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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Mom-entum Podcast, the show dedicated to inspiring, uplifting and empowering women on their journey through motherhood.  I’m your host, Tanya Valentine, and I’m so excited to welcome you to today’s show.

 

Today I’m gonna just jump right in and talk about decisions.  What kind of decision maker are you?  Are you the kind of person that takes a really long time to make one?  Are you the kind of person that likes to do the research.  Do you like to read all of the reviews before purchasing the right brand of baby diapers?  Or are you the kind of person that likes to have decisions made for you because it’s just so overwhelming to you?  Like you go out to dinner and you have someone else order for you, or you just go I’ll have what she’s having?  Or are you on the opposite end of the spectrum?  Are you an impulsive decision maker?  Do you make decisions without giving hardly any thought at all, allowing your emotions to take over?  Regardless of which of these categories you believe you fit into, I’m here to tell you there’s not necessarily a “right’ or “wrong” way of making decisions.  But it’s important to become good at making decisions because decisions fuel us.  Decisions move us forward.  And indecision keeps us stuck.  Our life is just a compilation of all of the decisions we make if you think about it.

 

Whether or not to go to College.  Whether or not to graduate. Our career.  What job we chose..  Our friends. Our spouse.  The decision whether or not to get married.  And then if you decide to get married are you going to have a big wedding or a small one, something in between or no wedding at all, maybe you just go to the courthouse.  The decision of being loyal to your partner, or maybe you made a decision along the way to cheat.  The decision of whether or not to have children.

 

Think of all the decisions you made today alone.  From the moment you wake up you are making decisions.  You decide what time you will get up.  Did you get up at the first sound of the alarm or did you hit the snooze button 5 times?  You made the decision whether or not to exercise, to pray, to meditate, to have some time for yourself before the kids wake up.  You made the decision of what to eat? What to feed the kids. Have you showered yet? Got dressed?  Put on make up? You made the decision to listen to this podcast, I thank you. And these are all decisions.

 

Your weight today, how you feel today, is a result of decisions you have made up until this point.  All of the decisions you made with regards to the quality and quantity of food that you eat.  Whether or not you exercise, and do you have a regular, consistent exercise routine?  These decisions resulted in your weight and how you feel today.

 

I say this all just to demonstrate the power of decisions and to emphasize the importance of improving your decision making skills.

 

So why do I want to sell you on becoming a better decision maker?  Well if your life is made up of a series of decisions, then improving your decision making would mean improving your life, am I right?  Not to mention, if you are the type of person who gets overwhelmed or who complains that they don’t have enough time, then you have got to get better at making decisions. Because doing so is going to save you time.

 

Think about how you feel when you are stuck in this feeling of indecision.  You know that there is a decision to make but you avoid it, you procrastinate because of the fear that you are going to make the wrong choice.  Do you ever notice how this feels in your body?  For me it feels like this stuck energy, I feel weighed down,  and I get a little agitated by it.  But notice how you feel when you finally make the decision.  It’s like a release, like a weight is lifted off your shoulders.  And your whole mood shifts. 

 

Suddenly you have more clarity and focus because it takes energy to have this decision lingering in the back of your brain.   think of it like a tab open on your computer that is demanding your attention: don’t forget about this. Or no, no, have you ever seen that episode of Family Guy where Stewie repeatedly says “mama, mom, mama,mommy, mom” or if you haven’t seen this but you are a mom then you know what this feels like.  But I want you to think of these decisions you are postponing as that annoying “mom, mama, mom, mom” or if your kids are anything like mine its like mom watch this mom watch this, and their essentially showing you the same thing over and over again.  So all of this to say that the decisions you are delaying they are costing you time, they are costing you energy, and they are annoying and frustrating right?

 

I can tell you that I have improved my decision making skills dramatically since getting into coaching.  I used to be the person who struggled to make a decision.  It would take me a very long time to make one and I often outsourced decision making.  Calling up friends and family members to seek their advice before ultimately making a decision Today though, through tools and skills I’ve acquired through my Life Coach training as well as through all of the ongoing education I have done, I can sit here today and testify all the positive things that have come to be and how my life has improved as a result of being a better decision maker.  I am a better planner, I wake up every day either at 4am or no later then 5 am i get up i work out i stretch i meditate i shower all before the kids get up. And i do not waiver. I do not waiver. Even on the days i am sick, i will still get up and move my body, i will do something less intense like a pilates, barre, or yoga class, but i am still up by 5 am moving my body.  I have started this business, I have created this podcast.  I received coaching, I’ve completed trainings, enrolled in courses, all while managing a household and 3 kids ages 5 and under ( well now 6 and under because Lucia just turned 6 November 30th, Happy Birthday Lucia). And I don’t drink anymore I haven’t drank alcohol (wine used to be my drink of choice) in over 2 years. And this is one of the decisions that I’m most proud of my decision not to drink. And it’s funny because on one hand it’s a decision that I continue to make however by becoming someone who doesn’t drink, that decision alone has eliminated so many other decisions I would be faced with if I was still drinking. If I did drink I’d have to decide when I will allow myself to drink and how much I will drink and what I will drinks, and then all the poor decisions that are a direct result from drinking alcohol, I don’t have to worry about that. Now as much as I loved to drink, and listen your girl loved a good glass of Pinot Grigio. But I love even more the freedom of not drinking.

 

And I am proud of myself, I am so proud of my accomplishments, and you know what this is hard for me to say because I am so down on myself a lot of the time.  And trust me I have plenty of room to grow.  There is so much more that I want to be doing.  But I want to show you all that is possible when you can work on improving your decision making.  And today I am going to go over 5 quick strategies you can implement to become a better decision maker.

 

1.Routine: I want you to make as much as you can a routine.  When you make things routine you are delegating that decision making to your lower brain.

I want you to think of your energy on any given day as being like the battery on your phone. And when I say energy I mean both physical and mental energy.  I want you to imagine that every morning you start your days with a fully charged battery.  But every decision that you have to make, every time you have to use your will power, this drains some of your battery.  And some decisions or tasks require more energy than others right? Its like your phone, it’s gonna drain your battery more to stream a movie than it will to open an email.  So by making things routine, you have made your decisions ahead of time which then reduces the amount of energy you need to expend on making all of those decisions.  I’ll tell you what I mean.  So I have a morning routine right?  That means i get up and I just decide to do my routine.  I have already decided ahead of time what that means.  What my morning routine consists of.  Alternatively, if I didn’t have that routine, then I would have to decide each day how am i going to spend my mornings.  Should I work out? Or should i save it for later?  I should probably just sleep in because you know the kids have been sick and I don’t want to get sick either so I’ll just hit the snooze button I need the rest so I dont get sick. And then its like the day goes on and things happen and I never get to work out, and then I’m irritated because I didn’t work out and because I didn’t get that quiet time to myself at the start of the day.  So that’s the beauty of building in routines, they’re an absolute game-changer! 

 

But hey, if you’re feeling overwhelmed figuring out where to start or how to tailor routines to fit your life, I’ve got your back. Seriously, there are countless areas where routines can work wonders. And if you’re seeking personalized guidance, guess what? I’m still offering those free 30-minute coaching sessions. Just swing by TanyaValentineCoaching.com, hit ‘work with me,’ and schedule a call. Tell me what you’re looking to improve, especially if it’s incorporating routines into your day. I’d love to help you kickstart this journey!

 

2. Now, onto the next power move: building that willpower muscle. .  That’s right willpower is a thing and like a muscle we can make it stronger.  Your willpower directly affects your decision making.  You need willpower to prevent you from eating a cookie when you are trying to stick to a diet.  You need willpower not to have that 3rd glass of wine.  You need willpower not to yell at your kids when they won’t listen.  So how do you do this?  By practicing doing the things that you don’t want to do because you want the long term gain that comes from the short term sacrifice.  So strengthening your willpower muscle is as simple as strengthening the muscles in your body.  It must be worked.  You must practice using it.  And the best way I know how to do it is by the power of planning and then following through on your plans.  Your willpower lives in the prefrontal cortex.  So doing things that strengthen your prefrontal cortex, like planning and making decisions ahead of time, and then following through on the decisions youmade, will then strengthen your willpower.

 

3.The 3rd thing I want to talk about that will help you make better decisions is prepping the night before.  This helps not just save you time, but it helps eliminate some of the decision making to be done in the morning which would then drain your energy battery, taking away from your decision making ability.  So you could do things like plan out your day the night before, writing out your to do list for the next day.  You could make lunches and even prepare breakfast the night before.  Pick out outfits the night before.  Fill water bottles and put them in the fridge the night before.  You get the gist.  Brainstorm for yourself what is 1 thing you can start doing tonight to help prepare you for a better, more stress free day tomorrow. So that you will be better equipped to make better decisions. When your battery is full, you make better decisions and that brings me into our next tip and that is…

 

4.make your most important decisions first thing in the morning. When you are the least mentally taxed.  Some decisions require more mental effort than others.  The choice what to eat for breakfast for example requires less mental effort than the decision of which school to enroll your child in.  You have a full battery at the start of your day so take advantage of this first thing in the morning before the day has progressed and you have made so many decisions, and used so much of your mental and physical energy on various things that you’ve got hardly anything left in you, making you less clear, less focused, setting you up to either postpone the decision for later or make a decision from an exhausted, less powerful place. We don’t make the best decisions from this place, right?

 

5. The last piece of advice I have today for improving your decision making is learning how to trust your internal guidance system.  This is trusting your inner wisdom.  The best way to do this I suggest is by getting quiet.  By carving out some quiet time for yourself either before the kids wake up or after they go to bed, or if God bless you your kids still nap you can do it during naptime.  In that quiet time you journal.  You meditate.  You pray.  You ask for help with what you need.  You voice your struggle, the decision that you want to make and you ask for some guidance and you get to writing in your journal and you see what comes up.  And I believe that deep down you know what to do.  I love what my mentor Brooke Castillo says “ there are no wrong decisions”.  There’s just the decision you make.  And if that decision you make wasn’t the best then so what you learn from it and move on.  It at least moved you forward faster than remaining stuck in the state of indecision.

Another great way to access your inner wisdom is by getting coaching. I can’t tell you how many times I came to a coaching call with a decision to make and through the process of talking through it, and my coach guiding me, asking me the questions I wouldn’t think to ask myself, I was able to come up with the decision . And it was me, the coach was not telling me what decision to make, no that’s not what coaches do. But instead, she woukd ask me questions that guided me, questions that alllwed me to overcome the bs, gain some clarity to be able to come to a decision that I could feel confident about.

 

Alright, lovely mom tribe, it’s been an amazing episode diving deep into the world of decisions together! Remember, we’re all decision makers in our unique ways, and there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ method. Decisions shape our lives, from the small morning choices to the life-altering ones.

 

Now, let’s apply what we’ve discussed! Try those five strategies to level up your decision-making game. Embrace routines, flex that willpower muscle, prep the night before, tackle crucial decisions early, and trust your internal wisdom.

 

I challenge you to make a decision today, something you’ve been holding back on. Take that leap! Share your decision with me—I’d love to cheer you on in this journey! Find me at @tanyavalentinecoaching and let’s keep the conversation going.

 

Sending you all warm holiday wishes and loads of courage to become those amazing decision-making champions . I can’t wait to catch up with you next week! Until then, remember: every decision is a step forward in your incredible journey through motherhood. Take care and enjoy the holidays with your family! goodbye for now