Category Archives: Deciding: Why is it so hard?

What do you want?

Richard Reardon over at his R&R Business Development Blog started talking about the difference between “wanting change” and “wanting to change.” That’s an interesting distinction.

He suggests that looking at what you have now is the place to look for clues to what you need.

I’m thinking that what I have now is not much help in deciding what to change. I have stuff and I have plans and that’s precisely what keeps me stuck where I am. Perhaps if YOU look at my stuff, YOU might get a clue about what I need. But it’s not your life.

But if I think I want to move to a new house that would indicate a specific change and a plan of action to be developed — lots of stuff has to go away from this house and lots of little things need to get fixed on a more immediate time table.

But if I didn’t know that moving was the change I had in mind, then no amount of looking at my stuff would give me the impetus to rent a dumpster.

So I’m thinking a different first clue is to ask what is it that you don’t want? Then look at the opposite of that and see if that is what you DO want — or if maybe it points at least in the right direction.

Personally, I need pencil and paper to figure out the opposites and that gives me a nice list in the end. And I love lists.

How to get up in the morning?

%(*^ alarm clock
Try practice.

I know that final push to actually be awake in the morning is a struggle for lots of people. My DearHusband hits that snooze alarm the first time at about 5:15 am finally finds himself on the way to the shower between 6:15 and 6:30 (Yes, I KNOW, that’s a lot of snoozes!)

I’m glad my oldest son finally moved out. It was time; he was 20 something. I was tired of trying to set off a nuclear bomb under his bed every morning to get him moving.

Some people with ADHD take their meds an hour before they really have to get up and then, thanks to the better living with chemicals, they can just get up.

But when I saw this suggestion by David Seah over at Better Living Through New Media . He was talking about his experiment to get up every day at 6 am. He’s trying practicing getting up… Well, it boggles my mind. He sourced StevePavlina.com
 who suggests:

This is going to sound really stupid, but it works. Practice getting up as soon as your alarm goes off. That’s right — practice. But don’t do it in the morning. Do it during the day when you’re wide awake.

Steve has a couple of articles about getting up and getting going like How to be an early riser and this one that my father would have just loved called Bear Bombing (You just gotta read that! But don’t call children’s services on me.. I only laughed and IMAGINED it would work.) They all sound pretty logical, but I wonder if a mother could make a kid practice? THAT’s the time to get this straight, when the kids are small and require only a shake or two and not a neutron bomb!

I’m not sure it would work. If you’ve tried it an it worked for you, I’d sure like to know about it.

Happy waking.

Kerch

Go with your gut, redux

I was trying to find the original Nature article about the deciding study done at the University of Amsterdam that I referenced in an earlier post. (I’m working on the handouts for a teleclass I’m doing for ADDA on October 17, 2006)

The actual article from Nature is no longer available if you don’t pay for it, but I found this reference from Telegraph.co.uk

Here’s the really pertinent part:

Participants in the experiment were asked to choose between four different cars, and were given details of 12 attributes including leg room and mileage about each make and model. The scientists found that people identified the best car around 25 per cent of the time, which was no better than chance. The surprise came when the researchers distracted the participants with puzzles before asking them to make their choices. More than half then managed to pick the best car.

I think that’s a really important concept. You can’t hold all the salient points in your head at once. So let your brain work while you’re not paying attention. It can figure stuff out that you can only imagine might be an easy out.

Deciding what to acquire

New stuff has a way of sneaking into my house. Some stuff, I pretend I don’t know where it came from. Some stuff was a gift. Some stuff, I just felt sure I needed to own.

I just read Andrea Lee’s blog on Shopping | Rethunk She makes the point: Go to the mall and pretend you are at a really cool museum.

Back in my previous life as an artist, I went to trade shows regularly. And everybody had the coolest stuff. In the beginning, I probably spent more money than I made, until I came up with my personal dedication to the notion of “appreciating without having to own.”

You go to a museum and don’t feel compelled to bring home the pictures from the wall. (And if you do, those guys with guns at the entrance do a pretty good job of dissuading you from the act.)

Sometimes, armed with my mantra, I shop at places like Pier 1 and other specialty stores. But I specifically look for the cool thing I might just know I need to buy. And then work back thru my mental inventory of what I already have and decide what might do that same thing — if it were just moved to someplace else.

Couple the appreciating without having to own with re-purposing what I already have is a great way to, at least, keep from adding to my personal pile of too much stuff.

How do you know when the decision is the right one?

I had a note from a woman named Suzanne. She said:

I listened to your ADD class on decision making. Excellent!
I’m making a big decision now regarding returning to a career that I had retired from 18 years ago. Actually I am about 90% committed and would like to make a “clean decide.” In fact, when I was in the business before, and quite successfully, I always left a bit of the back door open. I wonder if it is ok to go forward even though I don’t have a 100% commitment.

Suzanne.
I’m glad you liked the class. And so, I’m pretty sure you know this, but I’m not a fortune teller. so I really can’t predict if you’ll be happy going back to your previous profession.

If you kept that back door open because you had a genuine thought that you might actually want to go back in, that’s different than leaving it open because you weren’t sure you were ready to close it.

That does not imply you should not go back. But it does ask what you think you’ll get by going back.

In my opinion, all meaningful work is about more than the money.
It might be a different decision, if you need the money to survive (if babies will die without it) (I love that you heard the class and get the reference without explanation!) If you’re just ready to work again after you’re kids are grown, well, that’s different, too.

So my questions would be:

  • What do you get from working?
  • What do you get from not working?
  • What do you loose if you work?
  • What do you loose if you don’t work?

One thing that I depend on when considering these kinds of important questions is my “one clear thought” in the morning. I think about the thing before I go to sleep. (sometimes that leads to not much sleep, but the morning does come!)

Then first thing, before I get out of bed, I think about the issue at hand.. and then pay very close attention to the conversation that pops up. For example, lately, my husband and I have been on a house hunting expedition. My first thought about a great property with a not so perfect house was: “You’ll have to do a lot to brighten that place with so few windows.” Everywhere I sit to work in my house has LOTS of windows. so.. the decision, for me, in this situation, is “don’t buy the house.”

I think only the very simplest of decisions are made with 100% surety. Yes, you definitely should brush your teeth in the morning. But everything is negotiable. So what ever choice you make today will affect tomorrow. Likely the very hardest part is not the deciding itself, but having the confidence in the decision so you do continually remake it. That leads to perseveration! It’s not useful.

What’s your one clear thought in the morning over your issue?
Drop me a note, I’d love to see how the process works for you.

Kerch