Being indecisive about everything is all fun and games, until we find ourselves stuck in situations that leave us with no choice but to take control or make momentous decisions. Yikes. I often think about how deeply challenged I felt back in April of this year. I went from not knowing “where I’m bouta eat at,” to not knowing where I wanted to attend school for the next four years of my life.
There were many nights that I spent crying, journaling (like the dramatic girl that I am), and begging the Universe for a sign of clarity since I didn’t know what the heck to do. Fast forward to today, and I can’t even believe that I had such a hard time making my decision. I can’t believe that I even considered committing to any other school than Howard. I could carry on and state some very conceited things about how much I love being at The Real HU (kinda), but I’ll save that for a later time. For now, I’ll tell you how my processes for making tough decisions have taught me how to flip indecisiveness into the empowerment that enables me to be out here making the best decisions of my life. You can do the same.
The bad news is that whenever you’re up against painfully difficult decisions, it seems as if all of the substantial magic that you’ll need, will probably
come out of your emotional toil. Sorry to the crybabies and drama kings/queens like myself, but it’s true. For the cold people, that can get into their emotions without doing the absolute most, then I applaud you. Regardless of the extreme that your emotional toil fits into, I encourage you to go all in and have it all before making a major decision. Allowing yourself the freedom to feel all parts of your truest emotions is important because inner conflict is always disguising itself as something that it’s not. @ Bullies! Sometimes we don’t even know what we’re really feeling. There have been so many times in which I’ve discovered that inner strife was caused by something so silly and I was only too humiliated to admit it. Either way, silly or not, we need to have an understanding of what it is that’s causing us to be indecisive and why that’s the case.
Is it fear of what other people will say in response to your decision? Are there some specific consequences that you fear will come out of your decision? There are things that you will never know unless you do the
emotional digging. As a journal enthusiast, I will add that googling some inner-work journal prompts will help you get started with asking the questions that will encourage your emotions to flow out.
The good news is that after you get to the bottom of what it is that’s causing contention within, it usually doesn’t take long to figure out what it is that you really want. It then becomes a matter of shifting your mindset from one of “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do at all” to one of “I know what’s stopping me from making my choice and I know how to work around it.” For example, aside from anticipating financial struggles, I remember discovering that the only factors that were keeping me from choosing Howard were things like my fear of not being able to function so far away from home. That, in addition to my belief that I wasn’t as advanced as the rest of the student body. Not as qualified as them. Not being able to fit in amongst them. Not being able to bring any major contributions to our class. I didn’t come up with a solution overnight, but what ended up informing me of what I really wanted for myself was my readiness to take action and overcome my fears. I expressed my concerns of being overly sheltered to my parents and as a result, they allowed me a bit more independence. I chalked my feelings of inferiority up to a lack of self confidence and now I work on that some everyday.
At the end of the day, If you want something bad enough, then you will make sure that you are prepared to have it. If not, then that will also tell you what you need to know. More often than not, blessings are literally falling into our laps. It’s about whether or not we’re willing to do the inner work that it may take to receive them and accept them as our own. When you turn your doubts and fears into actions of self-belief, then you have to know that you’re making the right decision. You’re working for it! You’re most likely not going to take the time to do inner work for a dream that you don’t really want to follow. Let difficult decisions be exciting for you as you explore your own depth. I’m rooting for you.
Xoxo, Wisdom