In this episode, we dive into the hidden reason so many of us stay stuck: the paradox of choice. In a world overflowing with career paths, business ideas, and “perfect” next steps, too many options can keep us spinning in fear of choosing wrong. I talk about why our brains get overwhelmed, how endless possibilities dilute satisfaction, and how this shows up when we’re burnt out and unsure of our next move. More importantly, I walk you through building the skill of making confident decisions, embracing “good enough,” and moving forward without regret so you can finally redesign a life you love.
Ep. 384: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Options Make Us Miserable
Ep. 384
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The paradox of choice
[00:00:00] Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are Here we are in December. Wild. It's wild to think that we are in December, 2025 that the year is almost over. In the final month. It feels like the year was both. A blink of an eye and a million years long, like literally 10 years.
I think we've lived 10 years in this year. So I don't know. I feel like last January was a lifetime ago. So anyways, we're at the end of the year. Um, I'm gonna do a couple episodes kind of coming up about, both like goal setting and looking at the next year of your life. And then also doing a little bit of a year in review and talking a little reflection about, um, the podcast and my life and the sabbatical that I'm gonna take going into 2026.
So you can look forward to those or make sure you check out the next couple of episodes. Um. Before I sort of take a break from new episodes from the podcast, there will be replays, uh, as we go into 2026. But today I [00:01:00] wanted to talk about a topic that came up recently in a conversation I was having, and it was fascinating talking to someone about young people today.
I love how it's always like old people. I consider myself an old person, like young kids these days, but. It, it touched on a topic that I find really fascinating and I think has been an issue for a long time and is just becoming a bigger issue with today's internet and the job market and all the other stuff.
And it's, I wanna talk, I wanna piggyback on, I think I did an episode on the paradox of choice, but I wanna talk about the problem that I think a lot of people are gonna face with careers and jobs in the future, and. How it relates to this, to this idea. So if you haven't listened to that episode or you don't know what the paradox of choice is, it is a principle that like when there is more choice, the more choice there is, the less satisfied you are with your choice, which is what the [00:02:00] paradox is, right?
We all would imagine that if I have a plethora of choices, then I get to decide exactly what I want and I get to find something that fits my needs, and yes. In certain situations, obviously, like it is nice to be able to have more choice, but they've done tons of studies where, you know, if you have a choice between two genes, two types of genes, and you have a choice between 40 types of genes, not only does it become much more difficult to make the choice right, to make the decision, you are less likely to be happy because you're constantly thinking.
But what if another one was better? What if this wasn't the best one? What if the other one actually looked better and I rushed the decision? Right? And I think we've all experienced this because we live in a capitalist society that has, is just inundating us with choice. You go to a grocery store and you have 40 different types of everything, right?
You have 40 different types of. Jams, you have 40 [00:03:00] different types of honey. It's the same thing. It's like, not like, it's like a different taste. It's honey, but you're just staring at a wall of honey and it's like, which brand do I choose? And obviously we make like certain hacks 'cause we have to make a decision, like maybe the cheapest or one that says organic or whatever.
We all kind of make our decisions based off of, but there is again, tons of studies that like when you for people, I think, I can't remember, the original study they did was like. When there was four jams more people bought than when there was 60 jams. Because people get overwhelmed. It's like, well, I can't know.
Right? When there's four, you're like, I can kind of process of elimination. I don't really like orange taste, so I don't want the orange Mar Marla, like I'm more of a strawberry girl. You know? I'm a little worried about the boys and berry. Maybe it doesn't taste good. Okay. I can kind of pick the one I want when there's 60 different choices.
How the heck do I know which one I like? Right. I gotta try all of them, but maybe this one is better. Maybe that one's a little more tangy. Maybe this [00:04:00] has lower sugar content. Maybe this organic is actually really good and I should pay a little bit extra. Like, and then you get overwhelmed and you're like, forget it.
I don't want it. We've all been there. I know you've experienced it, right? Where it's like, actually, I feel like. A lot of what I coach on is just the overwhelm of making decisions. And I think knowing that part of that overwhelm comes because there are too many decisions, there are too many choices. Okay.
And I think that, again, it's like a two-parter. One is like the inability to make a decision because there's too many, and there's this question of like, what if, what if? What if I pick the wrong one? What if I don't like it? What if it ends up bad? What if the other way would've ended up better? So many people say stuck and spinning because of the what ifs.
Like what if this isn't the right direction? What if that one was, and what if I do this and I regret it and I wasted all this time, and then I should have gone the other way. And so I won't do anything and I'll stay stuck exactly where I am. And then when you do make the decision, you don't get to enjoy it as much because you're constantly thinking like, [00:05:00] well, what if I would've been happier if I went the other way?
What if I. You know, picked kind of this one and it's okay, but it's not great 'cause life's 50 50 and now I don't have this other one. And so then you're constantly wondering and you're bringing down your own enjoyment of like, no, but I love this. Right? Like, this is amazing. This is so fun. We see this.
I think with a lot of consumerism, like a lot of studies that have shown, it's like the more things you actually buy, the less happy you are with them. Right. And I think we all understand this, like with the kids, I say it with my kids, they just have too much stuff, right? We used to play with like a cardboard box.
We'd come up with games outside with sticks. It's like they we're just inundated with toys. And I can see it that like none of them really excite them. It's not that exciting to get a, a gift from Santa anymore because then you just have so many gifts, so many grandparents, everybody's giving you all these things and like it's a blessing.
That we have more, our means are more now than when I was a child. But like I know for us the meaning of those gifts was a lot more, [00:06:00] we were much happier, we were much more excited. We derived a lot more joy because we didn't get gifts that often. And so that once a year when you got it and you got one toy, you played with that toy until it broke.
And that's just not the case anymore. Uh, for my children, obviously it, it is still for a lot of children, but I just say this. And so how does this relate to work and everything else? One of the things I see, not just from the youth, but I do see it a lot in the youth, and I say this 'cause I am talking a lot to my nieces and baby cousins who are 16 to 25 in that age, age range, like in high school, going into college, kind of in college and.
I think that there is a real beauty in the fact that there's so many more options. Right? Back in the day you were like, here's like the 10 careers you could have, you know, it was very limited, and because of that, of course, people got funneled into things that weren't right for them because that was all you could do [00:07:00] maybe in your town.
Um, these were the only jobs that people were paying for. Now there is literally an infinite amount of ways that you can make money. There is just so many possibilities with everything you do too. When I think about business, like again, it's a beautiful thing that it's more accessible. I think someone like me, I would've never been an entrepreneur 20 years ago, 30 years ago for sure.
I mean, 40 years ago. I don't even know if women were allowed to. I mean, we were, but um, it was a much rare, but I wouldn't have because. It was so much harder. The barrier to entry was so much higher. It was brick and mortar. You'd have to get like a really big loan. You'd have to know what you were doing, which I clearly did not.
And so it's a beautiful thing that now you can have a business up and running in an hour with the internet. You can start an Instagram page, you can, you know, get a website made in one hour. You can call yourself whatever it is that you want [00:08:00] and sell your services. There's just tons of ways. To have a business.
And that is wonderful because it allows a lot of access to people that maybe wouldn't have had access to. But the problem of it is that it creates so much choice that people are paralyzed. And so I see this not just with young people, but even the people that I coach or the people that come to me because we are still under this belief that there is one right.
A career. There's one right passion. There's one right path. I have to find it. And then when there's a million possibilities, like I could stay in this job, I can stay in this field, I can try to get a better job, I can move to a different career. I can use these skills and I can transfer it to something completely different.
I can start from scratch. I can go back to school. I can start a business. I can go into consulting. On and on and on and on. And of course, as a multifaceted human, which you all are, all of us are. [00:09:00] You actually have a ton of abilities and a ton of curiosities and a ton of things that you're interested in and a ton of passions, even if you doesn't seem so on the surface, it's like, well, yeah, I could maybe like learning more about that, or I could possibly go down this road, or I could learn more about something like that.
I don't know. And so when you're left with like, imagine standing in front of a hundred doors and. Someone being like, okay, pick one, pick one. And then you're gonna have to go down it for a couple of years, like it's debilitating. 'cause you gotta go. I have no idea. How do I know which one's gonna be? What's gonna be on the side?
How do I know if I'm gonna like it? How do I know if it's gonna be the right thing? As opposed to like if there was two doors, again, you're taking a risk, you're taking a chance. But there's just not all that much choice to make. It's like you gotta just pick one, right? It becomes easier to pick one. And I think that I've, I've noticed with a lot of the kids that I talk [00:10:00] to is like, of course there now is like a lot more quote unquote fun careers, right?
Like being an influencer, like what it looks like, fun, having your own business, doing something on TikTok or whatnot like that obviously sounds more fun than going to a corporate job or like being a data analyst. No offense to data analysts or lawyers or whatever. And so I think people look at it as like, well, I want to do something where I get to work for myself and I don't wanna be in the corporate slog and I wanna make good money and I, you know, all of these things.
But then there's a million choices in that too. And so I find that a lot of people are very paralyzed because of this choice. And so they don't do anything. They don't. Make any moves. They don't, you know, maybe they go to college or maybe for people that I work with, like, yeah, maybe you can choose like one thing to kind of explore a little bit for a little while, but then you're still racked with like, but what if this isn't it?
What if I don't love this? Because nothing is gonna be perfect. [00:11:00] Nothing is gonna be rainbows and butterflies, nothing's gonna be like, you know, I picked this and it's the most fun thing ever. And I feel like. Also when people do pick it, they're not as happy with what they pick because they are entertaining these beliefs of like, well, what if this other thing was better?
What if I should have gone back to school? What if I should have stayed where I was? What if I, on and on and on? You get it. And so even when they make the choice, like I see so many people, it's like one foot in, one foot out. Like they're trying, they wanna start the thing and they have one foot in, but then they're constantly like, oh, but what if this is not the right one?
What if it was that one? What if this isn't gonna be as fun? This is kind of hard. Now it's getting real. Now there's problems. Should I go back to do that? And so then they're constantly like trying to hold onto too many things, trying to do too many things. So then they don't make any of them work. And what is the solution here?
I think that part of the solution is just the awareness of it. Okay. I think that you [00:12:00] can't solve a problem that you don't understand is there, so I think for most people they think, well, it's great that there's all these choices there. It's great that you know the internet and now AI and all this stuff.
Brought on. Like there's so many things I could do that I didn't even know I could do when I went to school. Like when we went to college, a lot of this stuff wasn't a possibility and now there's so much more. But I think that just knowing that like of course my brain is gonna get overwhelmed by this, and of course it's gonna think that there is one perfect thing and it's not gonna be happy, and I'm not gonna let that happen.
When I am aware that is what my brain is doing. It's easier for me to redirect it. Okay. It's easier for me to look at like, okay, I'm gonna get paralyzed because there's too many choices. So we're not gonna entertain some of these. We're not gonna think of the what ifs. Like if I've, this is why I have a, if you've been in my programs, you know, I'm like a stickler with making decisions and I, I try to get you to plant the flag.
I always say like, it's like if you wanna start a business, [00:13:00] say it. That's what we're doing. We're starting a business because I don't wanna keep entertaining like. Well, maybe I should go back and maybe I should get a job and maybe I should. No, we've decided because we could spin in that forever. And no one's saying that your business is gonna be the end all be all, and you're gonna do it for the rest of your life.
You know, look at me. I'm taking a sabbatical. Who knows what's gonna happen. But if you don't take that step, if you don't move forward, you never will. Because there's always the what if There's always uncertainty there. There's no way for you to know how it's gonna go. And so you have to make a decision.
And part of the skillset is learning how to make a decision when there are tons of choices. I actually gave. I feel like they gave somebody in the club this assignment, like, start with small choices at the grocery store. Don't spend a ton of time looking at jams. Just pick the one you want. Don't spend a ton of time letting yourself go do, should I wait for the sale for Black Friday?
Or, I don't know if I wanna just buy whatever the hell you were gonna buy. Right? Start creating this thing of like, yes, there are probably a million vacuums, but I don't wanna waste 20 hours researching them [00:14:00] and. Potentially getting overwhelmed and not buying one. So I'm just gonna buy this one. I'm gonna look between two and it's gonna be good enough.
Good enough is such a great standard to get yourself used to. I was like, it doesn't have to be the best of the best. It doesn't have to be the best vacuum. I understand you're spending money on it and we've all been taught to like make sure you get the most and you squeeze out every thing that you can from this thing that you're gonna purchase or what you're gonna do.
And all that does is waste so much of your time. And so one skill set is learning to make decisions when there are a lot of choices to say like, Hey, I'm not gonna try on 40 pairs of jeans. I'm gonna try on these three and one of them is gonna be good enough and guess what? I can buy jeans again. It's not that serious.
The more you start practicing that skill with little things of like, I refuse to let myself waste 20 hours researching for whatever my kid wants from. For Christmas, I'm just gonna buy, I have to get on with my life. You start realizing that like [00:15:00] it really isn't as serious as your brain wants to make it seem.
There is no best one. There just is one. So like practicing that and then practicing being happy with what you chose. This is a really hard one. Like people think this is just like a natural byproduct that like, I'm just happy because. This thing is good, and sometimes you are, but it's mostly your thoughts about it, right?
Notice that if there was only two jams and you bought a strawberry, you would be significantly more happy when you buy that than when there's 40 jams and you buy that same strawberry. It's not the strawberry jam that's making you happy. It's your thoughts about it. If your thought is, this is delicious, I'm so glad I have this jam diet on my toast.
It's wonderful. You're gonna feel great about it. If you're like, oh my God, but what if? What if the boysenberry was better? And I should have, like, I'm always so cautious and I always go traditional. Why don't I try new things? I'm never spontaneous. And this is kind of like, mm, it's not that great. I mean, it's like you've tried one strawberry jam, you tried 'em all.
You have this dialogue going, of course you're not gonna like it, or you're gonna be [00:16:00] like, okay, it's fine. So you have to start practicing like, no, how can I love what I bought? How can I love these jeans that I got? And just be like, you know what? This actually looks really great on me. I'm so glad I don't have to think about it anymore.
I'm so glad I can enjoy this. Now, this is a harder skill to learn and it truly is the skill of like gratitude and, and learning to like see things in, in kind of half glass full. So if you're not that person, you're gonna have to work on that a little bit harder. Okay. But part of it is again, being the awareness of like, oh, my brain wants me to be kind of upset about this because there's so much other choice.
Because it doesn't know what to do with the fact that there were so many other choices and I have to learn to be like, yeah, there's always gonna be tons of choice and that's great. I'm glad I have a lot of choices, but I'm not gonna waste my time on this. The more you can do that. With little things, the easier it becomes with bigger things.[00:17:00]
But I want you to really think about this when you're thinking about something like a career. I'm not saying that you have to just jump in willy-nilly and you don't want me to do any research, and you just pick the next career move, but I am saying that there's an infinite amount of choice and you'll be stuck forever if you're looking for the perfect quote unquote, career to go after, or if your kids are, you should talk to them about this, send them this podcast episode, right? I think you have to look at like, what is good enough? What do I want? What are my values? What do I want to be doing more of? What do I wanna have more in my life? What are some careers that give me that?
What are some things I'm interested in? And then can I pick one and just pursue it? I'm not saying you have to stick to it, but give yourself six months of like, this is what I'm gonna research. I'm gonna try to have informational interviews, I'm gonna try to talk to people. I'm gonna get started and I'm gonna get more information of like [00:18:00] whether it's something I can do.
And I'm not gonna think about the 40 other things. There's gonna be a lot of other stuff that's gonna keep popping up, but what about this? But maybe we should do this other thing. And I'm be like, no, we've decided, we're looking at a business. We wanna start an online business. That's what we're gonna focus on.
We're not gonna think about how I could probably get a part-time job. It's actually a little less stress. Yeah, we could, we could do a lot of things. We're not doing it. We've chosen a business. This is what we're doing. Okay. So I want you to just start there where like you make this decision, knowing.
That you're gonna have a like too many choices. You're gonna have your brain being like, what if one of the, I did an episode a long time ago, I likely will replay it. But the episode was about how regret is a choice. Regret is just a thought, and it's such a waste of a thought, right? Because the thing is, is that you can't change it, but you can learn from it.
So like even if I spend, I know the objection I'm gonna get, people will say, well, I don't wanna waste my time. If I go into. Try to start a business and it doesn't work out and I don't like it. [00:19:00] Then I've wasted another year waste where, who said, that's a thought that you don't, you get to not think.
And that thought creates a lot of regret 'cause it's like I should have picked a better decision. But the thing is, is you didn't waste it. You learned a ton. You learned much more about what you like about what you don't like, about what parts of it you like, what resonated, what didn't. You will gain so much clarity, way more clarity in those six months pursuing that than you will sitting and thinking about, but which one?
What should I do? Just randomly trying to think through it. So when you realize like you're not just like starting from scratch, you're starting from experience, you keep going and you keep pivoting and you keep kind of moving further down your path, that's exactly what you should be doing. And when you have those thoughts, then you don't regret the time, or you don't regret mistakes or you don't regret it not working out.
It's like, Hey, this is all kind of lessons on my path that I'm supposed to learn and it's gonna lead me to the next thing. It's gonna lead me to the next thing. And so you get to choose that. You get to choose, I'm gonna make this [00:20:00] choice and I'm gonna choose. Before I even make it, that I won't regret it, that I'm gonna learn a lot about myself and about this business.
I'm gonna like develop a lot of skills. I'm gonna become disciplined. I'm gonna become resourceful and resilient. I'm gonna learn how to deal with failure. I'm gonna learn marketing. I'm gonna learn sales. I'm gonna learn all these things. So even if it doesn't work out, that's fine. I just got a crash course education in business or in this field, and then I'll figure it out.
It becomes so much easier. I guess basically the whole point of this is like, do thought work. Make sure your thoughts on these things, like you have control over that. If your thoughts are constantly that when we leave it kind of un checked our thoughts, go to what if this other thing was better? What if I picked the wrong thing?
What if I'm gonna regret it? I get to direct that and be like, no, no, no, we're not. Swimming in that muddy water anymore. We're gonna come over here and we're gonna think these thoughts, we're gonna think about [00:21:00] how it, it's the best thing for me to go after this. What I'm gonna learn how great it is to be in this industry.
Sure. There's a million other things you could do, and I think the beauty of this, when you learn how to do this part of it is liberating. 'cause there's tons of time to do other things. I mean, one of the things I think about when I go on a sabbaticals. Over these last seven years as I've been building the business and the podcast has been like, well, what are all the other things I could do?
And there's tons of things I wanna try and it's great. And maybe I will, maybe I'll stick with this, maybe I won't. I have no idea, honestly at this point where I'm going, but. I, I am so grateful to myself for doing this for seven, eight years, for like focusing on this, for everything I've learned. I would in no way think of it as a waste, obviously, because it, it's magical.
It's changed my life. But even beyond that, like as things come up, it's like, but, but we could have gone back to school. We could have, I'm like, Hey, I still can. You know how much time I got, you know, how many careers I could have, but I can't do them all at the same time and I can't do them like [00:22:00] wanting to find the best one right now, the first best one, and the only one that I'm gonna do for the rest of my life.
It just doesn't work like that. And so what have you got to think? Like, Hey, every 10 years I get to come up with a new one. That'd be great. Right? And I get to go down that path, and I get to see where that takes me. How much more liberating could that be? There's just so many different ways to think about this.
I just want you to all be aware of this problem, of the fact that oftentimes when there's too much information, it can paralyze you, but it doesn't have to because you don't. You can drown out some of that noise. You don't need to buy all the things. You don't need to have all the stuff. You don't need to look at all the possible professions before you make a choice.
You can just let your own compass, your own values, guide you. Okay? So go forth, make decisions, and be really proud of the decisions you make for whatever you gain from them, even if it's not exactly what you wanted, and then make another decision and go from there. I hope this was helpful, and I'll be back next week with another episode.
[00:00:00] Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are Here we are in December. Wild. It's wild to think that we are in December, 2025 that the year is almost over. In the final month. It feels like the year was both. A blink of an eye and a million years long, like literally 10 years.
I think we've lived 10 years in this year. So I don't know. I feel like last January was a lifetime ago. So anyways, we're at the end of the year. Um, I'm gonna do a couple episodes kind of coming up about, both like goal setting and looking at the next year of your life. And then also doing a little bit of a year in review and talking a little reflection about, um, the podcast and my life and the sabbatical that I'm gonna take going into 2026.
So you can look forward to those or make sure you check out the next couple of episodes. Um. Before I sort of take a break from new episodes from the podcast, there will be replays, uh, as we go into 2026. But today I [00:01:00] wanted to talk about a topic that came up recently in a conversation I was having, and it was fascinating talking to someone about young people today.
I love how it's always like old people. I consider myself an old person, like young kids these days, but. It, it touched on a topic that I find really fascinating and I think has been an issue for a long time and is just becoming a bigger issue with today's internet and the job market and all the other stuff.
And it's, I wanna talk, I wanna piggyback on, I think I did an episode on the paradox of choice, but I wanna talk about the problem that I think a lot of people are gonna face with careers and jobs in the future, and. How it relates to this, to this idea. So if you haven't listened to that episode or you don't know what the paradox of choice is, it is a principle that like when there is more choice, the more choice there is, the less satisfied you are with your choice, which is what the [00:02:00] paradox is, right?
We all would imagine that if I have a plethora of choices, then I get to decide exactly what I want and I get to find something that fits my needs, and yes. In certain situations, obviously, like it is nice to be able to have more choice, but they've done tons of studies where, you know, if you have a choice between two genes, two types of genes, and you have a choice between 40 types of genes, not only does it become much more difficult to make the choice right, to make the decision, you are less likely to be happy because you're constantly thinking.
But what if another one was better? What if this wasn't the best one? What if the other one actually looked better and I rushed the decision? Right? And I think we've all experienced this because we live in a capitalist society that has, is just inundating us with choice. You go to a grocery store and you have 40 different types of everything, right?
You have 40 different types of. Jams, you have 40 [00:03:00] different types of honey. It's the same thing. It's like, not like, it's like a different taste. It's honey, but you're just staring at a wall of honey and it's like, which brand do I choose? And obviously we make like certain hacks 'cause we have to make a decision, like maybe the cheapest or one that says organic or whatever.
We all kind of make our decisions based off of, but there is again, tons of studies that like when you for people, I think, I can't remember, the original study they did was like. When there was four jams more people bought than when there was 60 jams. Because people get overwhelmed. It's like, well, I can't know.
Right? When there's four, you're like, I can kind of process of elimination. I don't really like orange taste, so I don't want the orange Mar Marla, like I'm more of a strawberry girl. You know? I'm a little worried about the boys and berry. Maybe it doesn't taste good. Okay. I can kind of pick the one I want when there's 60 different choices.
How the heck do I know which one I like? Right. I gotta try all of them, but maybe this one is better. Maybe that one's a little more tangy. Maybe this [00:04:00] has lower sugar content. Maybe this organic is actually really good and I should pay a little bit extra. Like, and then you get overwhelmed and you're like, forget it.
I don't want it. We've all been there. I know you've experienced it, right? Where it's like, actually, I feel like. A lot of what I coach on is just the overwhelm of making decisions. And I think knowing that part of that overwhelm comes because there are too many decisions, there are too many choices. Okay.
And I think that, again, it's like a two-parter. One is like the inability to make a decision because there's too many, and there's this question of like, what if, what if? What if I pick the wrong one? What if I don't like it? What if it ends up bad? What if the other way would've ended up better? So many people say stuck and spinning because of the what ifs.
Like what if this isn't the right direction? What if that one was, and what if I do this and I regret it and I wasted all this time, and then I should have gone the other way. And so I won't do anything and I'll stay stuck exactly where I am. And then when you do make the decision, you don't get to enjoy it as much because you're constantly thinking like, [00:05:00] well, what if I would've been happier if I went the other way?
What if I. You know, picked kind of this one and it's okay, but it's not great 'cause life's 50 50 and now I don't have this other one. And so then you're constantly wondering and you're bringing down your own enjoyment of like, no, but I love this. Right? Like, this is amazing. This is so fun. We see this.
I think with a lot of consumerism, like a lot of studies that have shown, it's like the more things you actually buy, the less happy you are with them. Right. And I think we all understand this, like with the kids, I say it with my kids, they just have too much stuff, right? We used to play with like a cardboard box.
We'd come up with games outside with sticks. It's like they we're just inundated with toys. And I can see it that like none of them really excite them. It's not that exciting to get a, a gift from Santa anymore because then you just have so many gifts, so many grandparents, everybody's giving you all these things and like it's a blessing.
That we have more, our means are more now than when I was a child. But like I know for us the meaning of those gifts was a lot more, [00:06:00] we were much happier, we were much more excited. We derived a lot more joy because we didn't get gifts that often. And so that once a year when you got it and you got one toy, you played with that toy until it broke.
And that's just not the case anymore. Uh, for my children, obviously it, it is still for a lot of children, but I just say this. And so how does this relate to work and everything else? One of the things I see, not just from the youth, but I do see it a lot in the youth, and I say this 'cause I am talking a lot to my nieces and baby cousins who are 16 to 25 in that age, age range, like in high school, going into college, kind of in college and.
I think that there is a real beauty in the fact that there's so many more options. Right? Back in the day you were like, here's like the 10 careers you could have, you know, it was very limited, and because of that, of course, people got funneled into things that weren't right for them because that was all you could do [00:07:00] maybe in your town.
Um, these were the only jobs that people were paying for. Now there is literally an infinite amount of ways that you can make money. There is just so many possibilities with everything you do too. When I think about business, like again, it's a beautiful thing that it's more accessible. I think someone like me, I would've never been an entrepreneur 20 years ago, 30 years ago for sure.
I mean, 40 years ago. I don't even know if women were allowed to. I mean, we were, but um, it was a much rare, but I wouldn't have because. It was so much harder. The barrier to entry was so much higher. It was brick and mortar. You'd have to get like a really big loan. You'd have to know what you were doing, which I clearly did not.
And so it's a beautiful thing that now you can have a business up and running in an hour with the internet. You can start an Instagram page, you can, you know, get a website made in one hour. You can call yourself whatever it is that you want [00:08:00] and sell your services. There's just tons of ways. To have a business.
And that is wonderful because it allows a lot of access to people that maybe wouldn't have had access to. But the problem of it is that it creates so much choice that people are paralyzed. And so I see this not just with young people, but even the people that I coach or the people that come to me because we are still under this belief that there is one right.
A career. There's one right passion. There's one right path. I have to find it. And then when there's a million possibilities, like I could stay in this job, I can stay in this field, I can try to get a better job, I can move to a different career. I can use these skills and I can transfer it to something completely different.
I can start from scratch. I can go back to school. I can start a business. I can go into consulting. On and on and on and on. And of course, as a multifaceted human, which you all are, all of us are. [00:09:00] You actually have a ton of abilities and a ton of curiosities and a ton of things that you're interested in and a ton of passions, even if you doesn't seem so on the surface, it's like, well, yeah, I could maybe like learning more about that, or I could possibly go down this road, or I could learn more about something like that.
I don't know. And so when you're left with like, imagine standing in front of a hundred doors and. Someone being like, okay, pick one, pick one. And then you're gonna have to go down it for a couple of years, like it's debilitating. 'cause you gotta go. I have no idea. How do I know which one's gonna be? What's gonna be on the side?
How do I know if I'm gonna like it? How do I know if it's gonna be the right thing? As opposed to like if there was two doors, again, you're taking a risk, you're taking a chance. But there's just not all that much choice to make. It's like you gotta just pick one, right? It becomes easier to pick one. And I think that I've, I've noticed with a lot of the kids that I talk [00:10:00] to is like, of course there now is like a lot more quote unquote fun careers, right?
Like being an influencer, like what it looks like, fun, having your own business, doing something on TikTok or whatnot like that obviously sounds more fun than going to a corporate job or like being a data analyst. No offense to data analysts or lawyers or whatever. And so I think people look at it as like, well, I want to do something where I get to work for myself and I don't wanna be in the corporate slog and I wanna make good money and I, you know, all of these things.
But then there's a million choices in that too. And so I find that a lot of people are very paralyzed because of this choice. And so they don't do anything. They don't. Make any moves. They don't, you know, maybe they go to college or maybe for people that I work with, like, yeah, maybe you can choose like one thing to kind of explore a little bit for a little while, but then you're still racked with like, but what if this isn't it?
What if I don't love this? Because nothing is gonna be perfect. [00:11:00] Nothing is gonna be rainbows and butterflies, nothing's gonna be like, you know, I picked this and it's the most fun thing ever. And I feel like. Also when people do pick it, they're not as happy with what they pick because they are entertaining these beliefs of like, well, what if this other thing was better?
What if I should have gone back to school? What if I should have stayed where I was? What if I, on and on and on? You get it. And so even when they make the choice, like I see so many people, it's like one foot in, one foot out. Like they're trying, they wanna start the thing and they have one foot in, but then they're constantly like, oh, but what if this is not the right one?
What if it was that one? What if this isn't gonna be as fun? This is kind of hard. Now it's getting real. Now there's problems. Should I go back to do that? And so then they're constantly like trying to hold onto too many things, trying to do too many things. So then they don't make any of them work. And what is the solution here?
I think that part of the solution is just the awareness of it. Okay. I think that you [00:12:00] can't solve a problem that you don't understand is there, so I think for most people they think, well, it's great that there's all these choices there. It's great that you know the internet and now AI and all this stuff.
Brought on. Like there's so many things I could do that I didn't even know I could do when I went to school. Like when we went to college, a lot of this stuff wasn't a possibility and now there's so much more. But I think that just knowing that like of course my brain is gonna get overwhelmed by this, and of course it's gonna think that there is one perfect thing and it's not gonna be happy, and I'm not gonna let that happen.
When I am aware that is what my brain is doing. It's easier for me to redirect it. Okay. It's easier for me to look at like, okay, I'm gonna get paralyzed because there's too many choices. So we're not gonna entertain some of these. We're not gonna think of the what ifs. Like if I've, this is why I have a, if you've been in my programs, you know, I'm like a stickler with making decisions and I, I try to get you to plant the flag.
I always say like, it's like if you wanna start a business, [00:13:00] say it. That's what we're doing. We're starting a business because I don't wanna keep entertaining like. Well, maybe I should go back and maybe I should get a job and maybe I should. No, we've decided because we could spin in that forever. And no one's saying that your business is gonna be the end all be all, and you're gonna do it for the rest of your life.
You know, look at me. I'm taking a sabbatical. Who knows what's gonna happen. But if you don't take that step, if you don't move forward, you never will. Because there's always the what if There's always uncertainty there. There's no way for you to know how it's gonna go. And so you have to make a decision.
And part of the skillset is learning how to make a decision when there are tons of choices. I actually gave. I feel like they gave somebody in the club this assignment, like, start with small choices at the grocery store. Don't spend a ton of time looking at jams. Just pick the one you want. Don't spend a ton of time letting yourself go do, should I wait for the sale for Black Friday?
Or, I don't know if I wanna just buy whatever the hell you were gonna buy. Right? Start creating this thing of like, yes, there are probably a million vacuums, but I don't wanna waste 20 hours researching them [00:14:00] and. Potentially getting overwhelmed and not buying one. So I'm just gonna buy this one. I'm gonna look between two and it's gonna be good enough.
Good enough is such a great standard to get yourself used to. I was like, it doesn't have to be the best of the best. It doesn't have to be the best vacuum. I understand you're spending money on it and we've all been taught to like make sure you get the most and you squeeze out every thing that you can from this thing that you're gonna purchase or what you're gonna do.
And all that does is waste so much of your time. And so one skill set is learning to make decisions when there are a lot of choices to say like, Hey, I'm not gonna try on 40 pairs of jeans. I'm gonna try on these three and one of them is gonna be good enough and guess what? I can buy jeans again. It's not that serious.
The more you start practicing that skill with little things of like, I refuse to let myself waste 20 hours researching for whatever my kid wants from. For Christmas, I'm just gonna buy, I have to get on with my life. You start realizing that like [00:15:00] it really isn't as serious as your brain wants to make it seem.
There is no best one. There just is one. So like practicing that and then practicing being happy with what you chose. This is a really hard one. Like people think this is just like a natural byproduct that like, I'm just happy because. This thing is good, and sometimes you are, but it's mostly your thoughts about it, right?
Notice that if there was only two jams and you bought a strawberry, you would be significantly more happy when you buy that than when there's 40 jams and you buy that same strawberry. It's not the strawberry jam that's making you happy. It's your thoughts about it. If your thought is, this is delicious, I'm so glad I have this jam diet on my toast.
It's wonderful. You're gonna feel great about it. If you're like, oh my God, but what if? What if the boysenberry was better? And I should have, like, I'm always so cautious and I always go traditional. Why don't I try new things? I'm never spontaneous. And this is kind of like, mm, it's not that great. I mean, it's like you've tried one strawberry jam, you tried 'em all.
You have this dialogue going, of course you're not gonna like it, or you're gonna be [00:16:00] like, okay, it's fine. So you have to start practicing like, no, how can I love what I bought? How can I love these jeans that I got? And just be like, you know what? This actually looks really great on me. I'm so glad I don't have to think about it anymore.
I'm so glad I can enjoy this. Now, this is a harder skill to learn and it truly is the skill of like gratitude and, and learning to like see things in, in kind of half glass full. So if you're not that person, you're gonna have to work on that a little bit harder. Okay. But part of it is again, being the awareness of like, oh, my brain wants me to be kind of upset about this because there's so much other choice.
Because it doesn't know what to do with the fact that there were so many other choices and I have to learn to be like, yeah, there's always gonna be tons of choice and that's great. I'm glad I have a lot of choices, but I'm not gonna waste my time on this. The more you can do that. With little things, the easier it becomes with bigger things.[00:17:00]
But I want you to really think about this when you're thinking about something like a career. I'm not saying that you have to just jump in willy-nilly and you don't want me to do any research, and you just pick the next career move, but I am saying that there's an infinite amount of choice and you'll be stuck forever if you're looking for the perfect quote unquote, career to go after, or if your kids are, you should talk to them about this, send them this podcast episode, right? I think you have to look at like, what is good enough? What do I want? What are my values? What do I want to be doing more of? What do I wanna have more in my life? What are some careers that give me that?
What are some things I'm interested in? And then can I pick one and just pursue it? I'm not saying you have to stick to it, but give yourself six months of like, this is what I'm gonna research. I'm gonna try to have informational interviews, I'm gonna try to talk to people. I'm gonna get started and I'm gonna get more information of like [00:18:00] whether it's something I can do.
And I'm not gonna think about the 40 other things. There's gonna be a lot of other stuff that's gonna keep popping up, but what about this? But maybe we should do this other thing. And I'm be like, no, we've decided, we're looking at a business. We wanna start an online business. That's what we're gonna focus on.
We're not gonna think about how I could probably get a part-time job. It's actually a little less stress. Yeah, we could, we could do a lot of things. We're not doing it. We've chosen a business. This is what we're doing. Okay. So I want you to just start there where like you make this decision, knowing.
That you're gonna have a like too many choices. You're gonna have your brain being like, what if one of the, I did an episode a long time ago, I likely will replay it. But the episode was about how regret is a choice. Regret is just a thought, and it's such a waste of a thought, right? Because the thing is, is that you can't change it, but you can learn from it.
So like even if I spend, I know the objection I'm gonna get, people will say, well, I don't wanna waste my time. If I go into. Try to start a business and it doesn't work out and I don't like it. [00:19:00] Then I've wasted another year waste where, who said, that's a thought that you don't, you get to not think.
And that thought creates a lot of regret 'cause it's like I should have picked a better decision. But the thing is, is you didn't waste it. You learned a ton. You learned much more about what you like about what you don't like, about what parts of it you like, what resonated, what didn't. You will gain so much clarity, way more clarity in those six months pursuing that than you will sitting and thinking about, but which one?
What should I do? Just randomly trying to think through it. So when you realize like you're not just like starting from scratch, you're starting from experience, you keep going and you keep pivoting and you keep kind of moving further down your path, that's exactly what you should be doing. And when you have those thoughts, then you don't regret the time, or you don't regret mistakes or you don't regret it not working out.
It's like, Hey, this is all kind of lessons on my path that I'm supposed to learn and it's gonna lead me to the next thing. It's gonna lead me to the next thing. And so you get to choose that. You get to choose, I'm gonna make this [00:20:00] choice and I'm gonna choose. Before I even make it, that I won't regret it, that I'm gonna learn a lot about myself and about this business.
I'm gonna like develop a lot of skills. I'm gonna become disciplined. I'm gonna become resourceful and resilient. I'm gonna learn how to deal with failure. I'm gonna learn marketing. I'm gonna learn sales. I'm gonna learn all these things. So even if it doesn't work out, that's fine. I just got a crash course education in business or in this field, and then I'll figure it out.
It becomes so much easier. I guess basically the whole point of this is like, do thought work. Make sure your thoughts on these things, like you have control over that. If your thoughts are constantly that when we leave it kind of un checked our thoughts, go to what if this other thing was better? What if I picked the wrong thing?
What if I'm gonna regret it? I get to direct that and be like, no, no, no, we're not. Swimming in that muddy water anymore. We're gonna come over here and we're gonna think these thoughts, we're gonna think about [00:21:00] how it, it's the best thing for me to go after this. What I'm gonna learn how great it is to be in this industry.
Sure. There's a million other things you could do, and I think the beauty of this, when you learn how to do this part of it is liberating. 'cause there's tons of time to do other things. I mean, one of the things I think about when I go on a sabbaticals. Over these last seven years as I've been building the business and the podcast has been like, well, what are all the other things I could do?
And there's tons of things I wanna try and it's great. And maybe I will, maybe I'll stick with this, maybe I won't. I have no idea, honestly at this point where I'm going, but. I, I am so grateful to myself for doing this for seven, eight years, for like focusing on this, for everything I've learned. I would in no way think of it as a waste, obviously, because it, it's magical.
It's changed my life. But even beyond that, like as things come up, it's like, but, but we could have gone back to school. We could have, I'm like, Hey, I still can. You know how much time I got, you know, how many careers I could have, but I can't do them all at the same time and I can't do them like [00:22:00] wanting to find the best one right now, the first best one, and the only one that I'm gonna do for the rest of my life.
It just doesn't work like that. And so what have you got to think? Like, Hey, every 10 years I get to come up with a new one. That'd be great. Right? And I get to go down that path, and I get to see where that takes me. How much more liberating could that be? There's just so many different ways to think about this.
I just want you to all be aware of this problem, of the fact that oftentimes when there's too much information, it can paralyze you, but it doesn't have to because you don't. You can drown out some of that noise. You don't need to buy all the things. You don't need to have all the stuff. You don't need to look at all the possible professions before you make a choice.
You can just let your own compass, your own values, guide you. Okay? So go forth, make decisions, and be really proud of the decisions you make for whatever you gain from them, even if it's not exactly what you wanted, and then make another decision and go from there. I hope this was helpful, and I'll be back next week with another episode.
