Our days are full of decisions from the time we wake up until we fall asleep. And the amount and type of decisions can be overwhelming to the point of procrastination. This can open the door to increased stress. But it doesn’t have to. We can definitely adjust a few aspects of our lives so that we have less stress knocking on the door to our life.
Some top leaders in their fields have reduced the number of trivial decisions to have more energy for more important and bigger decision making. Who are these leaders? Steve Jobs (Apple), Barak Obama (Former US President), Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook founder), Christopher Nolan (Film Director), just to name a few. One of the decisions they stopped making, to save time and brain energy, was to wear similar or same-colored outfits every day. I’m not suggesting you do the same. It’s an example of the types of things we could spend less time thinking about. That moves us into the area of planning.
PLANNING BETTER
If deciding what to wear each morning does cause you stress and anxiety, then you can certainly follow suit (no pun intended) with the exceptional leaders previously mentioned and coordinate your wardrobe with color(s) and items that will always work together. Then you can grab anything to wear, and it will match. Or you could plan what to wear the night before and lay everything out. So in the morning, that decision is already made.
Here are a few other things that you can plan ahead of time to help eliminate extra time and decision making:
Meals
Appointments
Grocery Shopping Delivery or Pick Up
Prescriptions changed to 3-month delivery instead of 30 day pick up or set up for Mail to your Home Delivery
Bill Auto-Pay
You can also use a weekly and/or monthly planner to know what you need to do and when. So the decision is already made ahead of time. And it eliminates those things from nagging your sub-conscious with “I’ve got to….” or “I really need to decide on …”.
LESS TO DECIDE
When you go to the cereal aisle in any major supermarket there are approximately 40+ different types of cereals to choose from, not counting the different sizes they offer. And maybe 30+ different toothpastes. But you only want or need one, maybe two for someone else in your household. Having that many choices to make a decision is a little crazy. Less choices make life simpler and stressless.
So, whittle it down to 2-3 choices that appeal to you. For example, maybe you want to eat more protein, so pick between the 2 items with high protein that appeal to your tastes. It’s really not a do or die decision. If you don’t like it, next time go with the other one. Or see if they will let you return it and refund it.
There’s no secret way to getting exactly what you want on the first go. More than likely, it will be trial and error. And the reason for that is discussed at the end of this article.
OUTSIDE INFLUENCES
There are other things that can make decision making more stressful than normal. Take a look at this list and you will readily agree that these definitely make decision making more of a challenge:
Lack of proper sleep
Poor health (flu, medical conditions, diseases)
Financial concerns
Strife
Bad news
Some of these you can work on, like lack of good sleep and improving on a healthy lifestyle. Yet, some of these are part of the human experience and are mostly out of our control. But, the stress that these create can be managed. Our perspective can be modified. This will help make deciding easier to deal with and doesn’t take us to a stressed-out place.
SUMMARY
We can create less stress with our decisions by 1) reducing the number of trivial decisions, 2) having less items to decide on, 3) good planning, and 4) recognizing the outside influences that could be affecting us.
The truth is that there really is no perfect decision. Because no one is perfect. Therefore, no product or service is perfect. And that’s okay. Why? Because it’s reality. And at times, our decisions work out so well that it feels like perfection. That’s a wonderful feeling, full of positivity.
So, let’s make the best choice we can at the time, with what we have. And then own it. Something good came out of that decision you made. Focus on that instead of all the what ifs and should haves. You may even have gained something by making the decision you did. Even if that gain was experience on what not to do next time. Since life is full of decisions that need to be made, that prior experience will eventually come in handy. It also means you kept the door closed to the stress that was knocking and ended up having a good day. Celebrate that moment.
See the other articles on this site to learn techniques that help you to manage your stress.
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