to music.
I could go get coffee. How would I know where to go? It becomes overwhelming when you know what you're doing. When you're like, this is where I'm gonna go right now. That means I don't have the time if I'm gonna go pick up my kids, I don't have the time to get coffee. That's a downside always. But on the upside, I pick up my children on time, right? Like I'm choosing to cut off other options to be able to go into the direction I wanna be going into. It's the same thing that you do for your life. When you make a decision, yes you are cutting off some options and that is required in order to take any action. When you decide to marry someone, you are cutting off the options of marrying other people at that time, right? When you decide to take a job, you have to cut off the options of taking another job elsewhere. When you decide what you're gonna do for the weekend, you are cutting off the options of doing something else. There is a cost to that, but it actually means you get to be present with the thing that you decided on, right? You get to actually enjoy the thing that you are doing at the expense of other things. And for so many of us, we don't get to actually enjoy it because we don't ever make a conscious decision.
We're just sort of in this limbo. Like I sort of wanna stay here but I sort of wanna go and I don't really know where I wanna go. And so I don't know where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna kind of stay here, but I'm gonna constantly think about where I should go and I'm never gonna actually make a decision. I want you to think about the difference of if I tell you if my goal or dream or whatever, if I tell you like I wanna travel more versus I wanna go to Italy for two weeks next year, I want you to notice the difference between those two statements. Which one do you think is more likely to get done? Which one is more definitive? Which one is easier to plan for? We all know what it's like to say I wanna travel more. We all know what happens.
It likely will never happen. If that is the extent of your goal, you're not doing it because what does that even mean? Travel Where, how long are we staying in this close to home? Are we going abroad? Does it need a plane? Can you drive there? What counts? How much do you wanna spend? There's so many options and what's funny is like when we leave it open like that, there's also this level of, I feel like dissatisfaction. Because even if you travel somewhere, let's say you say you wanna travel more and then you go on a camping trip an hour away, like your brain is already like, well that doesn't count. That wasn't really, that was fun, but that doesn't count. And let's say even if you go on a trip for two weeks to Europe to Italy, you're like, yeah, but that was one.
Is it really more like I really wanna travel more? That's like more of a constant. Like you haven't defined what it means, but when you tell yourself like, I wanna go to Italy next year and you make it happen, it's like your brain's already on like look at us, we check the box, where's the next place? Let's decide that. When I say I wanna go to Italy next year for two weeks, I know the series of decisions I have to make in order for that to happen. I know ballpark how much I have to save up, how much I have to happen. I know what it's gonna take to ask for that time off or what I'm gonna have to do to not be able to work during that time. I can then start planning my trip. I can look at where do I wanna go in Italy?
I can start getting hotels. I can do all of the things that would be required in order to create a two week vacation in Italy. I can't do any of that when I tell myself I wanna travel more. And so I see so many people that think they're making a decision or say like, oh, I, I wanna do something else. I wanna have another career. Okay, great. What the hell does that mean? Where does that leave us? What are we looking for? When, when are we going? How much time? How much time do you need to save money? When do you, are you gonna quit buy? What other types of jobs do you wanna do when we haven't made a decision, when we're not getting clear about what it is that we want, we cannot take action. And that costs you, it costs you actually getting to that goal. It costs you actually traveling more. The years start going by and you don't make, you don't do anything because you don't have any clarity on what it is you wanna do. And it that clarity only comes from deciding. It's not that like going to Italy for two weeks is the right answer or that it's the only thing you can do. Of course it's not. It's simply knowing amongst the millions of decisions I'm choosing to do this one.
And for so many of people, what I have found, one of the biggest costs, one of the most, uh, devastating costs is that they can't love where they're at because they're too busy worried about the fact that they should be leaving, right? They don't spend the time enjoying and being present and coming home and maybe doing things they wanna do and engaging in activities or hobbies or, you know, socializing in the way they want or they don't really enjoy being at the job that they're at or they don't, they don't get to do the things they wanna do because they're constantly telling themselves they should be leaving, but they're not making a decision to leave. And so it's robbing you of the time that you have here and it's not getting you to take action to actually make that, take that next step. So many people don't make the decision to leave because they're so worried that they should stay, right?
As a, when you have this thing where you're kind of ruminating, I'm like, but if I leave, what if I regret it? And should I be staying and should I be going? You're not figuring anything out. There's plan, right? It's like going back to the Italy example or an analogy. Like you can't start figuring out how much money do I need to save up? What's my plan for leaving? How much time do I need? You're not building up skills. I mean like what do I need to do for to put myself back into the market, the job market or there's nothing happening. Cuz all that's happening is we're just spinning in our head and we're all exhausted from it. But it's like we're spinning around in our, in a circle and we're not going anywhere. We're just getting dizzy and feeling terrible. And so year after year passes, and really the the biggest cost is this feeling of helplessness that creates a lack of self-trust, right?
We become more helpless, we become sort of victims in our own lives. We start thinking, well, there's nothing I can do about it. It be seems too insurmountable. It seems too difficult. This is just the way it is. I guess I just have to suck it up now. I've been here for even more time. This is a big one for people that have been there for however long. It's one of the reasons people don't make a decision is because the sun cost fallacy. And I just want you to know that it doesn't make it easier when you sink more time and money and energy into the career. Like so many people are like, oh, I've already spent 10 years. Well, it's not gonna be easier when you spent 12 years or 15 years in that career.
So if the, the chapter is done, let the chapter be done and let's figure out what we're gonna do next. But I see so many people that stay and as the years pass, they start losing trust in themselves to be able to make it happen, right? They have these thoughts that they're never gonna figure it out. I don't have what it takes. I'm just not good at this. We start believing there's something unique about our situation. I just can't, and I know this is super hard to accept when you haven't done it or when you're in that level of stuckness and when you've been brought up in a society that wants you to believe that you have to do things perfectly. But I promise you that it is better to make a decision and take action even if you change your mind later, even if you quote unquote fail.
Even if you decide you don't want to do that thing then to never make a decision because at least you're figuring it out. At least if you make a decision, there's a stepping stone to work from. There's a direction to go. There's more. You learn about yourself, there's more information you start gathering, there's more things that you start seeing that like, Hey, I can at least figure it out. You learn a bunch of stuff. It's really the only way to learn and then you can get closer and closer to the thing you wanna do. Rather than like, for so many of us, it's like we're, I'm gonna sit still and not learn anything about myself and just hope that one day it magically to me and I'm gonna know the exact thing to do in which I will never fail and I'm gonna wait for that day. And then we wait forever.
And I want you to think about what it costs you to wait. I want you to start taking your brain instead of worrying about all the things that can go wrong and all the things that's gonna cost you to leave. You can think about those things too. I'm not saying that you can, like planning requires you to like think about whatever obstacles are gonna come up for you. So definitely think about that, but don't delude yourself into believing that it doesn't cost you a whole lot to stay. There's always a cost. Part of when I talk about like the 50 50 in life, I always think about this, and we talk about this a lot in my, um, membership and with the people I coach, I talk about everything having like a good and bad everything. Having a 50 50, right? Like your strength, the opposite side of your strength is a weakness.
Um, the, there's just this law of polarity in our lives. You cannot know good without knowing bad. It's part of like the universe. And I see this with decisions too. It is super scary and it will cost you to make a change. It will also cost you to stay. And there's also benefits to both sides. It's just that when we think like one way is sort of risk free or we think like, well at least like I don't lose anything by staying here. That's not true. There is a big debt that we have to pay by staying the same, by staying in a place that we don't wanna be. And that doesn't mean that you can't choose to stay. If you're gonna stay, decide to like it, decide to love it, decide to create a life that you want where you're at. Just don't let that decision be made subconsciously on autopilot where you're making a decision by not making a decision. You're making a decision because you're too afraid to make the decision to do anything else and become aware of it. I want you to really think about like what has it cost me to not make conscious decisions about what I want in my life to not go towards the thing I want, even if I don't have all the answers, even if I don't know how it's gonna turn around. Like I have kept myself safe, quote unquote in a lot of ways. But what does that safety cost to me?
I've talked a lot about the fact that like our comfort zones are not comfortable, they're familiar and that's it. And so our brain gets used to believing that being here because it's familiar is somehow better. It's somehow I'm paying less. But oftentimes we're paying the mo biggest price. We're paying the biggest price in our health, in our stress, in our happiness, in our satisfaction, in our
Curiosity and our creativity and our joy. We're paying for it dearly. And so you just wanna be aware of that cost. That doesn't mean that you're always gonna make a different decision. You might decide that it is worth the debt of staying put for now until I know what I wanna do or until I have more stability and or until I've saved a certain amount. But at least then we can get to work making the plan. At least we can figure out how long is that? What am I gonna do? How can I love it while I'm here? When we are unaware of this, cost is when we're sort of floating through our lives. Aimlessly is when we are paying dearly without really knowing it. And it's when that all of those costs turn into the bitterness and the resentment and the anger at a life that we didn't consciously choose.
And so I'll end it with this. One of the biggest fears I hear from people is that they're gonna regret their decision to leave. They're gonna go to their new job and what if they regret it? And that is something that we work on and that's something that I will teach you how to make decisions on so that you don't regret. But I want you to think about it in another way. There are also tons of people that regret staying. In fact, one of the number one regrets of people on their deathbed and they've done tons of studies and they've talked to tons of hospice care workers. The number one regret they hear is that I didn't live a life for me. I didn't live a life closer to my own.
The number one regret of the dying is I wish I had had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This is something we know. This is something that so many people have expressed at the end of their lives, and that can be for a number of reasons. There's a number of ways that we don't have the courage to live a life true to ourselves. But I know from so many people talking to so many people that one of the ways is this idea of success, this idea of putting on this act of who we should be and working jobs that we hate or that we don't wanna be in or live creating whole lives that we're scared to change because we're scared of what other people are gonna think or we're scared of what we're gonna lose.
And so I just want you to be aware that like while you're so consumed about whether you're gonna regret if you leave, I want you to also think about what if I regret, if I stay, what is the cost of me doing the same exact thing that I've always done? Because there is a cost and it's time we become aware of it. And if you're ready to learn how to make decisions on purpose and make decisions intentionally, then I want you to join me in a love it or leave it challenge. I want you to start taking more control of not just your career but your life. I want you to start learning how to cut off other certain options so that you can decide what you want and get to work making it happen. Even if that means you can't leave your job, even if that means you're gonna stay, I want you to start getting really conscious about how you wanna create that life exactly where you're at. So go to twitter club.com/challenge and join us for this three day free workshop. I will send out replays if you can't make it live. They will be available for a limited time, so make sure that you watch them and I can't wait to help you all start making decisions and start going after the lives that you actually want. All right my friends, I will see you there.