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Welcome to the Upside Podcast where we help you get unstuck in life and business by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change from the inside out. I'm Teresa Flood and I am so excited about our topic today. But before we get into decision fatigue, because if you know you've got it, you know you've got it, I want to remind you that if you go to teresaflood.com and subscribe, you will get a weekly training guide on all of our episodes. So if you are a leader of a team of any kind, or you are coaching and training many others, these training guides are designed to take the episode and put it into a format that you can take turnaround, share to learn and grow. So if you haven't gone to teresaflood.com, be sure to do that first. But today I want to talk a little bit about decision fatigue. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel absolutely exhausted by all of the decisions in a day. As a matter of fact, would you be surprised to know that you make over 35,000 decisions a day? 35,000. That's an immense number of decisions. No wonder we have decision fatigue. So some of those decisions are obviously subconscious. They're pretty much on autopilot. Some of those decisions are maybe inconsequential, but they're. We have to put a little bit more thought of them and then some of them are major life altering choices and decisions that we have to make. There are times at the end of the day that Tommy asks me, okay, what are we going to do for dinner? And I just want to say, I don't know, I don't care. You choose. I saw a meme one time on Instagram and it was something to the effect of adulting really is just deciding what you want for dinner every single night for the rest of your life. So if you can relate to that in any way, tune in because that's what today's episode is all about. So what is decision fatigue? It's just the mental exhaustion from having so many choices in life. So how does that work? So when we have to make a choice or make a decision, it does actually cause our energy to drain. We're using energy and we're using willpower to make those choices and decisions. So as we get tired either throughout the day, maybe we didn't sleep well at night, maybe we've had a lot of stress happening at the office, it's easy to get distracted and our willpower goes down. So there is a Myth that willpower is always on call, meaning it's just as easy on one day to make a decision and make a choice as it is on another day. And that's not true. It takes energy to do that. And so over time, when our willpower is low, when our energy is low, it causes our decision making and our choices to be in jeopardy. So studies show that your decisions do get worse over time. And they did studies where they looked at judges in courtrooms. And I'm just going to tell you, if I get arrested for any kind of crime, I want the judge first thing in the morning. Because as they get more tired, as they get exhausted, the quality of the decisions during the day goes down. So decision fatigue is a real thing now. Choice is such a beautiful thing. That is one of the blessings that we have as Americans. That's one of the blessings that we have in this world, is that we have free choice. We have the ability to choose. We have the ability to make decisions. Let us never forget the gift and the. And the, the freedom that, that choosing and making decisions is. There is no choice in life but to choose. That's the paradox of choice. There is no choice in life but to choose. So if you want to have a different life, make different choices. If you want to have a better life, make better choices. If you want to have the best life, make the best choices. By owning the choices, you author, you're taking ownership and authorship of your life. Every choice you make makes you. And yet so many choices in a day, it can feel exhausting. So I want to give you just a couple tips on how to reduce decision fatigue so that you are making the absolute best decisions and best choices in your life. So the first one, and I believe this is such a incredibly important concept, is that we must pre decide. We must pre decide. So there is many choices in our lives that we can decide ahead of time. Why would we want to decide ahead of time? Because then you can decide when your energy is high. So then you're not getting into a situation where you're tired, where you're stressed, where your energy is drained, and you're being forced in that moment to choose. So let me give you a couple examples. So on Sundays, Tommy, grocery shops. Thank you very much, Tommy Flood. So I sent him the list. And all of our meals are planned out for the week. So we know ahead of time if we're going to eat at home on Monday. We know if the girls are going to youth group on. On Wednesday, they're going to eat Pizza there. Tommy and I are going to go to craft away and have dinner together while they're at youth group. We know we're going to eat at home Tuesday and Thursday meals together as a family. And the food is all bought. Sometimes it's pre prepped. All that decision has already been made. What happens a lot of times is let's say when we travel and we don't get home till Sunday night so the grocery shopping doesn't get done and so we get home on Monday and we look at each other and go, what are we gonna do for dinner? We had it pre decided because life happened and most of the time guess what? I'm not choosing in that moment to make a healthy meal. We're saying let's go to mi cosina because we didn't pre decide. Every morning when you get out of bed, you shouldn't be deciding in that moment are you going to the gym? That should already be pre decided. What are the commitments that you're making? I have found that when I have my lead generation for work, when I walk into the office and I already have pre decided when I'm going to make calls and to who I'm going to call and what I'm going to say. I am so much more likely to, to make the calls to get the task done. I'm not distracted, I'm not negotiating with myself back and forth. We spent a lot of energy in life negotiating with ourselves. Pre decide, pre decide. I was thinking about our kids and my girls are 13 and so there are some choices that I have pre decided for them, meaning their house roles, their, their phones come down at 10 o' clock at night and they don't have those in their rooms after they go to bed. They get, you know, screen time gets shut off. I have pre decided that for them and as they get older there's going to be choices that they are going to need to pre decide on. It's really hard to for a 17 year old to walk into a party and say no to alcohol, for instance. If they haven't pre decided before that that's a choice they're going to make. How do we help our kids make choices to where they're pre deciding? What are things in our lives that we need to pre decide? So that gets me into the second thing is to get clarity on your values. Because when you're, when you are really clear on what your values are and what your, your core beliefs are, then every decision is going to go through that filter. If you know that you make decisions on faith and not fear the qu. The decisions then become less burdensome if you know the structure in which you're going to make a decision. Tommy and I are going to make major decisions together. We're going to make financial decisions together. We don't make those alone. So some of those things are already pre decided based on core values. So know your values, know your priorities, and know your seasons. That's going to help take a lot of the stress out of major decisions in your life. Um, and the third way to reduce decision fatigue. So the first one is pre decide. The second one is to be very clear on your core values. And the third one is to be sure that you're making the choice. I think a lot of times we kick the can, if you will, and push off decisions that we need to go ahead and just pull the trigger on. And what I mean by that is no decision is still a decision. It's a decision to not make a decision which is still a decision. So guess what? All you're doing is taking energy that you could be using then for other things in your life. That and kicking that can and just holding on to that decision in your brain. So I do this sometimes, and sometimes I do this under the guise of wanting to be wise, wanting to be thorough, wanting to make sure that I'm making a right decision. And all of that is good. I'm not suggesting we be hasty in our decisions. And sometimes we just need to decide and move on because no decision is still a decision. You, you're just making it multiple times every time you cross that path. So pre decide, pre decide on every choice you can make that you can do ahead of time. Pre decide it when your energy is high. Get clarity on what matters most so that all of your decisions are flowing through your core values. Make the choice, don't delay it. And then the fourth way that you can reduce, reduce, reduce decision fatigue is to prioritize your important decisions early. So be sure that the energy when you are the highest energy, for me, that is definitely in the morning. My best self is early in the day. That may not be the case for everybody. Make your best decisions or make your toughest decisions. Make the majority of your decisions when you are well rested, when you are nourished, when, when you're not distracted, when you're not incredibly stressed out, when the kids aren't yelling at you and pulling you in a million directions. And you're going to make better decisions over time, they're going to be less stressful for you. Life is literally just a series of choices all strung together. I heard a quote that I thought was so powerful and that's when you're born, you look like your parents and when you die you look like your choices. You look like your decisions. So I want to encourage you if you are feeling some decision fatigue, maybe you didn't even realize that what that's what it is. But if you are feeling that way, I want to encourage you to do an audit and ask yourself, what are the things in my life that I need to pre decide so that I'm not negotiating whether I'm going to eat this or that, whether I'm going to make this call or make that call? What are the things that you need to pre decide? Number two, what are the core values that every decision is going to flow through? When can you prioritize to do your your thinking time and your decision making time? When you're at the highest energy. And what decisions have you been avoiding that are just sucking up energy because you're kicking that can. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Upside. I hope this has encouraged you, maybe given you some strategies to move forward not to stuck in indecision. And as always, when you are investing in your growth every single day, it's going to yield you great returns. Remember, the goal is not just about what you're going to do, it's always about who you are becoming along the way. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week on the Upside.