70. The Power of Decisions to Create Mental and Emotional Rest
How many decisions do you make a day? Whether it’s what you’re going to wear for work or what you’re going to do on a project, to what you’re having for dinner, there are so many decisions we make on a daily basis, often without realizing. And that’s just daily, without even thinking of decisions for your life in the future. It’s a lot.
Decision-making is a huge part of our life, and the truth is we don’t often talk about it in the sense of becoming efficient at it, nor why you would want to, what type of energy it takes to make decisions, and why we struggle doing it.
So this week, I’m sharing two simple examples to help you start thinking about decision-making in a way that will help you create emotional and physical rest. Discover how to reduce the emotional and mental energy of decision-making, and how to apply this in both your work and personal life.
If you want to take this work deeper and learn the tools and skills to feel better, all while having my support and guidance each step of the way, I invite you to set up a time to chat with me. Click here to grab a spot on my calendar and I can’t wait to speak to you!
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What You Will Discover:
How to make decisions ahead of time that serve you.
The mental and emotional energy it can take to make a decision.
How decision-making could be contributing to your stress and lack of rest.
The power of decision-making in creating the rest you want.
Why decision-making takes up so much mental space and energy.
Resources:
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Done with Dieting Episode #83: How Policy Impacts our Health with Marissa McKool
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, what is up? I’m so glad you’re here. How are you doing? I want to give a special shout out to all of our new listeners, to new members in our community, whether you found this podcast through a friend sharing it with you. Or you were searching on Spotify, or Apple or wherever you are getting these podcasts, or help with burnout, or rest, or stress and you found this podcast. Or you heard me on the Public Health Epidemiologist Conversations podcast, or the Done with Dieting podcast or anywhere else.
I’m so glad you’re here. I am so glad that you have decided to invest 20, 30 minutes a week to learning how you can get more mental and emotional rest while doing the amazing work you’re doing in the world. And by getting more mental and emotional rest you’re not only going to be able to do that work without burning yourself out but by creating the life you actually want to live. To live a life authentic to your desires and wants even if it is different than the norm, even if it goes against expectations. That’s what we are about here you all.
I’ve been sick, I’m recovering. I actually would say I’m probably not necessarily sick anymore. I was sick all last week, took the whole week off, or almost the whole week. I feel good, my energy’s back. I just still have a lingering cough, but it feels so good to be back at work after taking several days off to truly just do not, honestly to the point where I got bored of watching TV. I had the desire to do more but my body was like, “No, we don’t have the energy to do more.”
And I actually am recording this right after having a consult me this morning who will be now a new client. And I am so thrilled, I’m so excited because this is someone who has so much drive and motivation and is doing amazing things but wants to create a life that looks different than what we’ve been told you have to have a life to look like to be in public health.
And I am so, so excited to work with them and help them create the life that they actually want. Where they can feel excited, and joyful, and fulfilled every day and get rid of the fear and be in full trust so that they can truly do what they want with their time and feel good about it. And it’s not requiring them to leave the field or leave the work they want to be doing. It’s just requiring them to really believe in themselves and go for it. I love that. I am so excited for them.
I feel like that’s been part of my journey. I love all my clients. And I don’t know, I just love when I do these consults and work with folks, and see people in public health go from feeling a little bit down. And having the secret dream to through our consult starting to believe it’s possible and that they can do it. And really feeling confident, and empowering themselves, and trusting themselves. I just love watching that emotional growth in that just one initial hour. I love it. It’s so amazing. Nothing better, nothing better.
So, I’m riding a high here. I have a cough, but I also feel really good. So, life is 50/50 you all around here. Today we are going to talk about the power of decisions to create mental and emotional rest. Now, I am not really going to talk about how to make a decision, or indecision, or doubt. I have two episodes on that that we’ll link in the show notes, one on indecision. So why many of us struggle with indecision and get stuck there and then how to get out of that and how to make a decision.
So, you can go check those out later. Today we’re really talking about really understanding the power of decision making to create the rest you want and how to do that, and why it’s so important. And I want you to just think about how many decisions do you make in a day? It’s a lot. Just think about how many decisions you make for yourself in getting ready in the morning for work, what you’re wearing, whether or not you do your hair, or wear make-up, or what you eat, or what time you leave, what time you wake-up, what route you go to work, that alone.
And maybe you have other decisions in the morning, if you have a partner, or kids, or a dog, or another pet. Then think about all the decisions you make in your workday from how to organize the meeting agenda, to what to start working on first, to how to ask someone a specific question, to what you should edit and rewrite on a manuscript. A million different decisions you have to make every single day at work.
And then you get home from work and what decisions do you have to make at night? Maybe it’s, do I exercise? What exercise do I do? Do I hang out with friends? Do I reach out? Who do I reach out? What do I ask to do? Do I make dinner, what do I make for dinner, how do I make it? Do I watch TV? Do I read? What time do I want to go to bed? Every single day you are making so many decisions, let alone decisions you make about future stuff like where do I want to go on vacation and where is my next job? And all of those kind of bigger decisions.
Decision making is such a huge part of our life, and the truth is we don’t really talk about it in the sense of how to become efficient at it and why you even want to, what type of energy it takes to make decisions, why we struggle with it. I find it strange that we don’t really talk about it in that sense because it has such a huge impact on our life, not just the volume, the quantity of decisions that we all make every single day, and the pressure we put on ourselves to make the ‘right’ decision. But the energy it takes to even make a decision.
Just think about the mental energy it takes just to decide something. You have to answer a bunch of questions typically before you even get to the final decision. So, let’s say for example you’re deciding what you’re going to wear for the day, this is very simple. Before you actually make a decision you actually have to answer a bunch of other questions. What’s the weather? What’s on my agenda today? Where am I going? Am I going to be sitting? Am I going to be standing? Am I going to be walking? Who am I going to be around?
Am I going to be inside? Am I going to be outside? Is it going to be a long day? Is it going to be a short day? So many things go into deciding what to wear. It’s not just as simple as deciding what shirt to wear or what pants to wear. There’s so many other things that come before that final decision. Just think about all that mental energy and answering all those sub questions. And that’s the same for nearly every decision we make. That takes a lot of mental energy. That’s requiring our brain to work a lot in addition to the emotional energy it takes.
So, whether the emotional energy is navigating self-doubt, or fear, or shame that comes up when making a decision, and navigating that emotional piece, or navigating the emotional piece of what other people will think, or how it will affect other people, or how it will impact your future. That’s a whole another layer to navigate, that takes so much energy. And you might not be navigating the emotional piece when it’s something like, what do I wear today? But other decisions like if you have kids and you’re trying to decide what to make for dinner.
The emotional energy spent not just in making the decision but after the decision. If you know, well, you know all your kids and your partner’s preferences, and you’re navigating all that and you know, well, if you choose this, then this person will be upset. Or if you choose this, this kid will have a meltdown. And sometimes there’s not a perfect decision or answer that meets everyone’s needs, or desires, or excitement. So emotionally you’re not just navigating how to make that decision ahead of time.
But when you do make it the navigating the emotions of implementing it, and addressing it, and holding space for your emotions and other people’s emotions. And that can be the same at work, making decisions at work about your team, about leaving a meeting, making decisions about family events. Making decisions about your life that other people are either impacted by or maybe they’re not and they just choose to have a lot of emotional reactions, we all have that experience too.
So that is all to say, I hope I have made my case clear, decision making takes so much mental and emotional energy. And it can really drain us, and it can really contribute to our stress and our lack of rest. And we aren’t even really aware of it because it’s something we do have to do. But we don’t talk about how to create rest, how to use decision making to create more rest.
So, I’m going to give you today just two simple examples of how you can start thinking about decision making in a way that helps you create more mental and emotional rest. And then you can go think about how that applies to your life and in what areas.
The first is just reducing the quantity, the number of decisions you have to make every single day. Doing that alone can reduce so much, not just stress, or anything else but just the mental load on your brain and then the emotional load. So, one way you could do this is you could write down all the decisions you make on a daily or weekly basis, reoccurring decisions. And then get curious about, okay, of those decisions, which can I reduce? And by reduce mean just make one decision and stick with it for a while, don’t change it.
It can be take that decision making factor off the table for you, it can mean delegating that to someone else if you have the ability to, whether it’s’ at work or at home. Those are a couple of ways you can do it. So, I’m going to give you an example from my life. So, when I was doing this, one of the areas I realized I have to make a lot of decisions about is what I eat. And I think we all do. And I don’t have kids. So, I don’t have as many layers to the decision making but it’s still a lot.
I have to think about what I’m going to eat, what do I want to eat? What makes sense with my schedule? What time do I have to grocery shop, or to meal prep, or to cook? Looking up recipes, looking up ingredients, figuring out what grocery store sells them, figuring out where the items are in the grocery store. That takes up so much mental and emotional energy. And I love cooking.
And I actually love grocery shopping. But I realized that was taking up so much of not just my time, we’ll set time aside, of course it takes up time. But what I was more interested in and what I am more interested in for this episode is the mental and emotional energy. So, one of the things that I do, and I have been doing for a while to reduce my decision making here is making the same lunch every single month. Now, Marissa, three to five years ago would have never done this, never. I typically am someone who I can do some leftovers but by day two or three I’m done with it.
But when I tell you that doing this has changed so much for me and created much more mental and emotional space I mean it. There is two lunch meals that I now make every month and I meal prep it for a whole week, so basically I have at least two weeks, if not the whole month of lunches already figured out. And I just keep it on rotation. Now if this sounds boring to you, you don’t have to do this, just walk through the example with me and you’ll see why this is helpful.
Because think about a recipe or a meal you’ve cooked a million times. What is that experience like compared to making a recipe for the first time. When you make a recipe for the first time you have to read the recipe a bunch of times. You aren’t familiar with maybe the ingredients or how it’s supposed to taste or the quantities. You have to figure out where to get the ingredients. And then you, even just navigating your kitchen, where to put everything and what order to cook it in, and all of that takes extra energy.
When you’ve cooked something a bunch you don’t have to answer any of those questions. It’s like a habit, it’s like autopilot. It’s like when you drive somewhere so many times then it gets to a point where you don’t have to actively think about where to turn right and where to get off the freeway. You’re still making those decisions, but it’s delegated to autopilot. You still get there but it’s delegated to autopilot, the same thing with this. So, I’ve made these recipes so many times I know exactly what ingredients I need. I don’t have to look anything up.
I don’t have to think twice about it. I know exactly where they are in the grocery store and what grocery store sells them. I know exactly how to cook it and how long it takes me and how I can meal prep it. I know exactly how many meals a week it lasts me. It reduces so much of my decision making, truly. Maybe not as much time, a little bit of time. But the mental and emotional energy I get back makes it worth it. So, what could that be for you, for reducing the number of decisions you have to make?
This is why meal kits are so successful I think. It reduces your decision making. I don’t think it’s as much about the convenience, I think it has way more to do with the mental and emotional rest you get from the reduction in decisions you have to make. So, for you, what could it be? Could it be choosing to not wear jewelry anymore? You don’t have to think about what jewelry to wear, what matches your outfit. You just take jewelry off the table. Sounds small and insignificant but it can make such a big difference.
Maybe it’s doing a rental clothing subscription. Maybe it’s committing to working out at specific days at specific times and not changing it, not allowing your schedule to change, and just sticking to that. Where can you reduce the number of decisions you have to make by either making the same decision, deciding ahead of time, I’m sticking to this decision, or taking the decision completely off your plate by choosing not to make that decision anymore, or delegating to someone else.
I also did this with meals. I know I’m using a similar example here but with my partner when we started living together, I said, “Hey, you know what? I don’t want to be the only one making decisions about the meals.” We would make them together and that was still a lot of mental energy. So, I said, “Let’s just split it up. You make the decisions about what we’re going to eat for dinner half the nights of the week and I make the other half.”
It cut my decision making in half because when we were making those decisions together I was making decisions for every night of the week even it was with my partner. Cutting it in half and he got half, and I got half, reduced so much of my mental and emotional energy. So, at work, could this be delegating decision making in one area to someone else on your team? At home, could it be delegating it to someone else? Where could it be for you?
Okay, so then the other area I want to talk about reducing the mental and emotional energy of decision making is around making decisions that reduce your emotional energy in the future. So, when we’re making a decision, oftentimes we’re thinking about our mental and emotional experience right now or the mental and emotional experience of other people. But I want you to start thinking about, how can I make a decision that in the future will have the least amount of mental and emotional impact on me, or the most helpful mental and emotional impact?
So, here’s an example of what I mean by that. My partner and I wanted to host an engagement party, or dinner I should say. Our families have never met so we wanted to host an event, they live in different areas, for them to meet. As you can imagine that involves a lot of decision making, where are we going to have this. Who’s going to host? What are we going to eat? What time is it going to be at? What are we going to do? So many factors on top of the emotion of navigating our families meeting for the first time and what that brought up for me individually and us collectively.
And so, some of the decisions, once they became made I really sat and said, okay, the weekend of the event, “What is the decision I can make now that will make that day much easier to navigate, emotionally much easier to navigate, mentally much easier to navigate? What decision can I make now that on that day helps me feel better, helps me feel more energized, helps me feel less stressed?” For me what came up were two things.
Number one, choosing not to bring my dog. I knew if I brought my dog I’d be thinking a lot about where does she need to go? Because there was a bunch of other dogs. Are they going to get along? What about all the food? How do we make sure all the dogs get along and how to rotate them? Choosing not to bring her took all of that off the table, all of that thinking off the table. And opened up that space in my brain and emotionally in my body to be present to make other decisions, to enjoy it.
The other decision I made was to hire a caterer. If I had not hired a caterer some of the things I would have had to think about is what are we making, who’s making it, how early do we have to cook, when do we go to the grocery store? And then navigating the emotional experience of just knowing my family, everyone trying to help and then what I would be thinking and how I would be feeling when everyone’s trying to cook and they’re not getting to know each other and they’re not being present.
And neither would I, I’d just be worried about the food, and thinking about it being perfect. So, choosing to hire a caterer took that all off the table. I didn’t have to think about grocery shopping. I didn’t have to think about what time to start cooking. I didn’t have to think about how everyone was cooking and not getting to know each other and worrying about that. And wondering if everyone’s having a good time or feeling like they’re wasting their time because they’re not getting to know each other.
All that mental drama was reduced because I made a decision ahead of time that I knew would help me be present and give me that space. So where is there an area in your life, it doesn’t have to be a big event like a party, it can even be for work or just home decisions. Where making a certain decision now will reduce your mental and emotional drama and stress in the future. I want you to think about that. And listen, these decisions aren’t necessarily easy.
I had to navigate a lot of people had other opinions about hiring a caterer. A lot of people had other opinions about me not bringing my dog and they expressed them. I had to navigate that. My brain still offered me doubt, or questioning. I had to navigate that. That’s where the past episodes of indecision and how to make a decision really come in handy.
So, we’re not talking about navigating that piece, to have those resources. But thinking about making a decision with the intent of that helping you day of, or maybe it's multi day being able to be present and enjoy yourself with reduced stress. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a breeze, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to question, it just means it helps you a little bit more to create more space for yourself, more enjoyment for yourself, more breathing room, more peace and more calm.
So, I want you to think about that. Where can you reduce the number of decisions in your life and where can you start making decisions in the present that reduce your mental and emotional energy in the future? Alright, you all.
Before we go I want to encourage you, if you found this episode helpful or any of the recent episodes. I want you to think of someone you know, maybe it’s a colleague that you’re always co-venting with about work. Maybe it’s a friend that you share similar struggles with decision making. Think about someone in your life who you have connected with because you have similar challenges or similar experiences who could benefit from this episode the way you have, who could benefit from this podcast the way you have, who is that person?
I would love for you to send this podcast and this episode to that person. And just say, “Hey, I’ve been listening to this podcast, it’s been really helpful and insightful. If you’re curious, or if you’re interested take a listen. Here’s what I have learned. Here is how it’s helped me.” Just send it to that one person. You never know, it could really make a difference in their life. Thank you all for tuning in, I’m so happy you are here.
And next week, you want to check out next week, we have a special treat, parenting coach, Ali Ryan will be here talking about getting rest as a parent, dealing with back to school, so many other things. Even if you’re not a parent, I promise you’re going to get something out of the episode, so you do not want to miss it. Alright, see you next week. Bye everyone.
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, what is up? I’m so glad you’re here. How are you doing? I want to give a special shout out to all of our new listeners, to new members in our community, whether you found this podcast through a friend sharing it with you. Or you were searching on Spotify, or Apple or wherever you are getting these podcasts, or help with burnout, or rest, or stress and you found this podcast. Or you heard me on the Public Health Epidemiologist Conversations podcast, or the Done with Dieting podcast or anywhere else.
I’m so glad you’re here. I am so glad that you have decided to invest 20, 30 minutes a week to learning how you can get more mental and emotional rest while doing the amazing work you’re doing in the world. And by getting more mental and emotional rest you’re not only going to be able to do that work without burning yourself out but by creating the life you actually want to live. To live a life authentic to your desires and wants even if it is different than the norm, even if it goes against expectations. That’s what we are about here you all.
I’ve been sick, I’m recovering. I actually would say I’m probably not necessarily sick anymore. I was sick all last week, took the whole week off, or almost the whole week. I feel good, my energy’s back. I just still have a lingering cough, but it feels so good to be back at work after taking several days off to truly just do not, honestly to the point where I got bored of watching TV. I had the desire to do more but my body was like, “No, we don’t have the energy to do more.”
And I actually am recording this right after having a consult me this morning who will be now a new client. And I am so thrilled, I’m so excited because this is someone who has so much drive and motivation and is doing amazing things but wants to create a life that looks different than what we’ve been told you have to have a life to look like to be in public health.
And I am so, so excited to work with them and help them create the life that they actually want. Where they can feel excited, and joyful, and fulfilled every day and get rid of the fear and be in full trust so that they can truly do what they want with their time and feel good about it. And it’s not requiring them to leave the field or leave the work they want to be doing. It’s just requiring them to really believe in themselves and go for it. I love that. I am so excited for them.
I feel like that’s been part of my journey. I love all my clients. And I don’t know, I just love when I do these consults and work with folks, and see people in public health go from feeling a little bit down. And having the secret dream to through our consult starting to believe it’s possible and that they can do it. And really feeling confident, and empowering themselves, and trusting themselves. I just love watching that emotional growth in that just one initial hour. I love it. It’s so amazing. Nothing better, nothing better.
So, I’m riding a high here. I have a cough, but I also feel really good. So, life is 50/50 you all around here. Today we are going to talk about the power of decisions to create mental and emotional rest. Now, I am not really going to talk about how to make a decision, or indecision, or doubt. I have two episodes on that that we’ll link in the show notes, one on indecision. So why many of us struggle with indecision and get stuck there and then how to get out of that and how to make a decision.
So, you can go check those out later. Today we’re really talking about really understanding the power of decision making to create the rest you want and how to do that, and why it’s so important. And I want you to just think about how many decisions do you make in a day? It’s a lot. Just think about how many decisions you make for yourself in getting ready in the morning for work, what you’re wearing, whether or not you do your hair, or wear make-up, or what you eat, or what time you leave, what time you wake-up, what route you go to work, that alone.
And maybe you have other decisions in the morning, if you have a partner, or kids, or a dog, or another pet. Then think about all the decisions you make in your workday from how to organize the meeting agenda, to what to start working on first, to how to ask someone a specific question, to what you should edit and rewrite on a manuscript. A million different decisions you have to make every single day at work.
And then you get home from work and what decisions do you have to make at night? Maybe it’s, do I exercise? What exercise do I do? Do I hang out with friends? Do I reach out? Who do I reach out? What do I ask to do? Do I make dinner, what do I make for dinner, how do I make it? Do I watch TV? Do I read? What time do I want to go to bed? Every single day you are making so many decisions, let alone decisions you make about future stuff like where do I want to go on vacation and where is my next job? And all of those kind of bigger decisions.
Decision making is such a huge part of our life, and the truth is we don’t really talk about it in the sense of how to become efficient at it and why you even want to, what type of energy it takes to make decisions, why we struggle with it. I find it strange that we don’t really talk about it in that sense because it has such a huge impact on our life, not just the volume, the quantity of decisions that we all make every single day, and the pressure we put on ourselves to make the ‘right’ decision. But the energy it takes to even make a decision.
Just think about the mental energy it takes just to decide something. You have to answer a bunch of questions typically before you even get to the final decision. So, let’s say for example you’re deciding what you’re going to wear for the day, this is very simple. Before you actually make a decision you actually have to answer a bunch of other questions. What’s the weather? What’s on my agenda today? Where am I going? Am I going to be sitting? Am I going to be standing? Am I going to be walking? Who am I going to be around?
Am I going to be inside? Am I going to be outside? Is it going to be a long day? Is it going to be a short day? So many things go into deciding what to wear. It’s not just as simple as deciding what shirt to wear or what pants to wear. There’s so many other things that come before that final decision. Just think about all that mental energy and answering all those sub questions. And that’s the same for nearly every decision we make. That takes a lot of mental energy. That’s requiring our brain to work a lot in addition to the emotional energy it takes.
So, whether the emotional energy is navigating self-doubt, or fear, or shame that comes up when making a decision, and navigating that emotional piece, or navigating the emotional piece of what other people will think, or how it will affect other people, or how it will impact your future. That’s a whole another layer to navigate, that takes so much energy. And you might not be navigating the emotional piece when it’s something like, what do I wear today? But other decisions like if you have kids and you’re trying to decide what to make for dinner.
The emotional energy spent not just in making the decision but after the decision. If you know, well, you know all your kids and your partner’s preferences, and you’re navigating all that and you know, well, if you choose this, then this person will be upset. Or if you choose this, this kid will have a meltdown. And sometimes there’s not a perfect decision or answer that meets everyone’s needs, or desires, or excitement. So emotionally you’re not just navigating how to make that decision ahead of time.
But when you do make it the navigating the emotions of implementing it, and addressing it, and holding space for your emotions and other people’s emotions. And that can be the same at work, making decisions at work about your team, about leaving a meeting, making decisions about family events. Making decisions about your life that other people are either impacted by or maybe they’re not and they just choose to have a lot of emotional reactions, we all have that experience too.
So that is all to say, I hope I have made my case clear, decision making takes so much mental and emotional energy. And it can really drain us, and it can really contribute to our stress and our lack of rest. And we aren’t even really aware of it because it’s something we do have to do. But we don’t talk about how to create rest, how to use decision making to create more rest.
So, I’m going to give you today just two simple examples of how you can start thinking about decision making in a way that helps you create more mental and emotional rest. And then you can go think about how that applies to your life and in what areas.
The first is just reducing the quantity, the number of decisions you have to make every single day. Doing that alone can reduce so much, not just stress, or anything else but just the mental load on your brain and then the emotional load. So, one way you could do this is you could write down all the decisions you make on a daily or weekly basis, reoccurring decisions. And then get curious about, okay, of those decisions, which can I reduce? And by reduce mean just make one decision and stick with it for a while, don’t change it.
It can be take that decision making factor off the table for you, it can mean delegating that to someone else if you have the ability to, whether it’s’ at work or at home. Those are a couple of ways you can do it. So, I’m going to give you an example from my life. So, when I was doing this, one of the areas I realized I have to make a lot of decisions about is what I eat. And I think we all do. And I don’t have kids. So, I don’t have as many layers to the decision making but it’s still a lot.
I have to think about what I’m going to eat, what do I want to eat? What makes sense with my schedule? What time do I have to grocery shop, or to meal prep, or to cook? Looking up recipes, looking up ingredients, figuring out what grocery store sells them, figuring out where the items are in the grocery store. That takes up so much mental and emotional energy. And I love cooking.
And I actually love grocery shopping. But I realized that was taking up so much of not just my time, we’ll set time aside, of course it takes up time. But what I was more interested in and what I am more interested in for this episode is the mental and emotional energy. So, one of the things that I do, and I have been doing for a while to reduce my decision making here is making the same lunch every single month. Now, Marissa, three to five years ago would have never done this, never. I typically am someone who I can do some leftovers but by day two or three I’m done with it.
But when I tell you that doing this has changed so much for me and created much more mental and emotional space I mean it. There is two lunch meals that I now make every month and I meal prep it for a whole week, so basically I have at least two weeks, if not the whole month of lunches already figured out. And I just keep it on rotation. Now if this sounds boring to you, you don’t have to do this, just walk through the example with me and you’ll see why this is helpful.
Because think about a recipe or a meal you’ve cooked a million times. What is that experience like compared to making a recipe for the first time. When you make a recipe for the first time you have to read the recipe a bunch of times. You aren’t familiar with maybe the ingredients or how it’s supposed to taste or the quantities. You have to figure out where to get the ingredients. And then you, even just navigating your kitchen, where to put everything and what order to cook it in, and all of that takes extra energy.
When you’ve cooked something a bunch you don’t have to answer any of those questions. It’s like a habit, it’s like autopilot. It’s like when you drive somewhere so many times then it gets to a point where you don’t have to actively think about where to turn right and where to get off the freeway. You’re still making those decisions, but it’s delegated to autopilot. You still get there but it’s delegated to autopilot, the same thing with this. So, I’ve made these recipes so many times I know exactly what ingredients I need. I don’t have to look anything up.
I don’t have to think twice about it. I know exactly where they are in the grocery store and what grocery store sells them. I know exactly how to cook it and how long it takes me and how I can meal prep it. I know exactly how many meals a week it lasts me. It reduces so much of my decision making, truly. Maybe not as much time, a little bit of time. But the mental and emotional energy I get back makes it worth it. So, what could that be for you, for reducing the number of decisions you have to make?
This is why meal kits are so successful I think. It reduces your decision making. I don’t think it’s as much about the convenience, I think it has way more to do with the mental and emotional rest you get from the reduction in decisions you have to make. So, for you, what could it be? Could it be choosing to not wear jewelry anymore? You don’t have to think about what jewelry to wear, what matches your outfit. You just take jewelry off the table. Sounds small and insignificant but it can make such a big difference.
Maybe it’s doing a rental clothing subscription. Maybe it’s committing to working out at specific days at specific times and not changing it, not allowing your schedule to change, and just sticking to that. Where can you reduce the number of decisions you have to make by either making the same decision, deciding ahead of time, I’m sticking to this decision, or taking the decision completely off your plate by choosing not to make that decision anymore, or delegating to someone else.
I also did this with meals. I know I’m using a similar example here but with my partner when we started living together, I said, “Hey, you know what? I don’t want to be the only one making decisions about the meals.” We would make them together and that was still a lot of mental energy. So, I said, “Let’s just split it up. You make the decisions about what we’re going to eat for dinner half the nights of the week and I make the other half.”
It cut my decision making in half because when we were making those decisions together I was making decisions for every night of the week even it was with my partner. Cutting it in half and he got half, and I got half, reduced so much of my mental and emotional energy. So, at work, could this be delegating decision making in one area to someone else on your team? At home, could it be delegating it to someone else? Where could it be for you?
Okay, so then the other area I want to talk about reducing the mental and emotional energy of decision making is around making decisions that reduce your emotional energy in the future. So, when we’re making a decision, oftentimes we’re thinking about our mental and emotional experience right now or the mental and emotional experience of other people. But I want you to start thinking about, how can I make a decision that in the future will have the least amount of mental and emotional impact on me, or the most helpful mental and emotional impact?
So, here’s an example of what I mean by that. My partner and I wanted to host an engagement party, or dinner I should say. Our families have never met so we wanted to host an event, they live in different areas, for them to meet. As you can imagine that involves a lot of decision making, where are we going to have this. Who’s going to host? What are we going to eat? What time is it going to be at? What are we going to do? So many factors on top of the emotion of navigating our families meeting for the first time and what that brought up for me individually and us collectively.
And so, some of the decisions, once they became made I really sat and said, okay, the weekend of the event, “What is the decision I can make now that will make that day much easier to navigate, emotionally much easier to navigate, mentally much easier to navigate? What decision can I make now that on that day helps me feel better, helps me feel more energized, helps me feel less stressed?” For me what came up were two things.
Number one, choosing not to bring my dog. I knew if I brought my dog I’d be thinking a lot about where does she need to go? Because there was a bunch of other dogs. Are they going to get along? What about all the food? How do we make sure all the dogs get along and how to rotate them? Choosing not to bring her took all of that off the table, all of that thinking off the table. And opened up that space in my brain and emotionally in my body to be present to make other decisions, to enjoy it.
The other decision I made was to hire a caterer. If I had not hired a caterer some of the things I would have had to think about is what are we making, who’s making it, how early do we have to cook, when do we go to the grocery store? And then navigating the emotional experience of just knowing my family, everyone trying to help and then what I would be thinking and how I would be feeling when everyone’s trying to cook and they’re not getting to know each other and they’re not being present.
And neither would I, I’d just be worried about the food, and thinking about it being perfect. So, choosing to hire a caterer took that all off the table. I didn’t have to think about grocery shopping. I didn’t have to think about what time to start cooking. I didn’t have to think about how everyone was cooking and not getting to know each other and worrying about that. And wondering if everyone’s having a good time or feeling like they’re wasting their time because they’re not getting to know each other.
All that mental drama was reduced because I made a decision ahead of time that I knew would help me be present and give me that space. So where is there an area in your life, it doesn’t have to be a big event like a party, it can even be for work or just home decisions. Where making a certain decision now will reduce your mental and emotional drama and stress in the future. I want you to think about that. And listen, these decisions aren’t necessarily easy.
I had to navigate a lot of people had other opinions about hiring a caterer. A lot of people had other opinions about me not bringing my dog and they expressed them. I had to navigate that. My brain still offered me doubt, or questioning. I had to navigate that. That’s where the past episodes of indecision and how to make a decision really come in handy.
So, we’re not talking about navigating that piece, to have those resources. But thinking about making a decision with the intent of that helping you day of, or maybe it's multi day being able to be present and enjoy yourself with reduced stress. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a breeze, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to question, it just means it helps you a little bit more to create more space for yourself, more enjoyment for yourself, more breathing room, more peace and more calm.
So, I want you to think about that. Where can you reduce the number of decisions in your life and where can you start making decisions in the present that reduce your mental and emotional energy in the future? Alright, you all.
Before we go I want to encourage you, if you found this episode helpful or any of the recent episodes. I want you to think of someone you know, maybe it’s a colleague that you’re always co-venting with about work. Maybe it’s a friend that you share similar struggles with decision making. Think about someone in your life who you have connected with because you have similar challenges or similar experiences who could benefit from this episode the way you have, who could benefit from this podcast the way you have, who is that person?
I would love for you to send this podcast and this episode to that person. And just say, “Hey, I’ve been listening to this podcast, it’s been really helpful and insightful. If you’re curious, or if you’re interested take a listen. Here’s what I have learned. Here is how it’s helped me.” Just send it to that one person. You never know, it could really make a difference in their life. Thank you all for tuning in, I’m so happy you are here.
And next week, you want to check out next week, we have a special treat, parenting coach, Ali Ryan will be here talking about getting rest as a parent, dealing with back to school, so many other things. Even if you’re not a parent, I promise you’re going to get something out of the episode, so you do not want to miss it. Alright, see you next week. Bye everyone.
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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