Ep #120: Indecision Discomfort

Hey! How are you? Good? Great, then let’s get to work.

Every day we make lots of decisions. A lot of them you hear yourself making and there’s a lot that you don’t. You may not realize it but even following your plan or routine is a decision in itself. You decide to follow it instead of deciding to go off it.

Making a decision can feel so good. You’ve decided, it’s done, now you can move forward.

What doesn’t feel good is being in indecision, not deciding which option you choose, and going back and forth about it.

This is not a fun place to be yet we all choose to be here time and time again.

A decision is made in a second, yet we put off making them and waste so much time and mental energy.

You create discomfort as you create inner turmoil and the longer you stay in indecision, the longer you stay in confusion and discomfort. It’s uncomfortable to not know what you’re going to do.

You’ve probably experienced this many times with eating and bingeing.

You go back and forth in your head about whether or not you’re going to eat or how much your’e going to eat or what you’re going to eat and you exhaust yourself.

So many more important things could be thought about in that time and so many more enjoyable things could be thought about but instead, you’re being indecisive about eating.

If you just made the decision to eat or to not eat then you could be done with thoughts without exhausting yourself, and then just eat or not eat whichever you decided.

But you don’t, and in this episode I’m going to tell you why it’s not that easy to decide.

But first, let’s talk about what happens when you stay in indecision.

So many of you complain about the chatter that happens in your mind about food and how thoughts of food consume your day.

When I inquire about the chatter and the thoughts, I find out that so much of what’s being thought about is indecision about eating.

The thoughts are unanswered questions, they’re options left up in the air, they’re that person not deciding what they’re going to do and committing to that decision.

Because the questions are left unanswered and the option they want hasn’t been chosen, their brain keeps asking again and again.

Your brain wants answers and it’s going to keep asking until it gets them!

Remember, your brain is like a toddler and toddlers don’t let things go so easily.

They want to know, and so does your brain.

The decision is going to be made at some point and your brain would like to know sooner than later so it can be done with that decision and move on to the next one.

But what you’d rather do is not decide and then let all your other undecided decisions all pile up and then you’ve created an overwhelming mess of undecided decisions in your head.

What’s even worse is when your indecision turns into a fight.

Not only are you going back and forth about your options, but you’re getting heated. You’re getting mad at yourself for even considering the option of eating or bingeing.

That’s not going to help the situation. That’s going to create even more discomfort.

So here you are, you’re undecided, and let’s just say it’s about whether or not you’re going to eat, because I’d say that’s probably the most common one.

You’re not hungry but, you have your brain telling you to go buy something or go eat something in the kitchen. Or your brain is telling you to full on binge.

Your brain is telling you that you want it, you deserve it, it isn’t a big deal, you’ll have just one, you already ate off your plan today so you might as well, that you need something.

But then you’re coming back saying you don’t want it, that you’ll feel bad after, that you’re not even hungry, that you don’t want to fill up before dinner or before bed, or any other reason you have for not eating.

All these thoughts keep coming. Your brain gives a reason, you give a reason back, and it’s like a debate, back and forth.

You could stop this debate at any point. You could choose your side, decide it’s your side, and do what you’ve decided.

But here’s why you don’t do that so easily.

You know your true self doesn’t want to eat in that moment. It’s your true self that keeps coming back with the reasons for why you don’t want to eat. You hear her, and you know it’s what you really want.

But you’re also believing your brain’s reasons it gives to eat because they make sense to you.

You have competing desires. You really do want both, to eat and to not eat.

Your true self doesn’t want to eat, and your impulsive, emotional self does want to eat.

You feel that want to eat You feel that desire to eat.

And if you say no to that desire, it’s going to be uncomfortable.

Anytime someone says no to you when you want something it feels uncomfortable, even when it’s you telling yourself no.

Because part of you wants to eat, saying no will create unanswered desire, which is uncomfortable to experience.

It doesn’t feel good to be told no and it doesn’t feel good to want something and not get it.

So instead of saying no and feeling that discomfort, you keep the indecision going and you create continued discomfort of indecision, confusion, and turmoil.

Then what do you do? You just say eff it and eat whatever. You do what’s easiest.

That’s what ends up being your decision. You do what’s easy and comfortable.

You used up all your mental energy being in indecision so there ended up being little energy left to do what’s against your habits, what’s challenging and different than what you usually do, and what’s going to take effort.

There’s little energy left to allow the discomfort of unanswered desire.

That’s where your indecision can lead you.

But even if it doesn’t, even if you do end up saying no to eating, or eating more, you still spent a lot of time in indecision, it’s still time and energy wasted. It’s time and energy that you could have allocated to something else, something more productive, relaxing, or fulfilling.

And this doesn’t just go for eating indecision, it’s any kind.

When you spend too much time in indecision, you hold yourself back from taking action and moving forward on whatever you decide.

Are you going to stay at your job and excel so you can make more money at it or are you going to do something else and excel at that? Decide so you can make it happen sooner than later.

Are you going to work at your relationship and make this one the best it can be or are you going to end it and begin a new relationship and make that one the best? Decide so you can do it.

Are you going to do this binge eating work on your own or are you going to work with me? Decide so you can be all in on the path you’ve chosen.

Because each time you hang around in indecision, your mind bounces back and forth without committing fully to an option.

You don’t want to just sit there thinking about your options. Thinking doesn’t make change. It’s deciding and taking action on that decision that does.

You don’t have to be unhappy in your job, in an unhappy relationship, or unhappy as you continually binge eat. You can change all of that, but you have to decide how you’re going to do it.

It’s when you decide, that you can do everything you can without looking back and without second guessing yourself and with certainty that this is what you’re doing and you’re all in committed.

When it comes to your eating, you know what you truly want to be eating. If you don’t, taking some time to write this out and work out your ideal eating is an important exercise to do.

If you want to make a decision and feel certain that it’s what you really want, not just what you think you want in the moment, then you need to look to your true self and what she wants. It’s going to be a lot easier to know what that is if you’re taking time outside of decision making times to find out what that is.

It’s like when you look at a menu ahead of time so you can enjoy yourself at a restaurant without wasting time being indecisive. You and your true self have a conversation ahead of time about what you really want to be eating and when decision time comes, when you server asks what you want, there’s no confusion or back and forth. You know what your true self wants and that’s what you’re going to get.

Sometimes it is going to feel uncomfortable to say yes to your true self, and no to your impulsive, emotional self, and this is why being willing to feel discomfort is so important.

If you want to end the chatter, end the thoughts, end the fighting, and end the indecision, that’s what you need to do.

Decisions take just a second to make. You can decide and be done with it.

You decide what you will and won’t do. Saying you should or shouldn’t do something is not a decision. Just saying you want to isn’t either. And neither is saying you might. Will or won’t, and you’re done.

And just know that if the option you didn’t choose comes back to your mind it’s not a problem, you just decide again to stick with your decision, no drama.

And one last thing. If you’ve been in indecision about working with me, get out of it and decide now. You’re going to do it or you won’t. And if you are, which I definitely think you should if you resonate with a lot of what I talk about on all these podcast episodes I’ve shared with you, then you can go to coachkir.com/group to find out what your next steps are.

Alright, make decisions. Answer your own questions. Pick an option. Stop creating more discomfort for yourself by not deciding.

I’ll talk to you next time when you decide to listen to another episode. Bye bye!