Decisions, decisions. They’re everywhere. They can loom like a dark cloud on the horizon for days, or strike like lightning out of a clear blue sky. Decisions test your memory of the past and how clearly you’ve defined your direction for the future. They can be simple or tough, trivial (Where should I eat dinner? Heads or tails?) or critical (The building is burning down, do I go left or right? Where should I go to college?). Decisions shape your path and determine your destination. And while sometimes you can field them like a ping-pong master, there are other times when you flee from them as you would a pack of velociraptors. But it isn’t the decision you’re fleeing, it’s the raptors. They are trying to stop you from making the right decision; they want to eat you instead. Why? Because the raptors represent
DOUBT
Doubt has terrible connotations, most of which you know and don’t need to be repeated here. At best, doubt is viewed as a weakness. To the judgmental observer, doubting yourself or your situation means you are indecisive, uninformed, underprepared, and your future is likely to suffer as a consequence. To you, in your own mind, doubt is all of these things magnified many times over. It invites its friends guilt, anxiety, and paranoia to come on over and play a heavy metal depressionfest in your soul. You can’t hear yourself think, and at this point you’d really rather not even try—maybe the whole thing will just go away.
There are two general situations in your life in which doubt really has the power to cut your figurative knees out from under you. These are:
1) DECISION TIME: There is a clear choice to be made. You have options, you have information coming out of your ears, and more than likely the stakes are high. It’s make or break time, but no matter how much info you gather or how many people you talk to, you seem even farther from making a decision than when you started. The moment of truth is TOMORROW? Are you kidding me? How are you going to choose?!
2) IT’S NOT WORKING: Let’s not get into the sordid details of why it’s not working, or what awful decisions you might have made in the past or what rotten luck you have. The fact is, where you’re at now isn’t right, and the worst thing is you really don’t know why. You try to be reasonable, but doubt drags at you like a lead ball and makes you question why you even bothered trying in the first place. You’ve got to decide what to do now, but if the past is any indication, you’re doomed either way. So, what do you do now?
Doubtless, there are other times when doubt is a real kicker. But in numbers 1 and 2, we often find doubt to be utterly paralyzing and almost impossible to shake. What are you supposed to do with that?
THE TAKE-AWAY
So now that I’ve told you how awful yet inevitable doubt is in your life, I have a surprise twist for you:
Not only is doubt NOT as terrible as people want you to think, it is both BENEFICIAL and NECESSARY to a full experience of life.
Here’s the deal. Everything I scared the crap out of you with above (which you can all relate to, let’s be honest) isn’t really about doubt or decisions at all. It’s caught up in other things like fear, guilt, and anxiety, which are more complicated and (maybe, if you’re lucky) will be explored later. You react to doubt because you see it as a threat, and you see it as such because having to make important decisions undermines your sense of security. But there is a way of looking at doubt that is, if not less scary, at least less emotionally and negatively charged.
Doubt, skepticism, worry, anxiety: they all spin off of having to make a choice. But the same way you break out the legal pad and weigh the pros and cons of what TV to buy for your living room, your mind is simply weighing the pros and cons of any situation in life where you have to make a choice. It’s just that instead of size, screen type, 3D, brand, and picture quality, you’re throwing in things like past experience, emotional baggage, anxiety about the stakes of the future, worry over how your choice is perceived, and embarrassment over doubting yourself in the first place. These are the technical specs of your life that you’re weighing, but the problem is you are a biased judge, and every little detail produces an emotional response.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: STOP! Listen to what you’re actually doing, because I have no doubt you aren’t actually paying attention. You’re taking the elements of an isolated decision, even if it’s a very important and complicated one, and you’re bringing in all of the emotional issues that come with every single aspect of what affects and is affected by said decision. The fact is, those very tough worrisome decisions are just like any other: you have options, you have information, and you have the good sense to pick the best alternative. That’s all you need!
Now there are two easy steps: 1) Take what you’ve got in the time you’ve got and make your best choice, and 2) DON’T WORRY, either during or after the decision making process, about whether you’re right. You’re going to do your best, and then one of three things will happen: 1) You will choose wrongly, it will become apparent why, and you’ll learn from it and move on, 2) Circumstances beyond your control will make your choice better or worse than you expected and there’s nothing you can or could ever do about it, or 3) You’ll be happy with your choice and never even think about it again.
And the fun thing is, do you know what’s going to ensure that you’re going to make your best choice? DOUBT! Doubt focuses you, makes you scrutinize every detail until you’re as comfortable as you’re going to be with the choice you make. How would you have ANY hope of making the right choice if you didn’t have doubt to make you weigh your options? Don’t worry about doubt, WIELD it! It is your internal scale, giving you the chance to make an informed decision and not simply choose blindly. Doubt is your greatest asset in a decision, without a doubt, because it tells you there’s a choice to be made and gives you the best chance to make the right one.
Does that sound scary? Of course not. Why? Because you know you’re going to do your best given the circumstances, and no matter what happens you have the chance to come out on top. Always the way you expect, want, or plan for? Absolutely not. But do you really think that if you keep deciding to make decisions, building up experience from past successes and failures, you are still going to end up a failure?
I tend to doubt it.
WHAT’S IT TO YOU?
Think of a decision you made or are trying to make, particularly a very stressful one. What causes you to doubt your decision? More importantly, why is this so stressful?
Try listing the pros and cons and see what about the ELEMENTS of the decision are creating the anxiety. Then you can put them in their place with the proper perspective. It’s your life and you KNOW this stuff. Use your experience and make the best choice. Chances are, the worst that can happen is that you learn a lesson that will help you choose better in the future!
wittytruth 