I remember being 29 and sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot talking on the phone to my best friend, trying to make a decision about whether to stay at my job or let them know I was going to end my contract. In the job I had, we had to decide every February what we would be doing in May, and boy that was a hard decision. I didn’t like making decisions! I didn’t think I was good at them.
I remember lamenting and saying, “Don’t you think when we are married and have husbands it will be so much easier to make decisions. Just another reason I need a husband. It will just make life easier.”
It is so funny because now as a married woman I think about this so differently. Now sometimes I have to make more decisions and think about his opinions too! I think at times it is harder to decide with him! Because get this, he wants to choose things that I don’t want or don’t agree with. When deciding about dinner when I was single, it was just me I was taking into account. Now I have his opinions, and my kids have opinions too. AGH!!
Decisions are hard no matter if you are single, or married. But they don’t have to be.
Here are a few things I know now about decisions that I wish I knew then.
1. Decisions are just you using your brain, weighing out your options and then committing to that thought. Why this may be hard for you is because when we grow up we tend to not make a lot of decisions on our own. Our parents make a lot of our early life decisions. We are taught what to believe or think. We don’t question what we are taught and take on the decisions of our parents, or society. We also may not be good at weighing out options or looking at our true desires. We might do a lot of thinking about how we should or shouldn’t act, based on others, and we don’t decide consciously what we do and don’t want. We see in the Bible in 1 Chronicles 21:10 “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’ ” God allows and wants us to make choices, He even gave David a choice on his punishment. He let David decide what he wanted and David had to weigh his options and figure out his true desires and then choose. Then God gave him his choice. So use the brain God gave you, learn to weigh your options and commit to the best choice for you at the time.
2. Everything is optional. We don’t have to do anything. Often I work with clients and they will say, “I have to do this job, I don’t have any other options.” They feel stuck. They are giving all of their power to a belief that they have to do that thing. Often times my clients don’t realize that they have complete free will. Sometimes even after evaluating they actually do want the job, but they have to know that they don’t have to have it. They have options. You can change anything you want in your life. You can change your relationships, job, education, body and future. You don’t have to continue the decisions you made in the past. Even if that is because of a degree you got. And you don’t have to follow anyone else’s idea of how you “should” live, even if that is your parents or your community. Everything is your choice. This is your life. Romans 14:3 says,”One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.” God lets us decide and have different thoughts than others and he accepts both of us.
3. At anytime I can decide to change things. I am not stuck in the life I have. I can decide if I want to keep choosing my current life or if I want something different. Putting everything back on the table and choosing what I do and don’t want from a place of understanding I get to choose this, is powerful. Re-commit to the choice. This includes your job, your living situation, your weight, your clothes, your car, your friendships, your church, your budget and finances, even your dating life. Re-decide if you actually want what you currently have. Often taking the time to do this helps you actually see where you are. Would I choose this again today? You are deciding this automatically whether you know it or not. But by making the decision consciously you are choosing to have it again and again. I am sure you will find things that are desirable and you want to keep, and some that aren’t desirable and you may want to change them on purpose.
4. There isn’t a right or wrong decision. We decide what is right or wrong with our thinking. I often use the Bible to help me decide what is right or wrong for me but again it is my thinking that is ultimately making that choice. So when a decision is on the table you weigh your options knowing there is a 50positive/50negative to every decision. Then you just decide which 50/50 you want and make that decision the best choice. And here is the key, have your back on that decision. Often people will ask is this guy the right one? I remember thinking that over and over. “God please just tell me is he for me, and am I making the right decision here?” The reality is God allows us to choose. He wants us to decide and go all in on that. I encourage you to pray, have others pray, and fast but remember God wants you to choose. I make my decisions right by not regretting and not trying to look for evidence that this was the wrong decision. There is so much time wasted doing that. And you can change your mind in the future, that is not off the table. I know I have made decisions about people or circumstances and gone all in on that belief to then encounter them or circumstances differently and totally change my decisions about them. That is available to you at anytime, and nothing has gone wrong if you change your mind. It is a part of the process of learning about you and what you do and don’t want. Have grace with yourself.
5. Make more decisions on purpose. The more you decide, the better you get at deciding. You are making unconscious, and automatic decisions all the time. These are decisions that you make over and over without much thought. Some of them are great and creating a life you really want. The choice to brush your teeth each and every day is an automatic decision that you don’t have to re-decide over and over. It has a wanted result. But there are decisions that you may not want. It could be about work, what you eat, self care, how you talk, how you plan and how you are showing up in your life that does have a huge impact on the results you are creating. Do you like those results that are happening from decisions without conscious deliberate choice? The best way to know is to decide on purpose. Take each one of those things and look at the result you have and how you got there. So if I you are 10 pounds overweight think about the unconscious decisions you are making. For me it was the habitual and almost unconscious dessert eating every night at 8:30 pm that was going unchecked and creating a result of my pants not fitting. Did I want that result? No. So I had to decide what I was going to do. I was going to drop the post dinner eating all together. I made a decision. Do that too. Decide more, you could start creating a life you really want.
You are deciding in each moment where your life is headed. Start deciding more.
You want a husband, what would you have to start doing on purpose?
You want a different job, what would you have to start doing on purpose?
You want a different living situation, what would you have to start doing on purpose?
All of these are just decisions.
Who do you want to be? What do you want your life to look like? Where are you headed?
Decide it all. Stop living by default. There is no power there.
Ask God for wisdom and direction and then choose. He will lead you and guide you but you have to be the one to decide and go.
Take action. Try things. Change your mind. Have your own back.
Decisions don’t get easier when you get married. They can get easier now by you practicing how to make decisions.
What will you decide?
I can’t wait to see.
Angie
