Decisions, Decisions...

My client Carl came to me because he recognized that he struggled with issues arising from low self-esteem (LoSE). He’d been working with various modalities to recover his inherent self-esteem (RISE), yet he’d been unable to alter one particular byproduct of LoSE: Indecision.

Decisiveness is a common challenge for LoSErs. When you’ve come to believe that your value is in direct proportion to your accomplishments, you want to be darn sure your efforts are actually going to result in accomplishment. Trying to anticipate all the obstacles to accomplishing a goal is fatiguing work on a good day… for the LoSEr it is a matter of calculating and recalculating the formula for success, even while one is at the beginning stages of working towards the goal.

Come to think of it, a GPS is a great example of how we get from one place in our lives to another. A RISEr sets the destination point into the system and follows the prompts while driving. Even if she has to pull off for gas or a rest room break, she is confident that she can get right back on track. A LoSEr second-guesses the internal GPS prompts, not trusting the device enough to follow without knowing exactly how the journey will progress. I rode with one of these folks on the way to a class we were both taking about 90 minutes away. My pal Allison was driving; she’d entered the address into her GPS yet all along the way she kept saying things like, “Get off at this exit? That can’t be right,” and, “It says to turn left here but I think that’s going to turn us around so I’m going to keep going straight.” It took us more than two hours to make this drive, thanks to Allison’s lack of faith in her global positioning system.

In the process of decision-making we have to enter our destination point into the equation, just as we would with a GPS while driving. A RISEr recognizes that there may be some detours along the way – by choice or by accident – yet confidently goes forward anyway. A LoSEr doesn’t consider the journey to accomplishment a success until the destination is at hand, and if that destination isn’t clearly defined at the outset, detours signify failure to progress rather than stops-along-the-way. Confidently going forward in spite of the detours or gridlock requires faith in ones ability to navigate to that destination, and trust in ones own intuition to understand whether a detour is actually a dead end.

My client Carl knew that his indecision was a result of low self-esteem because he was working with a therapist on some of his other LoSEr symptoms such as workaholism and perfectionist behavior. Carl wanted to learn to trust his gut, because he knew that relying on his analytical mind to make decisions routed him right back to LoSEr thinking.

The most pressing issue for Carl was deciding whether to extend his lease at his business office or move to a different location. He’d gone over it so many times that he no longer knew what felt right. As he put it, “I’m going crazy! I settle on one location in my mind, then I start doubting myself, choose the other, start doubting that decision, then I’m back to square one. I have no idea what I want!” In addition to this internal pressure, the deadline to decide was fast approaching. By the way, Carl had been running a successful business for years, but his LoSE past had him believing that it wasn’t skill but dumb luck that had gotten him that far. He’d grown up with the belief that he wasn't smart and wouldn't amount to much, so he didn’t trust his ability to make the right decision.

Carl and I talked about how the conscious mind gathers evidence to support the beliefs residing in the subconscious mind. Low self-esteem beliefs are supported by what the analytical mind perceives in one’s experience. For example, if I as a LoSEr believe that no one wants to hear what I have to say because I’m not smart, my conscious mind is going to highlight every time I’m interrupted by someone who expands on my comment, and file it in my subconscious mind as another example of why I should just keep my mouth shut at the monthly brainstorming session at work. My conscious mind says, “See? Your idea was lousy and incomplete; someone else had to correct it for you.” Conversely, if I’m a RISEr and someone interrupts me at the monthly brainstorm meeting, my conscious mind will likely highlight that interruption as validation of my idea, and file it in my subconscious mind as another example of why I’m a good at creative thinking.

Carl had done all the preparatory work for his business decision. He had a business goal in mind and had carefully thought out an expansion plan. He’d compared rents, locations, the cost of moving, what it would take to generate business in a new neighborhood, and the cost of changing his printed material to reflect his new address. The pros and cons of moving just about balanced those of staying in his current location, so he couldn’t predict accurately enough for his LoSEr mind which was the better choice. LoSErs like to know with absolute certainty how a decision is going to play out before making it.

When a person is able to say with personal conviction, “This is my decision,” the choice moves from the analytical conscious mind into the subconscious mind to become a fait accompli, and therefore a belief. The conscious mind then begins to gather evidence to support why that choice was the right one. Once Carl could decide which location to choose, he would be provided with a degree of closure on the topic. That would effectively become a new belief. Once that new belief is installed in the subconscious mind, he’d begin to start “suddenly noticing” all the reasons why this was the right location. Not only does the rational mind begin to gather validation for a decision, it begins to reject evidence to the contrary.

If you’ve ever decided to buy a car and after research selected a certain make and model, isn’t it funny how you begin to see that car everywhere? There hasn’t been a sudden growth in the sales of that same car, it’s simply that your conscious mind begins to gather evidence – cause you to notice – why this is the right car for you.

While this is a fairly predictable mental process, it’s important to let your own gut instincts in on the game too. Carl was right to seek guidance on tuning into the information his own sixth sense was offering about his business location decision, because his rational mind had measured both options and found them generally equal in benefits. The first thing to clear up was whether Carl actually knew what basic “Yes” and “No” felt like, intuitively. If you’ve been vacillating for so long that you can’t begin to rationally distinguish which is the best choice and everything on paper seems to be equal, it’s vital to have your Yes and No sixth-sense signals in place.

When your own ESP validates and supports what your conscious mind wants to do, then you can have closure on that decision and put it behind you – or within you, in your subconscious mind. That allows your conscious mind to do what it does best: gather evidence to support what you now have decided and believe to be true. That closed-loop is how confidence is built in decision-making and in many aspects of self-esteem.

I remember a time in my LoSEr past when I was stymied by a decision. I was unable to decide between undergoing a graduate course of study in Museum Administration or joining a young curator from Russia who wanted to open a gallery of contemporary Russian artists. The first offered greater career prospects and a higher salary, but the second offered more prestige and travel. The LoSEr in me was convinced that I would never be worth anything unless I had a degree, but the LoSEr in me also suspected I’d be a pretty cool person if I traveled regularly to Russia. I went back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth… until one of my good friends took me aside and asked me to please either make a decision or, at the very least, stop talking about it. At her wits’ end (probably with boredom), my friend suggested I flip a coin: Heads for Graduate School, Tails for Assistant Curator. I did so, and when the coin came up Heads, I felt disappointed. If I were a RISEr I would have known that that was my intuitive signal for “No,” illuminating that what I really wanted was to join my Russian friend in his gallery. Instead, I just kept flipping and flipping and flipping… until my friend gently pried the coin from my hands. In the end, my LoSE prevented me from making a decision at all, and so I did neither. Because I never actually made a decision, I had no closure on this subject, and to this day I reflect on how my life might have been different had I had the self-esteem to take a chance on myself and the gallery.

I told this story to Carl and suggested we begin with those ESP signals. I had him close his eyes, sit comfortably, and call to mind an unpleasant memory, particularly one where he felt he’d gotten a raw deal. The act of recollection automatically puts one in the subconscious state, as does any act of imagination (those two mindsets reside in the subconscious). I suggested Carl dive deep into that memory, and when he had, to notice where that memory seemed to sit in his body. Carl described tension in the back of his neck. I asked him to allow his imagination to expand the unpleasant feeling in his memory and his neck, then had him say to himself, “This is my feeling of ‘No.’”

After opening his eyes and taking a deep breath, I once again asked Carl to close his eyes. This time I had him recall a time when he’d made a good decision; when he felt vindicated or validated. I asked him to focus on the feeling more than the event – so it wasn’t necessary to recall a time when he had achieved a goal (LoSErs keep close track of those, as they’re frequently the measuring stick of personal self-worth). As he deepened into this past event, I had Carl notice where the good feeling settled. He described feelings of effervescence in his solar plexus, like butterflies or mild excitement. I then suggested Carl to state to himself, “This is my feeling of ‘Yes,’” while concentrating on both the memory and the feeling simultaneously.

I ended our session by suggesting that Carl go home, review his business options and his conscious mind’s Pros & Cons list to make sure he’d covered all the reasons for and against each location. Then he was to take a deep breath, firmly announce a decision to stay in his current office, and notice any response in either the back of his neck or his solar plexus. Then he was to do the same with the other location.

A week later Carl called to let me know he’d made a decision to move to the new location. His confidence in his own ability to choose the right option had soared, and freed him from his LoSEr notion that he wasn’t smart enough to make such an important business decision.

If you find that indecision plagues your business or personal life, consider that the source may stem from low self-esteem. Try the exercises as defined above to determine your own Yes and No extrasensory signals; it's extremely valuable to consult your gut instincts when your analytical mind can't settle on one option over another. I suggest you start with decisions that aren't life-changing until you recover some of your inherent self-esteem. Feeling validated about your choices, no matter how small, builds confidence, and confidence is the antidote to LoSE.