Big Decision Big Stress Minor Decision No stress: Deal Breaker
The other night a woman called me about divorcing her husband. She’s been married for years (32 years), has three children, and in her words, “I can’t do it any more!“. She was worried because of the stories she had heard about divorce. The stories included how her children would cope and the long, stressful court case. On top of these, she was apprehensive about her vows to her husband.
She had started to ‘over-think’ the complete separation and divorce thing. Interestingly, as her psychic reading progressed, I didn’t think her separation or divorce would be that bad. If she went through with the proceedings, things would likely be relatively equitable. However, she pointed out that she was apprehensive about how her middle teenage boy would cope. He found life quite difficult because he was quiet, withdrawn, a deep thinker, over-sensitive, quite pessimistic about his life and openly gay). So, apart from grappling with her ‘marriage vow’ issue, she also had strong “What will people think?” thoughts.
After we parted company and I was alone to think, I began to question myself about the woman’s dilemmas. One question arose: “How do we reconcile things like this?”. Then my answer was to ask another question: to reconcile what we ask ourselves. That question is, “Is this right for me?”.
The stressful aspect of this is that we take on too much ‘stuff’ when reconciling thoughts and decisions when all we have to do is break it down into small bite-sized chunks.
In other words, don’t do it if it’s not “right” for you.
Call to Action: Deal Breaker
All you need to do is think about yourself for a moment, especially if you’re having a decision-making dilemma, such as our princess above.
In her case, all she had to ask herself was, “What’s my deal breaker?”. So, here I’ve used my client’s example. On the other hand, we could be talking about any decision-making process because I’m not necessarily talking about relationships with significant others. You may need to decide whether you’ll move house, get a new job or start a business. Perhaps for you, it’s whether to go on that holiday, cease a friendship, save some money or even reduce your debt.
Each of these decisions requires a breakpoint or deal breaker, something that will make you ‘shift’.
As we all know, decision-making can be simple, such as whether I have a coffee or, more complex, whether I change jobs. Neither of these decisions will require a deal breaker, but big decisions will. The big decisions, like the woman above, can be tricky. Perhaps for you, it’s “Will I quit this long-term relationship?”
Stress increases with complexity.
That’s why we break decision-making down, and that’s why we have a deal breaker. So, think about you when you make a decision; a minor decision is easy; you do it. A big decision that’s different……
What’s your deal breaker?
We have another way of looking at decision-making by reframing it into a choice. Check out the blog.
