Why We Hate Making Decisions
Last year, I decided I was done with cooking.
Decision making is overwhelming— take steps to simplify it!
I started cooking at age 11 when my mother announced she was never cooking again. She told me I was in charge of the evening meals for the family. She wasn’t a boomer, she was the Lost Generation- parenting Gen X kids.
I embraced my new cooking assignment wholeheartedly.
My mother never took the time to learn to cook, preferring her studio to the kitchen.
I remember her easel up, paint out, brush in her hand, and the faint smell of turpentine wafting through the room. Her oil paintings were everywhere, all in various stages of drying.
So —she didn’t mean she was going to teach me; she meant I was just going to learn on my own.
I didn’t know any kids my age cooking and planning all the family meals, so I didn’t have anything to lose.
I had a 1964 Betty Crocker cookbook, an egg timer, and no fear.
Despite my one failure at something called “tamale loaf” (Don’t ask!) I got good at cooking and planning meals. My family wasn’t picky. As long as my mom didn’t have to cook, she was happy,
When I got married, I knew my husband didn’t cook at all. The most he could do was Sloppy Joe’s or Kraft macaroni and cheese.
I didn’t like sloppy Joe’s and Kraft macaroni and cheese was just a no. As millions of horrified French people will tell you, cheese should not be bright orange and reconstituted from a powder.
I would finish work and be left with the decision of “what’s for dinner?” Some days I'd plan ahead and we’d have crockpot meals.
Some days I wouldn’t plan and I’d be standing in the kitchen, scratching my head, trying to decide on what to do for dinner.
We went out to eat on Friday nights, but Sunday through Thursday, I needed a plan. I got tired of making those decisions every single day. After 25 years of cooking for my family almost every night, I was done.
Last year I asked my husband if he would mind, “automated,” evening meals.
I began intermittent fasting to fix some health issues. My husband always had a smoothie for breakfast and ate lunch at work. By then my son had a job, a truck, and was eating from his four-food groups; Arby’s, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and Chick-fil-A.
My husband said “there’s a meal I could eat over and over. I love smoked salmon every day. I’ll never get tired of that.”
So he had smoked salmon, toast, boiled eggs, and capers, each night. I had steak, and tomatoes, and we both had blueberries or strawberries for dessert.
We got pretty lean and fit. I fixed my blood pressure and health issues. My son even started automating his meals.
We are still automating meals. Although occasionally, I’ll throw in a chicken fajita night or a meatball night.
I cannot tell you how much this simplified my life.
Human beings spend a lot of time making decisions. No one likes making decisions because we are biologically programmed to make as few decisions as possible.
Our brains hate making decisions—and the same is true of your buyers.
We would rather have people tell us what to do. Even though we say we want choices, we actually don’t. Because our brains are always searching for efficiency. And decisions are inefficient by nature.
Our subconscious brain is afraid to decide.
These are the top two subconscious fears.
Fear of Loss
Fear of regret.
There are other subconscious fears like the fear of not belonging, being unsafe, or failing. All those fears are tied to the fear of loss and the fear of regret
Your subconscious is thinking, “wow if you make that decision, you’ll regret it. If you make that decision, you might lose something.”
Because your subconscious brain is primarily keeping you alive. Your subconscious is designed to help you survive. It’s always assessing things like;
Is this a threat?
Is this going to use up calories?
Is this efficient?
Will this create loss in our life?
Will this make us feel failure?
Our subconscious is constantly spanning the landscape to protect us and actively keep us from making decisions.
Say you go to a restaurant, and order the chicken, then a pasta dish arrives for someone else— the brain immediately tells you that decision was bad. Therefore, ALL decisions are bad. You regret your choice and want the pasta.
Let’s say you buy something expensive, but it falls apart. You try to return it to the store and they won’t take it back.
You are mad, but your subconscious brain feels LOSS, which creates fear and chaos. Our subconscious brain believes we are in MORTAL DANGER!
Your brain starts to think wow, don’t buy ANYTHING because you could lose! Or wow, you made the wrong decision, therefore making ANY decision is bad.
Very bad.
So what we tend to do is either:
1. Kick the can down the road and decide later; or
2. Keep every tab open in our brain while we try to use processes to make our decisions risk free.
In both cases, we make slow decisions and then we wonder why nothing is working.
Especially in our business, but also in our personal lives.
Does this sound familiar?
I’m gonna start eating healthier, but I wanna wait until I’m in a better mental space. I’m gonna wait till after the holidays to start it.
I need to launch that program, but I don’t think I have the right sales page. I really need to craft a better sales page before I offer it.
I do need to talk to somebody about my mental health, but I just can’t find the time right now. When I have more space then I’ll find a therapist.
Or clients on sales calls will have many objections:
I’d like to do your program, but I feel like it’s just not the right time.
I’d like to do your program but I feel like I need to wait until I’m more ready.
I want to do this but I’ve been burned. How do I know this will work?
I want the program. I feel like after I get through my (book launch, training, this Netflix season of Emily in Paris!)
The more risk averse the individual, the slower the decision-making process.
Since we feel bad in general, (people are unhappy across the globe!) our decision-making process slowed to a crawl. Our brains are sad, or mad, and preoccupied with seeking stimulation.
Meaning, we have very little bandwidth for decisions.
Think of your brain like a computer. Now picture: hundreds of opened tabs on that computer.
Each one of those tabs is a decision you have not made yet. For whatever reason.
I’m not ready, it’s not perfect, I need to wait until I’m in a better state of mind. The fact is your brain is getting in the way of your success. If we make decisions faster, even if we fail, we can make quicker evaluations to the next decision.
Our brains hate to fail. And we absolutely hate to lose. We will do anything to avoid regret and failure. We will do anything to avoid loss, including not making a decision at all.
Indecision stops you in your tracks from making bold moves. We need to make decisions in business to thrive and grow. Especially in this climate.
When we make a bold move and it doesn’t work out. Our brain tells us the decision was bad. We’ve lost something.
We regret deciding and tell ourselves we need to wait a long time until you make another decision again because you can’t trust yourself.
Your subconscious brain says “we can’t trust ourselves. We don’t make good decisions! Step away from that high stakes decision. You know you don't decide well!”
Suddenly you are soliciting loads of advice from people who don’t know any better. We train ourselves to stay in limbo until “feel better,” about deciding.
The space between a failed decision— and the next decision, we experience procrastination, perfectionism, and fear.
The longer you go between decisions, the less likely you are to succeed.
People who succeed in business, relationships, personal development, and in life, make quick decisions with the best information they have at the moment. They either fail or succeed. Then quickly make a new decision based upon the information they gathered from the first decision.
The faster the time between the decisions, the more likely you are to succeed.
Here are five ways to calm your subconscious down and make better decisions and faster decisions based on evaluation and data.
Every business, every person, holds regrets from the past. It is time to let those things go and move on. We all have things we wish we would’ve done differently. All the things you regret, the sunk time, money, and those toxic relationships saving. Let things go, give yourself grace, forgive yourself and move on.
Stop looking for reassurances outside yourself. Create new beliefs in your brain. Think new thoughts. “Everything is working out for me.” If your decisions end up failing, you’ll figure it out. You’ll pivot. You’ll move. Most people have an instinct to survive and you’ve survived this far. You’ve made good decisions in the past and you will again. You don’t need outside validation. Just decide, and go. You’ll figure it out in the middle.
Go faster. The longer you wait to make the decision the less likely you are to actually make it. If you decide to eat healthy, do it today. Don’t wait until after the weekend. Don’t wait until after Christmas. Do it now. Figure it out. Do not kick the can down the road because you will keep kicking it for the rest of your life.
Give yourself time bound goals. In other words- join programs that are short that have deadlines. Give yourself an accountability partner and tell them the deadline for the decision you need to make and have them hold your feet to the fire. Time bound goals are much more effective than goals that have arbitrary dates assigned.
For instance, I joined a program with an SEO specialist, and it’s time bound.
I have a month and a half left.
I asked her how many blogs she normally gets from her clients. In three months she said most people give her three blogs. I have a goal of 25 blogs before we end our time together. I’m up to about number eleven. I need to get working. I’ll edit this when I get my twenty five turned in. *Edit I FINISHED! And I managed to write an entire book!Remember, you will never make decisions if you leave it up to your subconscious. You have to actively turn off the notion of perfection, getting things just right, having loads of time to do something. Those things will never happen. No one ever calendars random time for six months from now to do something they wanna do. You either put it in your calendar now or it doesn’t get done.
When my parents died, my dad had over 2 million American Airlines advantage miles. My mother always wanted to go to Tahiti.
They could’ve gone anytime. Instead they both died with 2 million free air miles unused. I don’t know what my dad was thinking. Fortunately, my brother remembered the login information and I knew the password. So we split those air miles between our families and took several trips, including one to Europe.
Don’t wait.
Start making better decisions now by making faster decisions. You’ll never have all the information that you need to make a risk free decision.
Every decision is risky. Just know that people who make fast decisions and then are able to pivot quickly are the ones that succeed in life, business, and relationships.
They’re also the ones with fit bodies and healthy lifestyles. Remember that your brain is trying to kick the can down the road as far as it can.
Let’s talk about client behavior and understanding client buying decisions.
This indecisiveness is the bane of every business because every client you have doesn’t want to make a decision. Part of a discovery call process, part of the sales process, part of the marketing process is to get your client to make a decision.
Yes, or no. Get in or get out.
And the reason we want clients to make decisions is because it’s better for them and it’s best for you! If they aren’t going to work with you, wouldn’t you rather know? Wouldn’t you rather move on to someone who is a yes- right now?
Of course you don’t want to completely ignore the people that are a “no.”
Many times you can connect with them at a later date, and absolutely nothing has changed! Most people never implement, because implementation requires change and change requires decisions. And we’ve already established that we don’t want to make decisions.
For example one of my clients, Leena, kept getting on loads of calls with organizations telling her not right now, we need to get all the elements right first. Instead, she gently asked if she could follow up. After 5 follow ups, she closed a $79,000 dollar deal. (And Pasadena is the other organization who said “not now-maybe later, she expects them to close this week: another $70,000 contract!)
This is why coaching works so well. It gets us to move when our subconscious is telling us not to. Coaches help you make the best decisions for you, not the best decision for the coach.
That’s how you know they’re good coaches!
So a few pointers on getting your clients to a decision to work with you. (or not)
Close sales and keep selling—being sold out makes you more desirable.
Make the decision time bound. If they need to think about it, make another appointment for 24 to 48 hours. Close out the loop so it’s not an open tab in your brain and their brain. No more open tabs!
Open your initial call by saying this call is actually designed to get us to a decision, Either yes or no. And either one is fine. What we’re not going to do is think about it because thinking about it doesn’t actually work. Guide your clients through that call and help them understand how indecision is restricting their growth. Get them to a yes or a no or book the follow up call and do it on the follow-up call.
Chip away at their indecision by creating marketing designed to hit the primal subconscious brain. Study up on how we react instinctively. Infuse your marketing with images, stories, and thoughts that reach the subconscious. Most people do not do this. So try not to look around at other people’s marketing. Try to look at brands that use more visuals. Like Apple computers.
Create opportunities to buy that require tiny commitments rather than a giant payout. Our subconscious brain hates to make decisions that feel big. A tiny decision is easier to make than a big decision. Whether you’re going to have pizza with pineapple tonight or pizza without is a tiny decision. Buying a Volvo or a BMW is a giant decision. We make faster decisions when they’re small. You can take deposits, set up membership payments, or get them to commit at a small amount and give them a free month of support. You want clients to feel more “gain” rather than “risky loss.” Mitigate the risk as much as you can to get them to a decision.
Oversell your Programs. That means once you fill up your offers, you keep selling. Keep your foot on the gas and sell more. Create a wait list so people know— you’re always sold out. You’re creating more urgency through scarcity in the mind of your client. Remember, the fear of regret is one of the main basic fears of our subconscious, which is why fear of missing out works.
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