120. Having Confidence in Yourself with Youth-Centered Health Designer Sarah Han
Do you mull over decisions for days? Weeks? YEARS?! When we lack confidence, our decisions (or lack thereof) exhaust our time, energy, money, and more. This week, my client, Sarah Han, and I discuss why indecision is not as innocent as we make it out to be.
Sarah Han works as a youth-centered health designer and is a longtime podcast listener. She shares how coaching has helped her break free from crippling indecision, build leadership skills, and move with more ease.
Discover how addressing your indecision will help you build confidence in all areas of life. Learn why there is no perfect decision no matter how much you try to optimize and how a coach can help you climb out of the “maybe hole.”
Subscribe to the Podcast to follow August’s Confidence Series on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen!
What You Will Discover:
How to identify if you’re deferring decisions.
Why indecision is linked to trust.
Why there is no perfect decision.
Ways women are socialized to defer decisions.
How a coach can teach you tools for decision-making.
Resources:
Sign up for a Curiosity Call to find out if individual coaching can help you!
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for Public Health Professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Hello everyone, how are you? I have to tell you, I’m actually breaking one of my own boundaries by recording this intro right now. Let me explain. It’s towards the end of my work day I should be wrapping up, but I was so excited to get this episode finalized for you all that I really wanted to sit down and just put it all together and finalize it because it is so amazing.
I’m sitting down with my former client, Sarah Han, who’s a youth centered health designer, to talk about her experience going from, as she called it, crippling indecision to trusting herself. We talk about how every day, all day, whether you’re aware of it or not, we’re making thousands of decisions, not just at work, but at home, in our personal lives and so many other areas. Sarah shares her experience of what it was like with indecision and what it’s like now trusting herself to make confident decisions.
She also talks specifically about how this has shown up in work in her day-to-day job, but also in her travel, whether it’s work related travel or personal travel. She shares a lot about how she’s become more efficient with decision making and how that’s had an impact on her life. So I know so many of you are going to benefit so much from hearing Sarah’s story and learning from her. So without further ado, let’s get into the episode.
Marissa: Sarah, I am so excited you’re here to talk about your experience in coaching, where you’ve kind of grown around decision making and accepting life is 50/50 and so many other things. But before we jump into all that juicy stuff, will you tell everyone who you are, a little bit about your public health background, just a little bit more about you?
Sarah: Yeah, I’m so excited to be here, been a long time podcast listener. I think I might be one of your day ones and so I feel super honored to be on this podcast. I am 30 years old. I live in Honolulu. I am a youth centered health designer at ETR, which is a non-profit that creates curriculum and trainings for teachers and educators to teach on anything from sexual and reproductive health to HIV prevention to alcohol, tobacco, drug prevention, travel, community health.
And I have been in public health, I would say since 2013/2014. I’ve always been someone who likes to think, I think on a systems level, if there’s something that’s just affecting everybody then instead of addressing each individual person, let’s go address that issue. And so I kind of felt that spark when I was doing an internship during undergrad at a downtown clinic in LA that mainly served unhoused folks. And I was assessing their patient satisfaction with care to do the study to see how this new care model helped with their care and I’ve just been in public health ever since.
I fell in love with being able to work directly with people but still kind of tackle these bigger issues that affect entire communities. And since graduating from undergrad, I wanted to do food justice issues and made community gardens. And then I went to research and evaluation. And then I worked at a media advocacy research and training firm. And then I got my master’s in public health where I kind of boosted my background in human centered design and now I’m at ETR.
And what I love so much about public health is that I get to do all these different things that are seemingly unrelated, but I hear you say on your podcast all the time, everything is public health. And so you don’t have to limit yourself and your interests and you get to apply a whole range of skills and I really enjoy that about this field.
Marissa: Actually, when we first met and something we’ve worked on a lot together is around decision making. That was one of the pieces we talked about where you were feeling stuck. And I know so many people listening, struggle with decision making from day-to-day decisions. I actually coached someone this week on what order do I start my tasks for the day?
And how much time we waste trying to optimize and make the right decision, even day-to-day versus even big decisions like what’s the next job I want? Should I leave my job? Should I switch career paths? So can you share a little bit with folks before coaching what it was like with decision making and where you struggled?
Sarah: Oh, girl.
Marissa: How much time do we have?
Sarah: I know, I was like I cannot even decide what I want to order for lunch. And even after I decide what to order for lunch, I’m like, “Damn it, that’s too many calories. That’s too expensive or maybe I should have gotten this. I could have made that with stuff I had at home.” I have always considered myself to be incredibly indecisive and it has been crippling. Okay, so lunch is kind of a trite example.
But I would want to book a flight home for Christmas to see my family or for work. And I would not know how long do I want to be there on this trip. When should I leave? Should I leave in the morning? Should I leave in the afternoon? Flights, for example, I have probably spent, I don’t know thousands of dollars and when I say it like that I’m like whoa. But thousands of dollars additional, just because the price of the flight would change over the course of me not being able to make a decision and it would jump $200 or $300 from when I started to look for flights.
And so I feel that’s such a perfect analogy for my decision making in life in general. I would go to my advisors in school or at my work or my mentors and just say, “Tell me what to do.” I would always defer to what other people thought I should do. And I know where that came from in my socialization, as a Korean American woman. I remember my dad drilling into me as a kid, “Just ask your teachers, they’ll tell you what to do?” And it was a supportive thing for a long time and it worked for me for a really long time.
And a lot of the times, folks would be happy to tell me what to do and give me their opinions and I would be like, “Yeah, I got validation. I have a direction.” And then other times folks would straight up say, “That’s your decision to make.” Which is an appropriate response. And I remember being so pissed off, just so frustrated, just tell me what I need to do. And never really having trust in myself to make that decision on my own.
Marissa: Yeah, and I feel you. I’ve always been super indecisive. I’m a Libra. I’m a middle child, there’s so many things. And socialization, we all have our own socialization, especially if you’re socialized as a woman. But then in your family or your culture or your religion, there’s so many way we’re socialized to defer authority like you said to whether it’s men or people in positions of power or folks that we consider, I almost said elderly, but that’s not what I mean, the elders, stuff like that.
So I think that’s a big challenge and we can sometimes see the issues like what you’re talking about with okay, it’s costing me more money on flights. But what we kind of miss is the emotional exhaustion it’s creating because we make hundreds, if not thousands, decisions a day. So there’s two pieces. It’s the not trusting ourselves and deferring authority. But then the exhaustion from not deciding, being stuck, ping ponging and then questioning our decision, doubting ourselves. It creates actually so much burnout in a sense that we’re not even aware of.
Sarah: Totally, yeah, I’ll be like should I go to that yoga class this afternoon? I don’t know, maybe, I don’t know, maybe. I’m feeling kind of dehydrated but also my body’s feeling so tight, I could really use it. I would just go back and forth all day and then end up just not going to this thing that could have really benefited me.
Marissa: It’s like a ping pong match that just never ends.
Sarah: 100%, yeah.
Marissa: So with kind of coaching, what have you learned about decision making? What approaches have you changed? What has coaching helped you with as far as reducing that indecision, reducing the exhaustion. And everyone listening, we’re not saying either of us are always quick decision makers now or perfect at it but it’s just about making some changes to make it easier on us. What has been your journey with that?
Sarah: Yeah. So I think my biggest realization is seeing when I’m stuck in indecision and understanding kind of the ramifications and the reality of what that is. I think before when I was stuck in indecision, I felt justified to be there like I’m trying to optimize my schedule, I’m trying to optimize my energy and figure out what the right answer is, get to the best solution.
And I think also we are kind of socialized again going back to that mentality of scarcity of okay, I have this much resource, I have this much time, I have this much energy, what do I want to do with that time? Or how do I want to best use my $20 at brunch, should I get the mimosa and the salad or whatever? So I think just realizing how that kind of justification is false, you’re not actually helping yourself by trying to constantly optimize your decision making and in reality there is no right or wrong answer.
And just realizing too that being stuck in that indecision is actually a symptom of me wanting to avoid if I’m wrong about this decision, how mean am I going to be to myself and beat myself up after making that decision. And I think another huge realization in this area of coaching was I’m going to be mean to myself no matter what, which sounds really sad, but actually was really freeing because it’s not about being mean to myself and actually just realizing okay, this is my brain, this is how my brain works.
It always wants to figure out what’s best for me and it’s just trying to avoid worst case scenarios. But if I’m always coming from this place of how do I avoid this worst case scenario, how do I make sure everyone’s aligned with my decision or I’m doing what other people think I should be doing. Then I’m never really trusting in myself and building that trust to be able to make those decisions on my own. And so now, since having gotten coaching, I can more easily realize when I’m in indecision, like what you said, we’re not perfect.
And I think there’s a whole layer of trying not to be perfect about coaching yourself, but that I’m currently working through. But I think just having that amount of time and the amount of energy that goes into the maybe hole is which I think what you call it, you should trademark that. I feel like I’m able to spend less time in the maybe hole or just see, oh, okay, I have been spinning my wheels about this one decision for two days now. I think it’s time now to make the trigger.
I actually do have trust in myself that I have what I need and understand all the different pros and cons. And if I make the wrong decision or if something happens as a result of this decision that I don’t love, that’s fine, I can figure it out from there. And just having the confidence and kind of the courage in myself that I can take whatever comes my way.
Marissa: Yeah. And I hear a couple of different things I want to pull out for listeners as far as what you’ve learned and where you’ve grown, the first is just realizing that indecision has an impact. I think we think it’s so innocent, I just need more time, I just need more information, that it’s helpful. And maybe to a small degree, but like you said, the maybe hole you get stuck there and actually there is a bigger impact that we don’t want that we don’t realize. So it sounds like that was the first piece you ever had to realize that wow, this indecision actually isn’t helping me.
Marissa: Yeah. And then the other thing you bring up with the right and wrong, this is such, I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I coach on this. And I still have to get coached on it too. Because we are so socialized to believe there’s a right answer and wrong answer, and we’re supposed to figure out the right answer, but there’s really not. It’s all subjective. And I think what’s scary about that is when we take away that right or wrong, then we do have to trust ourselves to decide for us.
And that trust, I think often, is what you’re talking about, where our brains are probably going to be assholes to us. No matter what we decide our brain might say something like, you shouldn’t have done that or doubting ourselves. Or maybe a challenge will come up and then our brain judges ourselves. And the trust of even if my brain does that, I’m going to have my own back. I’m not going to beat myself up. As best as I can I’m going to try to be compassionate and keep moving forward. That is a skill we are not taught.
Sarah: Absolutely, yeah. For example, at work recently, I’m working on this strategic planning process with a bunch of colleagues. And there was a piece that felt really kind of confusing to me and I was so stuck in indecision all week this week, just like who do I reach out to, to get clarity on this? Should I send it in the full group chat? Should I send an email to the one person who’s leading the group?
And all these different options and scenarios, and I was like, “You know what? Either of those paths I choose the result of that will be people either redirecting me to someone else to ask, this is the right person to ask or sparking a conversation in the group that might take us off a tangent but could uncover really helpful things.” So I think understanding that there is no right or wrong. Everyone’s going to take a different approach and that’s kind of the beauty of it. Each decision is going to be right for the person who made it and their ability.
Kind of everyone has the ability to not only make that decision but deal with whatever happens as a result of that decision. And I ended up reaching out to the full group and saying, “Hey, I’m really confused on this piece. Can we just take a step back and talk about this some more?” And everyone was like, “I’m so glad you’ve reached out and pushed back and hit pause because that totally makes sense.”
And someone else in the group direct messaged me and was like, “I’m so glad that you did that. I was also feeling confused.” And so I was like, “Wow, great.” And it doesn’t always work out so perfectly but in that situation I felt like it was such a great example of I actually can trust myself to take action when I’m feeling stuck and then deal with whatever happens afterwards.
Marissa: Yeah. It also sounds like you realized you were able to have that awareness of okay, if I stay here ping ponging between these options, nothing’s going to happen. I can just pick one and move forward, which I think is one of the biggest things coaching helps us do because it’s not about getting perfect at it. It’s just using that awareness to support ourselves and keep moving forward.
So you’re thinking big picture with now what you know about decision making. How has that had an impact big picture on your work, on getting work done, on chores, on other things? How has that kind of had a ripple effect overall?
Sarah: Oh, my gosh, I mean, I’ve saved hundreds of dollars on flights. Just to go back to that, it is actually that tangible. And just in terms of my emotional experience, I can’t tell you how much relief I get and how much more efficient I am. And as someone who loves efficiency and systems thinking. I’m like, “This was the blocker, this was the bottleneck of my life, of having things move forward.”
And not only am I making decisions more efficiently and reducing my stress, but I’m also building trust in myself over time of okay, I can do this and I actually can tackle or handle whatever comes my way. And most of the decisions I make are pretty good. I’m getting better at trusting my gut and my intuition, which is always something that I have outsourced growing up and just deferring to others. And so I’m finding myself doing that less.
And also being able to pass that on to others, that same confidence. And I think that’s been super valuable for me. And also like you were saying, indecision kind of gets this incorrect rap of being harmless. But actually the longer I’m in indecision, I’ve found the more prone I am to making a decision based off of fear or scarcity mindset or just general exhaustion. Sometimes I would make decisions and sometimes I still do, where I just burn myself out in indecision to the point where I’m like, “I guess I’ll just pick this. It’s not actually what I really want.
Marissa: Yes. And the other thing you and I have talked about a lot with decision making, which I think goes back to the right or wrong, which is life is 50/50. So half the time it’s going to be shit, half the time it’s going to be good. I’m curious for you, I know you’ve told me a couple times that concept has helped you so much, how has it helped specifically with making decisions?
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, I feel like that’s the crux of it almost because no matter what I decide, understanding that there’s going to be ups, there’s going to be downs. It kind of neutralizes that part of me that’s like you must optimize every part of this decision. Actually, there are some things that just can’t be optimized. Actually, if you choose this Airbnb versus this one, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that there’s no street parking. But that’s okay because it’s got a gorgeous lawn and a big TV that you can watch. Things like that. There’s always going to be trade-offs.
And I think I spent a lot of time resisting the reality of things, oh gosh, I just wish that there could be no negative side of this, which stepping back now I’m like, “That’s ridiculous, of course, there’s going to be pros and cons of every situation.” And being able to just face that and accept, okay, you know what, just going back to the Airbnb example because I will sit and create a spreadsheet and think about which Airbnb to book for, I don’t know, I could do it for 10 hours.
Just knowing, okay, I’m trying really hard, I’m recognizing I’m trying so hard to create the perfect situation. And just understanding perfectionism can actually create so much more suffering and indecision for me. And just having this understanding of there’s going to be something about the situation that I don’t like, and actually I can trust myself to be okay with that and accept that moving forward.
It takes the pressure off and it also just helps me get in touch with what I really want in the end. Even if there are all these cons or disadvantages to making a decision one way or another, I still really want this. And I think we kind of all have that gut feeling but just because of all the other noise, it’s hard to hear that sometimes.
Marissa: Yeah, totally. I mean, I think we’ve kind of been taught that if you make the right decisions then you will be happy and there will be nothing will go wrong. And so that’s why we’re always trying to optimize but that’s impossible. Travel, there’s going to be things that go wrong constantly. Even work, I remember when I was leading a committee, I was constantly thinking, well, if I just make the right agenda or assign the right people or say the right thing or whatnot, the committee will go great and everyone will be happy. No, that’s not the way it works.
Decision making and the challenges with it happen in all contexts, at work, at home, in parenting, with travel, wherever it is because your brain goes with you. Which is why I think getting better at decision making and having some of these coaching tools and understandings has such a ripple effect on your life because we make decisions every moment of the day in any area of our life.
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And just for another example, I was nominated to go to Rwanda to the Women Deliver conference in July and I, at first was just so honored to be nominated by my org to go serve on this kind of Youth Advisory Board around measuring youth perception of sexual and reproductive care provision and privacy and provider bias. And really important things that globally affects so many people, and I was like, “Wow, this is such a great opportunity but I don’t know if I want to go to Rwanda.”
And I had to ask for an extension on this decision where I already kind of knew the answer of what I wanted, which was that first gut feeling of wow this is so cool. But then I kind of doubted myself and I was like, “Okay, well, what if I go all the way there and the conference sucks or I have such a hard time because I’m traveling again.” I’ve had to travel every month this year and I’m feeling a little tired from it, to be totally honest.
I would love to not ever get on a plane again ever. But after I’d made that decision, there were also in my past experiences before coaching, and sometimes even now, where I’ll make a decision and then I’ll continue to waffle on it.
Marissa: Yeah, that’s very common.
Sarah: [Crosstalk] maybe I made the wrong thing. But this time, even though this decision to travel, I had to get my passport renewed. Even this big decision to travel to a totally different country that I’ve never been to before and have zero colleagues around. I’m still scared about it clearly, but I’m no longer waffling about it because I know that okay, I might have those experiences when I go to this conference. But I know that the ultimate goal of what I wanted was this global health experience, because I’ve never really gotten to have that before.
And I know that I’ll never know if I don’t try and I want this experience and it aligns with my overall professional development. But there was this period of time where I almost let that kind of fear of negative consequences keep me from making that decision. And it’s been really refreshing and kind of exciting to not have that continued waffling and ping ponging back and forth, even after having sent in my reservations and confirmed my attendance.
Marissa: Yeah, and I think one thing I want to pull out you said, I think a lot of times we do know what we want. So we’re not in the space of indecision because we truly don’t know. I find that’s very rare. I find most people I coach and even with myself, I know what I want.
Sarah: That’s so interesting.
Marissa: They know what they want, but that indecision is an outcome of us not trusting ourselves or being socialized to defer authority or people please. We want to make sure everyone else is happy. And I think coaching is about stripping that away so you can just come back to what you want, which saves you so much time, it makes your life richer. But before we close out, I’d love to hear your thoughts around people pleasing and decision making, because I think this comes up so much for folks in helping professions of wanting to make a decision to make other people happy.
Sarah: Yeah, definitely. I think definitely being in public health, people pleasing and this idea that we have to act a certain way even in things like you know, I’m trained and being healing centered and trauma informed. And a lot of what trauma informed care has to do with, not retraumatizing and doing all of these things and taking all these precautions to control someone’s emotional experience.
And while those safeguards and protections and kind of that framework is very important and has been very effective in certain places, I think taking that thinking and extending it to who I am as a person and how I move about the world and in my relationships. Is such an overstep, and I think especially as someone who identifies as a hyper empathetic person, where I can kind of walk into a room and just feel the vibe immediately or see someone’s facial expression and interpret all these things from them.
I really struggle with people pleasing and always feeling like I need to do something to control someone’s thoughts or emotions or behaviors. And I think growing up that’s how I was raised was if I do this, then I’m going to hurt my sister’s feelings and I have to say sorry. Or my parents are like, “Why would you do that? That made us so mad.”
And what really kind of blew my mind was when you were like, “What if you think about this as manipulation, you’re actually trying to control someone’s emotional experience. You can’t do that. And not only can you not do that, that’s actually kind of manipulative. You changing the things that you say and the things that you do.”
Marissa: The decisions you make, yeah.
Sarah: The decisions you make, the way you show up, people are going to have their own emotional experience. There’s so much you don’t know of what’s going on in their lives, what’s going on in their heads, they might have certain triggers. Just being aware that you can only control your own behavior and you can only control your own emotions. And not trying to make decisions that are based on what you think someone else will react, how someone else will react to them. It just doesn’t work like that.
That’s a whole another level of optimization, I feel like [crosstalk] to go into all my decision making and it would just be so exhausting because it would be like, okay, well, if I stayed for 10 days at Christmas, my mom would say that’s not enough and she’d be all butt hurt and think that I don’t love her and I’m not a good daughter. And so I should probably stay for 14 or 15 or 16 days but I only have this much PTO.
And maybe I’ll work while I’m at home and then I’ll end up working over Christmas break to make sure that I’m not going into the negative with my PTO, but still spending time with my mom. And actually I just wanted to be home and recovering and preparing for the next year, things like that.
Marissa: And I think so often we’re making assumptions about other people’s opinions and what they would think and feel about our decision. Sometimes they tell us. I’ll tell you, being engaged, I have learned people love to share their unsolicited opinions about what you should do for your wedding. But oftentimes when we’re trying to make a decision we’re making assumptions about how other people react or what they would feel.
Or maybe we’re actively asking them and seeking that, but the result is then we’re going to make a decision for someone else and we aren’t living the life we want while also trying to manipulate how they feel and what they think about us. All of which is just kind of a form of lying, lying to ourselves and lying to them. And I think another conversation we could get deeper into this, which then links back to allowing emotions and the discomfort of life, of negative experiences, of other people’s opinions, of how other people feel.
I think kind of the thread throughout our conversation that I’m hearing is particularly people socialized as women, but also in helping professions and then depending on family, culture, religion, other things. So many of us are socialized to not trust ourselves, do for others and defer to others. And that shows up big time in decision making. And part of why I think coaching around decision making is so powerful, yeah, it’s great to have less drama about what to wear or what to grocery shop. But the bigger picture is you have more trust in yourself, you have a better relationship with yourself, you’re able to kind of lead the life you truly want and that’s why it’s so important.
Sarah: Absolutely, yeah, 100%, because I was making a lot of decisions, I will say based on what other people would think. And having since gotten coaching and identified okay, I’m having all of this trouble with indecisions and I’m trying to control other people’s emotional experiences with them. And I’m trying to optimize all my resources and as a result of that, I’m not actually doing what I really want to do.
And now making decisions based on okay, I can trust myself to handle whatever comes my way as a result. And I can trust myself to work through the discomfort of potentially hurting someone’s feelings or someone coming up to me and saying, “Hey, I didn’t like how you did that.” Or trusting myself to not assume or try to intervene in someone else’s emotional experience. And actually just figuring out, okay, this is what I know makes sense for me, has been super life changing and I can see the results in my day-to-day.
Marissa: This is where coaching is nuanced and why I think sometimes one-on-one coaching is really helpful is because it’s not black and white. Of course we want to be in a community with people, whether it’s in work or personal life. Of course we’re in relationship with people, so it’s not just, okay now everything you do, just go live in a cave and don’t ask anyone or don’t think of anyone else. That’s not what we’re saying. There’s so much nuance here.
But I think so many of us are swung to the side of give, give, defer to others, don’t trust ourselves, that learning how to come back to the middle where we can hear someone’s opinion but still trust and decide what we want. We can be in community and seek that space but still know that we can figure out what we want and what’s best for us. And maybe that takes some negotiation if it’s a tenant community or relationship situation we have to make decisions around. So there is nuance here, we’re not saying there isn’t, but that’s why coaching can be so helpful to talk through those nuances.
Sarah: Yeah. All of these things are incredibly complex and nuanced. And there are so many factors that can go into it, which is why when you have the tools to more efficiently make decisions, it just cuts out so much additional stress or energy use. You’re a lot more efficient and you can really identify, like you said, let’s narrow down the options because actually it takes way more energy to choose from five different rafting companies than two.
And how much of this is me trying to take care of everyone in the situation who’s involved and how much of it is actually me just working from what I know in my gut and also just on paper makes sense.
Marissa: Definitely. So as we wrap up, I know there’s probably some folks out there listening who are where you were before you did coaching, who really struggle with indecision. Maybe this episode is helping them realize, oh, maybe indecision isn’t serving me, maybe it’s not so helpful, and they’re just at that point of realizing it. What would you want them to know about getting support to make decisions, be more confident in their decisions, reduce their stress and how coaching could potentially help them?
Sarah: Yeah, I mean the awareness itself has permeated throughout my life. And like you said, we’re making decisions every minute like, do I send this email? Do I go to the bathroom before my meeting? I really can’t emphasize enough how much relief it has provided in my life. And I think thinking back I would 100% get coaching again, I would 100%.
If I had to go back and make the decision, I would choose it again and again because this sounds dramatic, but I think about folks who haven’t had this perspective and who haven’t had the chance to have the tools and learn about the ways that they’ve been socialized and how it’s not serving them. And they go through their entire lives that way. And I’m 30 years old, I’ve already figured this out, and I really don’t know where I would have learned this lesson otherwise.
And because there’s very few people, especially in the systems in the world that we live in, who are going to say, “Yeah, 100% trust your gut and no one else.” Everyone’s going to have an opinion like you said, when you’re planning a wedding, everyone has an opinion about what you should do and what you should say.
And just having the tools of coaching to kind of equip yourself to kind of bolster yourself against all the things that are affirming of that negative socialization towards deferring to others, not trusting your gut. Being stuck in this ping ponging and back and forth and thinking that’s helping you in some way, really having those tools, I don’t know if I would have gotten that anywhere else besides coaching. And I feel like I really do have a leg up on life. It sounds dramatic.
Marissa: It’s the secret to life, that’s how it feels to me too, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, we need to get everyone to know about this.”
Sarah: Totally, yeah. And I can’t imagine having not learned this lesson. I can’t imagine where else I would have learned this lesson. Maybe I would have learned it further down the line. But because of how often we’re making decisions, how often other people’s emotions kind of play into my behavior and whether I’m people pleasing or not, that happens not just every day, but every hour. And so I think the impact of coaching and if you have the funds, learn these lessons earlier.
And if you have the energy and you have the resources and you find that you are stuck in indecision often, it just is something that I think I want lots of people to have these tools as well and pull the trigger on it. Because it really has made an impact on my life on an hour to hour basis, not just day to day, yeah.
Marissa: Yeah. And I think one thing you’ve highlighted throughout that I want to just pull out for folks and this was my experience too is actually coaching and going through this process saves you time and money. So yes, you invest time and money upfront but you actually get a way bigger return on how much time you’re saving and how much money you’re saving on a cumulative, the rest of your life.
So compared to the return on investment, it’s actually a very small amount of time and money for what you’re going to get out of it, which I think you illustrated great with just the flight example. Let alone spending money shopping to deal with our emotions or always ordering takeout because you don’t have enough time to cook. Or not having time with your kids and regretting it or whatever it may be, coaching saves you that time and money and decision making is one of the biggest ways you save time and money.
Sarah: If you think about an individual kind of as a community or a group with lots of different issues, instead of tackling each of those issues on a situation by situation basis, get to the root cause. Which for me is my thoughts and the way that I’ve been socialized to move through the world. And so for me, coaching is almost like taking a systems approach but to my brain.
Marissa: I’m so glad you brought that up because I agree with that. I don’t think we talk about it in that way as much. But you know back in the day, my podcast, since you’re an OG listener, used to be called Thoughts are Your Root Cause. Because the work that we’re doing and that I share on this podcast and in coaching that you’ve done with me, it is about getting to the root cause, the upstream so we can prevent and improve our future. Which is very similar to a public health prevention piece, but the implementation is very one-on-one about working on yourself. So I’m so glad you brought that up.
Sarah: Yeah. I think there was probably a period of time where I was like, “I am really struggling and I know I need to bring in help.” And even just that realization, I don’t think that everyone shares this experience, but kind of feeling almost you’re broken or you’re not enough on your own. Instead of just being like, no, of course I need help.
This is something that I’m an incredibly busy individual who’s doing all sorts of things and has all sorts of interests. Why not get that support and have that kind of scaffolding of someone whose full-time job is to figure out how best to manage your mind and process your emotions and kind of reduce a lot of the suffering and day-to-day [crosstalk]?
Marissa: Stress essentially.
Sarah: Yeah, and stress, yeah, absolutely.
Marissa: Yeah. I think admitting and reaching out for support is the hardest step. Anytime someone comes to a consult, I know they’ve already done the hardest part, which is being like, “I’m going to reach out.” It’s still for me when I’m reaching out, partly because we’re socialized, especially socialized as women, especially in helping profession to be the helper.
And from my experience as far as what made it hard for me to reach out and get help was I was in the place of resentment where it’s like, no, it’s public health’s fault. It’s the organization’s fault. It’s the leadership’s fault. Why should I have to do anything? And that kept me stuck from reducing my stress and feeling better in the place of waiting for something outside of me to change, which also isn’t helpful.
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And going back to that socialization piece too, I feel like we’re also socialized as women and in people in public health to not take on, I don’t know, to think of something like coaching as a luxury or something that, oh, that’s for people who have lots and lots of resources. And public health is traditionally or historically a resource strapped field and the people aren’t paid as much as someone who maybe works for Google.
Or coaching is something for someone else. And I remember on our consult you had said something like, “Why settle? And right now the way that you’re navigating through life, you’re having a can of tuna of quality in terms of your day-to-day experience with stress. What if you could have like the filet mignon of experiences?” And that was when I realized I was operating from that kind of mentality of scarcity and socialization of this isn’t for me, this is for other people.
Marissa: Yeah. First, I love that as a vegan, that was the example I gave you. Yeah, that’s so funny.
Sarah: It’s not about avoiding negative experiences and emotions because those are going to come up no matter what, life is 50/50. But I think there are situations in life where I’m like, “I would pay someone to figure this out for me so I don’t have to think about it anymore.” And actually, what if someone gave you the tools that you can take with you for the rest of your life to figure this situation out and it’s going to cost this much upfront, but you will have the tools for the rest of your life, you’ll understand what’s going on. I’m like, “Yeah, sign me up.”
Marissa: Right. Because it’s a lifelong investment that we’re making in ourselves, which it’s our life, we’re living it. What is more important than our mental and emotional health and wellbeing investment? I personally think nothing because we can’t do anything if we’re exhausted and burnt out and stressed out and not taking care of ourselves.
So we could chat forever but I’ve got to let you go. Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining us. I know it resonated with so many listeners, whether you’re an OG listener like Sarah or a new listener, I hope you found this really, really helpful and yeah, any final thoughts before we sign off, Sarah?
Sarah: I really appreciate all of the lessons that you’ve taught me and that you provide for people for free on this podcast. And I often will just flip through it and when I’m struggling with something I can find a topic on the issue that I’m struggling with, so yeah, I’m excited to be on the resource that has given me so much support.
Marissa: I’m glad, that’s my goal, that if someone’s like, “I’m struggling with this one thing, they can find an episode for it.”
You all, wasn’t that discussion amazing? Sarah’s story, how much she has changed, what an impact that’s had, and she shared so many good nuggets of insights and knowledge with all of you. We could have talked forever, as I’m sure you could tell. If this conversation inspired you, if you realize you’re really stuck in the maybe hole or indecision is draining your time, your energy, your bank account, and you want to get help like Sarah did. I want you to sign up for a consult with me and learn more about my coaching program. You can head to mckoolcoaching.com/coaching, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L.com/coaching.
We’ll also leave a link in the show notes, the consult’s completely free. That’s exactly how Sarah started with me, she got on a free call with me. We just talk about what you’re struggling with and I share my insights as a coach and we have a discussion of how you can change that, what are the specific steps and if you want to join my program, what that’s like, what to expect and you get to decide, totally up to you. We’ll leave a link in the show notes. Thanks everyone for tuning in.
Next week we have another very special interview with another one of my clients who’s talking about becoming a confident leader. So if you lead a committee, if you’re a supervisor, if you’re a director or if you want to be one day, that is a must listen episode. I’ll see you there next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Hello everyone, how are you? I have to tell you, I’m actually breaking one of my own boundaries by recording this intro right now. Let me explain. It’s towards the end of my work day I should be wrapping up, but I was so excited to get this episode finalized for you all that I really wanted to sit down and just put it all together and finalize it because it is so amazing.
I’m sitting down with my former client, Sarah Han, who’s a youth centered health designer, to talk about her experience going from, as she called it, crippling indecision to trusting herself. We talk about how every day, all day, whether you’re aware of it or not, we’re making thousands of decisions, not just at work, but at home, in our personal lives and so many other areas. Sarah shares her experience of what it was like with indecision and what it’s like now trusting herself to make confident decisions.
She also talks specifically about how this has shown up in work in her day-to-day job, but also in her travel, whether it’s work related travel or personal travel. She shares a lot about how she’s become more efficient with decision making and how that’s had an impact on her life. So I know so many of you are going to benefit so much from hearing Sarah’s story and learning from her. So without further ado, let’s get into the episode.
Marissa: Sarah, I am so excited you’re here to talk about your experience in coaching, where you’ve kind of grown around decision making and accepting life is 50/50 and so many other things. But before we jump into all that juicy stuff, will you tell everyone who you are, a little bit about your public health background, just a little bit more about you?
Sarah: Yeah, I’m so excited to be here, been a long time podcast listener. I think I might be one of your day ones and so I feel super honored to be on this podcast. I am 30 years old. I live in Honolulu. I am a youth centered health designer at ETR, which is a non-profit that creates curriculum and trainings for teachers and educators to teach on anything from sexual and reproductive health to HIV prevention to alcohol, tobacco, drug prevention, travel, community health.
And I have been in public health, I would say since 2013/2014. I’ve always been someone who likes to think, I think on a systems level, if there’s something that’s just affecting everybody then instead of addressing each individual person, let’s go address that issue. And so I kind of felt that spark when I was doing an internship during undergrad at a downtown clinic in LA that mainly served unhoused folks. And I was assessing their patient satisfaction with care to do the study to see how this new care model helped with their care and I’ve just been in public health ever since.
I fell in love with being able to work directly with people but still kind of tackle these bigger issues that affect entire communities. And since graduating from undergrad, I wanted to do food justice issues and made community gardens. And then I went to research and evaluation. And then I worked at a media advocacy research and training firm. And then I got my master’s in public health where I kind of boosted my background in human centered design and now I’m at ETR.
And what I love so much about public health is that I get to do all these different things that are seemingly unrelated, but I hear you say on your podcast all the time, everything is public health. And so you don’t have to limit yourself and your interests and you get to apply a whole range of skills and I really enjoy that about this field.
Marissa: Actually, when we first met and something we’ve worked on a lot together is around decision making. That was one of the pieces we talked about where you were feeling stuck. And I know so many people listening, struggle with decision making from day-to-day decisions. I actually coached someone this week on what order do I start my tasks for the day?
And how much time we waste trying to optimize and make the right decision, even day-to-day versus even big decisions like what’s the next job I want? Should I leave my job? Should I switch career paths? So can you share a little bit with folks before coaching what it was like with decision making and where you struggled?
Sarah: Oh, girl.
Marissa: How much time do we have?
Sarah: I know, I was like I cannot even decide what I want to order for lunch. And even after I decide what to order for lunch, I’m like, “Damn it, that’s too many calories. That’s too expensive or maybe I should have gotten this. I could have made that with stuff I had at home.” I have always considered myself to be incredibly indecisive and it has been crippling. Okay, so lunch is kind of a trite example.
But I would want to book a flight home for Christmas to see my family or for work. And I would not know how long do I want to be there on this trip. When should I leave? Should I leave in the morning? Should I leave in the afternoon? Flights, for example, I have probably spent, I don’t know thousands of dollars and when I say it like that I’m like whoa. But thousands of dollars additional, just because the price of the flight would change over the course of me not being able to make a decision and it would jump $200 or $300 from when I started to look for flights.
And so I feel that’s such a perfect analogy for my decision making in life in general. I would go to my advisors in school or at my work or my mentors and just say, “Tell me what to do.” I would always defer to what other people thought I should do. And I know where that came from in my socialization, as a Korean American woman. I remember my dad drilling into me as a kid, “Just ask your teachers, they’ll tell you what to do?” And it was a supportive thing for a long time and it worked for me for a really long time.
And a lot of the times, folks would be happy to tell me what to do and give me their opinions and I would be like, “Yeah, I got validation. I have a direction.” And then other times folks would straight up say, “That’s your decision to make.” Which is an appropriate response. And I remember being so pissed off, just so frustrated, just tell me what I need to do. And never really having trust in myself to make that decision on my own.
Marissa: Yeah, and I feel you. I’ve always been super indecisive. I’m a Libra. I’m a middle child, there’s so many things. And socialization, we all have our own socialization, especially if you’re socialized as a woman. But then in your family or your culture or your religion, there’s so many way we’re socialized to defer authority like you said to whether it’s men or people in positions of power or folks that we consider, I almost said elderly, but that’s not what I mean, the elders, stuff like that.
So I think that’s a big challenge and we can sometimes see the issues like what you’re talking about with okay, it’s costing me more money on flights. But what we kind of miss is the emotional exhaustion it’s creating because we make hundreds, if not thousands, decisions a day. So there’s two pieces. It’s the not trusting ourselves and deferring authority. But then the exhaustion from not deciding, being stuck, ping ponging and then questioning our decision, doubting ourselves. It creates actually so much burnout in a sense that we’re not even aware of.
Sarah: Totally, yeah, I’ll be like should I go to that yoga class this afternoon? I don’t know, maybe, I don’t know, maybe. I’m feeling kind of dehydrated but also my body’s feeling so tight, I could really use it. I would just go back and forth all day and then end up just not going to this thing that could have really benefited me.
Marissa: It’s like a ping pong match that just never ends.
Sarah: 100%, yeah.
Marissa: So with kind of coaching, what have you learned about decision making? What approaches have you changed? What has coaching helped you with as far as reducing that indecision, reducing the exhaustion. And everyone listening, we’re not saying either of us are always quick decision makers now or perfect at it but it’s just about making some changes to make it easier on us. What has been your journey with that?
Sarah: Yeah. So I think my biggest realization is seeing when I’m stuck in indecision and understanding kind of the ramifications and the reality of what that is. I think before when I was stuck in indecision, I felt justified to be there like I’m trying to optimize my schedule, I’m trying to optimize my energy and figure out what the right answer is, get to the best solution.
And I think also we are kind of socialized again going back to that mentality of scarcity of okay, I have this much resource, I have this much time, I have this much energy, what do I want to do with that time? Or how do I want to best use my $20 at brunch, should I get the mimosa and the salad or whatever? So I think just realizing how that kind of justification is false, you’re not actually helping yourself by trying to constantly optimize your decision making and in reality there is no right or wrong answer.
And just realizing too that being stuck in that indecision is actually a symptom of me wanting to avoid if I’m wrong about this decision, how mean am I going to be to myself and beat myself up after making that decision. And I think another huge realization in this area of coaching was I’m going to be mean to myself no matter what, which sounds really sad, but actually was really freeing because it’s not about being mean to myself and actually just realizing okay, this is my brain, this is how my brain works.
It always wants to figure out what’s best for me and it’s just trying to avoid worst case scenarios. But if I’m always coming from this place of how do I avoid this worst case scenario, how do I make sure everyone’s aligned with my decision or I’m doing what other people think I should be doing. Then I’m never really trusting in myself and building that trust to be able to make those decisions on my own. And so now, since having gotten coaching, I can more easily realize when I’m in indecision, like what you said, we’re not perfect.
And I think there’s a whole layer of trying not to be perfect about coaching yourself, but that I’m currently working through. But I think just having that amount of time and the amount of energy that goes into the maybe hole is which I think what you call it, you should trademark that. I feel like I’m able to spend less time in the maybe hole or just see, oh, okay, I have been spinning my wheels about this one decision for two days now. I think it’s time now to make the trigger.
I actually do have trust in myself that I have what I need and understand all the different pros and cons. And if I make the wrong decision or if something happens as a result of this decision that I don’t love, that’s fine, I can figure it out from there. And just having the confidence and kind of the courage in myself that I can take whatever comes my way.
Marissa: Yeah. And I hear a couple of different things I want to pull out for listeners as far as what you’ve learned and where you’ve grown, the first is just realizing that indecision has an impact. I think we think it’s so innocent, I just need more time, I just need more information, that it’s helpful. And maybe to a small degree, but like you said, the maybe hole you get stuck there and actually there is a bigger impact that we don’t want that we don’t realize. So it sounds like that was the first piece you ever had to realize that wow, this indecision actually isn’t helping me.
Marissa: Yeah. And then the other thing you bring up with the right and wrong, this is such, I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I coach on this. And I still have to get coached on it too. Because we are so socialized to believe there’s a right answer and wrong answer, and we’re supposed to figure out the right answer, but there’s really not. It’s all subjective. And I think what’s scary about that is when we take away that right or wrong, then we do have to trust ourselves to decide for us.
And that trust, I think often, is what you’re talking about, where our brains are probably going to be assholes to us. No matter what we decide our brain might say something like, you shouldn’t have done that or doubting ourselves. Or maybe a challenge will come up and then our brain judges ourselves. And the trust of even if my brain does that, I’m going to have my own back. I’m not going to beat myself up. As best as I can I’m going to try to be compassionate and keep moving forward. That is a skill we are not taught.
Sarah: Absolutely, yeah. For example, at work recently, I’m working on this strategic planning process with a bunch of colleagues. And there was a piece that felt really kind of confusing to me and I was so stuck in indecision all week this week, just like who do I reach out to, to get clarity on this? Should I send it in the full group chat? Should I send an email to the one person who’s leading the group?
And all these different options and scenarios, and I was like, “You know what? Either of those paths I choose the result of that will be people either redirecting me to someone else to ask, this is the right person to ask or sparking a conversation in the group that might take us off a tangent but could uncover really helpful things.” So I think understanding that there is no right or wrong. Everyone’s going to take a different approach and that’s kind of the beauty of it. Each decision is going to be right for the person who made it and their ability.
Kind of everyone has the ability to not only make that decision but deal with whatever happens as a result of that decision. And I ended up reaching out to the full group and saying, “Hey, I’m really confused on this piece. Can we just take a step back and talk about this some more?” And everyone was like, “I’m so glad you’ve reached out and pushed back and hit pause because that totally makes sense.”
And someone else in the group direct messaged me and was like, “I’m so glad that you did that. I was also feeling confused.” And so I was like, “Wow, great.” And it doesn’t always work out so perfectly but in that situation I felt like it was such a great example of I actually can trust myself to take action when I’m feeling stuck and then deal with whatever happens afterwards.
Marissa: Yeah. It also sounds like you realized you were able to have that awareness of okay, if I stay here ping ponging between these options, nothing’s going to happen. I can just pick one and move forward, which I think is one of the biggest things coaching helps us do because it’s not about getting perfect at it. It’s just using that awareness to support ourselves and keep moving forward.
So you’re thinking big picture with now what you know about decision making. How has that had an impact big picture on your work, on getting work done, on chores, on other things? How has that kind of had a ripple effect overall?
Sarah: Oh, my gosh, I mean, I’ve saved hundreds of dollars on flights. Just to go back to that, it is actually that tangible. And just in terms of my emotional experience, I can’t tell you how much relief I get and how much more efficient I am. And as someone who loves efficiency and systems thinking. I’m like, “This was the blocker, this was the bottleneck of my life, of having things move forward.”
And not only am I making decisions more efficiently and reducing my stress, but I’m also building trust in myself over time of okay, I can do this and I actually can tackle or handle whatever comes my way. And most of the decisions I make are pretty good. I’m getting better at trusting my gut and my intuition, which is always something that I have outsourced growing up and just deferring to others. And so I’m finding myself doing that less.
And also being able to pass that on to others, that same confidence. And I think that’s been super valuable for me. And also like you were saying, indecision kind of gets this incorrect rap of being harmless. But actually the longer I’m in indecision, I’ve found the more prone I am to making a decision based off of fear or scarcity mindset or just general exhaustion. Sometimes I would make decisions and sometimes I still do, where I just burn myself out in indecision to the point where I’m like, “I guess I’ll just pick this. It’s not actually what I really want.
Marissa: Yes. And the other thing you and I have talked about a lot with decision making, which I think goes back to the right or wrong, which is life is 50/50. So half the time it’s going to be shit, half the time it’s going to be good. I’m curious for you, I know you’ve told me a couple times that concept has helped you so much, how has it helped specifically with making decisions?
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, I feel like that’s the crux of it almost because no matter what I decide, understanding that there’s going to be ups, there’s going to be downs. It kind of neutralizes that part of me that’s like you must optimize every part of this decision. Actually, there are some things that just can’t be optimized. Actually, if you choose this Airbnb versus this one, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that there’s no street parking. But that’s okay because it’s got a gorgeous lawn and a big TV that you can watch. Things like that. There’s always going to be trade-offs.
And I think I spent a lot of time resisting the reality of things, oh gosh, I just wish that there could be no negative side of this, which stepping back now I’m like, “That’s ridiculous, of course, there’s going to be pros and cons of every situation.” And being able to just face that and accept, okay, you know what, just going back to the Airbnb example because I will sit and create a spreadsheet and think about which Airbnb to book for, I don’t know, I could do it for 10 hours.
Just knowing, okay, I’m trying really hard, I’m recognizing I’m trying so hard to create the perfect situation. And just understanding perfectionism can actually create so much more suffering and indecision for me. And just having this understanding of there’s going to be something about the situation that I don’t like, and actually I can trust myself to be okay with that and accept that moving forward.
It takes the pressure off and it also just helps me get in touch with what I really want in the end. Even if there are all these cons or disadvantages to making a decision one way or another, I still really want this. And I think we kind of all have that gut feeling but just because of all the other noise, it’s hard to hear that sometimes.
Marissa: Yeah, totally. I mean, I think we’ve kind of been taught that if you make the right decisions then you will be happy and there will be nothing will go wrong. And so that’s why we’re always trying to optimize but that’s impossible. Travel, there’s going to be things that go wrong constantly. Even work, I remember when I was leading a committee, I was constantly thinking, well, if I just make the right agenda or assign the right people or say the right thing or whatnot, the committee will go great and everyone will be happy. No, that’s not the way it works.
Decision making and the challenges with it happen in all contexts, at work, at home, in parenting, with travel, wherever it is because your brain goes with you. Which is why I think getting better at decision making and having some of these coaching tools and understandings has such a ripple effect on your life because we make decisions every moment of the day in any area of our life.
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And just for another example, I was nominated to go to Rwanda to the Women Deliver conference in July and I, at first was just so honored to be nominated by my org to go serve on this kind of Youth Advisory Board around measuring youth perception of sexual and reproductive care provision and privacy and provider bias. And really important things that globally affects so many people, and I was like, “Wow, this is such a great opportunity but I don’t know if I want to go to Rwanda.”
And I had to ask for an extension on this decision where I already kind of knew the answer of what I wanted, which was that first gut feeling of wow this is so cool. But then I kind of doubted myself and I was like, “Okay, well, what if I go all the way there and the conference sucks or I have such a hard time because I’m traveling again.” I’ve had to travel every month this year and I’m feeling a little tired from it, to be totally honest.
I would love to not ever get on a plane again ever. But after I’d made that decision, there were also in my past experiences before coaching, and sometimes even now, where I’ll make a decision and then I’ll continue to waffle on it.
Marissa: Yeah, that’s very common.
Sarah: [Crosstalk] maybe I made the wrong thing. But this time, even though this decision to travel, I had to get my passport renewed. Even this big decision to travel to a totally different country that I’ve never been to before and have zero colleagues around. I’m still scared about it clearly, but I’m no longer waffling about it because I know that okay, I might have those experiences when I go to this conference. But I know that the ultimate goal of what I wanted was this global health experience, because I’ve never really gotten to have that before.
And I know that I’ll never know if I don’t try and I want this experience and it aligns with my overall professional development. But there was this period of time where I almost let that kind of fear of negative consequences keep me from making that decision. And it’s been really refreshing and kind of exciting to not have that continued waffling and ping ponging back and forth, even after having sent in my reservations and confirmed my attendance.
Marissa: Yeah, and I think one thing I want to pull out you said, I think a lot of times we do know what we want. So we’re not in the space of indecision because we truly don’t know. I find that’s very rare. I find most people I coach and even with myself, I know what I want.
Sarah: That’s so interesting.
Marissa: They know what they want, but that indecision is an outcome of us not trusting ourselves or being socialized to defer authority or people please. We want to make sure everyone else is happy. And I think coaching is about stripping that away so you can just come back to what you want, which saves you so much time, it makes your life richer. But before we close out, I’d love to hear your thoughts around people pleasing and decision making, because I think this comes up so much for folks in helping professions of wanting to make a decision to make other people happy.
Sarah: Yeah, definitely. I think definitely being in public health, people pleasing and this idea that we have to act a certain way even in things like you know, I’m trained and being healing centered and trauma informed. And a lot of what trauma informed care has to do with, not retraumatizing and doing all of these things and taking all these precautions to control someone’s emotional experience.
And while those safeguards and protections and kind of that framework is very important and has been very effective in certain places, I think taking that thinking and extending it to who I am as a person and how I move about the world and in my relationships. Is such an overstep, and I think especially as someone who identifies as a hyper empathetic person, where I can kind of walk into a room and just feel the vibe immediately or see someone’s facial expression and interpret all these things from them.
I really struggle with people pleasing and always feeling like I need to do something to control someone’s thoughts or emotions or behaviors. And I think growing up that’s how I was raised was if I do this, then I’m going to hurt my sister’s feelings and I have to say sorry. Or my parents are like, “Why would you do that? That made us so mad.”
And what really kind of blew my mind was when you were like, “What if you think about this as manipulation, you’re actually trying to control someone’s emotional experience. You can’t do that. And not only can you not do that, that’s actually kind of manipulative. You changing the things that you say and the things that you do.”
Marissa: The decisions you make, yeah.
Sarah: The decisions you make, the way you show up, people are going to have their own emotional experience. There’s so much you don’t know of what’s going on in their lives, what’s going on in their heads, they might have certain triggers. Just being aware that you can only control your own behavior and you can only control your own emotions. And not trying to make decisions that are based on what you think someone else will react, how someone else will react to them. It just doesn’t work like that.
That’s a whole another level of optimization, I feel like [crosstalk] to go into all my decision making and it would just be so exhausting because it would be like, okay, well, if I stayed for 10 days at Christmas, my mom would say that’s not enough and she’d be all butt hurt and think that I don’t love her and I’m not a good daughter. And so I should probably stay for 14 or 15 or 16 days but I only have this much PTO.
And maybe I’ll work while I’m at home and then I’ll end up working over Christmas break to make sure that I’m not going into the negative with my PTO, but still spending time with my mom. And actually I just wanted to be home and recovering and preparing for the next year, things like that.
Marissa: And I think so often we’re making assumptions about other people’s opinions and what they would think and feel about our decision. Sometimes they tell us. I’ll tell you, being engaged, I have learned people love to share their unsolicited opinions about what you should do for your wedding. But oftentimes when we’re trying to make a decision we’re making assumptions about how other people react or what they would feel.
Or maybe we’re actively asking them and seeking that, but the result is then we’re going to make a decision for someone else and we aren’t living the life we want while also trying to manipulate how they feel and what they think about us. All of which is just kind of a form of lying, lying to ourselves and lying to them. And I think another conversation we could get deeper into this, which then links back to allowing emotions and the discomfort of life, of negative experiences, of other people’s opinions, of how other people feel.
I think kind of the thread throughout our conversation that I’m hearing is particularly people socialized as women, but also in helping professions and then depending on family, culture, religion, other things. So many of us are socialized to not trust ourselves, do for others and defer to others. And that shows up big time in decision making. And part of why I think coaching around decision making is so powerful, yeah, it’s great to have less drama about what to wear or what to grocery shop. But the bigger picture is you have more trust in yourself, you have a better relationship with yourself, you’re able to kind of lead the life you truly want and that’s why it’s so important.
Sarah: Absolutely, yeah, 100%, because I was making a lot of decisions, I will say based on what other people would think. And having since gotten coaching and identified okay, I’m having all of this trouble with indecisions and I’m trying to control other people’s emotional experiences with them. And I’m trying to optimize all my resources and as a result of that, I’m not actually doing what I really want to do.
And now making decisions based on okay, I can trust myself to handle whatever comes my way as a result. And I can trust myself to work through the discomfort of potentially hurting someone’s feelings or someone coming up to me and saying, “Hey, I didn’t like how you did that.” Or trusting myself to not assume or try to intervene in someone else’s emotional experience. And actually just figuring out, okay, this is what I know makes sense for me, has been super life changing and I can see the results in my day-to-day.
Marissa: This is where coaching is nuanced and why I think sometimes one-on-one coaching is really helpful is because it’s not black and white. Of course we want to be in a community with people, whether it’s in work or personal life. Of course we’re in relationship with people, so it’s not just, okay now everything you do, just go live in a cave and don’t ask anyone or don’t think of anyone else. That’s not what we’re saying. There’s so much nuance here.
But I think so many of us are swung to the side of give, give, defer to others, don’t trust ourselves, that learning how to come back to the middle where we can hear someone’s opinion but still trust and decide what we want. We can be in community and seek that space but still know that we can figure out what we want and what’s best for us. And maybe that takes some negotiation if it’s a tenant community or relationship situation we have to make decisions around. So there is nuance here, we’re not saying there isn’t, but that’s why coaching can be so helpful to talk through those nuances.
Sarah: Yeah. All of these things are incredibly complex and nuanced. And there are so many factors that can go into it, which is why when you have the tools to more efficiently make decisions, it just cuts out so much additional stress or energy use. You’re a lot more efficient and you can really identify, like you said, let’s narrow down the options because actually it takes way more energy to choose from five different rafting companies than two.
And how much of this is me trying to take care of everyone in the situation who’s involved and how much of it is actually me just working from what I know in my gut and also just on paper makes sense.
Marissa: Definitely. So as we wrap up, I know there’s probably some folks out there listening who are where you were before you did coaching, who really struggle with indecision. Maybe this episode is helping them realize, oh, maybe indecision isn’t serving me, maybe it’s not so helpful, and they’re just at that point of realizing it. What would you want them to know about getting support to make decisions, be more confident in their decisions, reduce their stress and how coaching could potentially help them?
Sarah: Yeah, I mean the awareness itself has permeated throughout my life. And like you said, we’re making decisions every minute like, do I send this email? Do I go to the bathroom before my meeting? I really can’t emphasize enough how much relief it has provided in my life. And I think thinking back I would 100% get coaching again, I would 100%.
If I had to go back and make the decision, I would choose it again and again because this sounds dramatic, but I think about folks who haven’t had this perspective and who haven’t had the chance to have the tools and learn about the ways that they’ve been socialized and how it’s not serving them. And they go through their entire lives that way. And I’m 30 years old, I’ve already figured this out, and I really don’t know where I would have learned this lesson otherwise.
And because there’s very few people, especially in the systems in the world that we live in, who are going to say, “Yeah, 100% trust your gut and no one else.” Everyone’s going to have an opinion like you said, when you’re planning a wedding, everyone has an opinion about what you should do and what you should say.
And just having the tools of coaching to kind of equip yourself to kind of bolster yourself against all the things that are affirming of that negative socialization towards deferring to others, not trusting your gut. Being stuck in this ping ponging and back and forth and thinking that’s helping you in some way, really having those tools, I don’t know if I would have gotten that anywhere else besides coaching. And I feel like I really do have a leg up on life. It sounds dramatic.
Marissa: It’s the secret to life, that’s how it feels to me too, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, we need to get everyone to know about this.”
Sarah: Totally, yeah. And I can’t imagine having not learned this lesson. I can’t imagine where else I would have learned this lesson. Maybe I would have learned it further down the line. But because of how often we’re making decisions, how often other people’s emotions kind of play into my behavior and whether I’m people pleasing or not, that happens not just every day, but every hour. And so I think the impact of coaching and if you have the funds, learn these lessons earlier.
And if you have the energy and you have the resources and you find that you are stuck in indecision often, it just is something that I think I want lots of people to have these tools as well and pull the trigger on it. Because it really has made an impact on my life on an hour to hour basis, not just day to day, yeah.
Marissa: Yeah. And I think one thing you’ve highlighted throughout that I want to just pull out for folks and this was my experience too is actually coaching and going through this process saves you time and money. So yes, you invest time and money upfront but you actually get a way bigger return on how much time you’re saving and how much money you’re saving on a cumulative, the rest of your life.
So compared to the return on investment, it’s actually a very small amount of time and money for what you’re going to get out of it, which I think you illustrated great with just the flight example. Let alone spending money shopping to deal with our emotions or always ordering takeout because you don’t have enough time to cook. Or not having time with your kids and regretting it or whatever it may be, coaching saves you that time and money and decision making is one of the biggest ways you save time and money.
Sarah: If you think about an individual kind of as a community or a group with lots of different issues, instead of tackling each of those issues on a situation by situation basis, get to the root cause. Which for me is my thoughts and the way that I’ve been socialized to move through the world. And so for me, coaching is almost like taking a systems approach but to my brain.
Marissa: I’m so glad you brought that up because I agree with that. I don’t think we talk about it in that way as much. But you know back in the day, my podcast, since you’re an OG listener, used to be called Thoughts are Your Root Cause. Because the work that we’re doing and that I share on this podcast and in coaching that you’ve done with me, it is about getting to the root cause, the upstream so we can prevent and improve our future. Which is very similar to a public health prevention piece, but the implementation is very one-on-one about working on yourself. So I’m so glad you brought that up.
Sarah: Yeah. I think there was probably a period of time where I was like, “I am really struggling and I know I need to bring in help.” And even just that realization, I don’t think that everyone shares this experience, but kind of feeling almost you’re broken or you’re not enough on your own. Instead of just being like, no, of course I need help.
This is something that I’m an incredibly busy individual who’s doing all sorts of things and has all sorts of interests. Why not get that support and have that kind of scaffolding of someone whose full-time job is to figure out how best to manage your mind and process your emotions and kind of reduce a lot of the suffering and day-to-day [crosstalk]?
Marissa: Stress essentially.
Sarah: Yeah, and stress, yeah, absolutely.
Marissa: Yeah. I think admitting and reaching out for support is the hardest step. Anytime someone comes to a consult, I know they’ve already done the hardest part, which is being like, “I’m going to reach out.” It’s still for me when I’m reaching out, partly because we’re socialized, especially socialized as women, especially in helping profession to be the helper.
And from my experience as far as what made it hard for me to reach out and get help was I was in the place of resentment where it’s like, no, it’s public health’s fault. It’s the organization’s fault. It’s the leadership’s fault. Why should I have to do anything? And that kept me stuck from reducing my stress and feeling better in the place of waiting for something outside of me to change, which also isn’t helpful.
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And going back to that socialization piece too, I feel like we’re also socialized as women and in people in public health to not take on, I don’t know, to think of something like coaching as a luxury or something that, oh, that’s for people who have lots and lots of resources. And public health is traditionally or historically a resource strapped field and the people aren’t paid as much as someone who maybe works for Google.
Or coaching is something for someone else. And I remember on our consult you had said something like, “Why settle? And right now the way that you’re navigating through life, you’re having a can of tuna of quality in terms of your day-to-day experience with stress. What if you could have like the filet mignon of experiences?” And that was when I realized I was operating from that kind of mentality of scarcity and socialization of this isn’t for me, this is for other people.
Marissa: Yeah. First, I love that as a vegan, that was the example I gave you. Yeah, that’s so funny.
Sarah: It’s not about avoiding negative experiences and emotions because those are going to come up no matter what, life is 50/50. But I think there are situations in life where I’m like, “I would pay someone to figure this out for me so I don’t have to think about it anymore.” And actually, what if someone gave you the tools that you can take with you for the rest of your life to figure this situation out and it’s going to cost this much upfront, but you will have the tools for the rest of your life, you’ll understand what’s going on. I’m like, “Yeah, sign me up.”
Marissa: Right. Because it’s a lifelong investment that we’re making in ourselves, which it’s our life, we’re living it. What is more important than our mental and emotional health and wellbeing investment? I personally think nothing because we can’t do anything if we’re exhausted and burnt out and stressed out and not taking care of ourselves.
So we could chat forever but I’ve got to let you go. Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining us. I know it resonated with so many listeners, whether you’re an OG listener like Sarah or a new listener, I hope you found this really, really helpful and yeah, any final thoughts before we sign off, Sarah?
Sarah: I really appreciate all of the lessons that you’ve taught me and that you provide for people for free on this podcast. And I often will just flip through it and when I’m struggling with something I can find a topic on the issue that I’m struggling with, so yeah, I’m excited to be on the resource that has given me so much support.
Marissa: I’m glad, that’s my goal, that if someone’s like, “I’m struggling with this one thing, they can find an episode for it.”
You all, wasn’t that discussion amazing? Sarah’s story, how much she has changed, what an impact that’s had, and she shared so many good nuggets of insights and knowledge with all of you. We could have talked forever, as I’m sure you could tell. If this conversation inspired you, if you realize you’re really stuck in the maybe hole or indecision is draining your time, your energy, your bank account, and you want to get help like Sarah did. I want you to sign up for a consult with me and learn more about my coaching program. You can head to mckoolcoaching.com/coaching, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L.com/coaching.
We’ll also leave a link in the show notes, the consult’s completely free. That’s exactly how Sarah started with me, she got on a free call with me. We just talk about what you’re struggling with and I share my insights as a coach and we have a discussion of how you can change that, what are the specific steps and if you want to join my program, what that’s like, what to expect and you get to decide, totally up to you. We’ll leave a link in the show notes. Thanks everyone for tuning in.
Next week we have another very special interview with another one of my clients who’s talking about becoming a confident leader. So if you lead a committee, if you’re a supervisor, if you’re a director or if you want to be one day, that is a must listen episode. I’ll see you there next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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