Spoiled for Choice

Dear Coach Fabulous

I’ve got some serious life-changing decisions to make right now and I don’t know whether to go with my head or my heart. I seem to swing between the two and always worry that I’ll be making the wrong choice. Help!

Wild at Heart

Dear Wild at Heart

Rule one is never to make a decision when you’re in a mental tornado of stress. You can pretty much guarantee that will result in a fiasco. As the great sage, Van Wilder, of Party Liaison film fame, says “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” Get calm, take the pressure off yourself and get ready for some relaxed, creative thinking.

In the head/heart decision-making dilemma, the answer is never either/or, but both. What’s in your heart is your passion, what you love to do, and an instinct for becoming the kind of person you want to be. What’s in your head is a goldmine of strategies and creative techniques for making things happen, but it can also include a lot of limiting thoughts about what’s possible for you. If the heart is exclusively in charge, the kinds of choices you make can tend to be impulsive, ungrounded and quite probably ill-judged. If the head rules, you may be paralysed by fear and indecision or pursue a dream that is more important to others than to you.

The key to making choices that reflect who you really are is the order in which you approach the head and the heart. The secret is to let the heart be the driver and let your head use its navigating talents – a creative tension that allows you to be all you can be, but also makes sure you take the necessary steps to make your dream a reality.

If you’re doing the thought tornado tailspin of mental activity, you’re unlikely to be able to access any deep inner feelings or intuition about the issue until you calm your mind down. This applies to any kind of choice, big or small, and is helpful for regaining clarity in the middle of a busy working day.

So how do you transform inner turmoil into inner peace, to help you get some clarity on your choices? First of all, break the pattern. Sitting there doing the same thing and expecting a different result clearly won’t work. The trick to calming the mind is to get into your body. Any form of gentle exercise or massage will do it. Get outside, go for a walk or do some deep breathing, which will instantly take the edge off your frazzled nerves. The slower the breath, the slower your thought patterns will tend to be.

When you’re relaxed, try looking at what your heart and your head are telling you independently. First the heart: ask yourself what you would do if you had total freedom (ie no financial constraints, no-one else’s opinion, no limits) – would this be your ideal choice? If it’s not, look further into what you’d really like to do, by imagining your ideal scenario (how you’d live, what you’d be doing, who you’d be with). If that’s hard to imagine, conjure up some dreams from childhood or adolescence – remember what was important to you then and who your role models were. How does that resonate with the choice you’re about to make – is that option taking you closer to what you want or further away?

Next, let your mind run riot. What is it telling you to do? Do a pros and cons list if that helps. Now look at what seem to be the practical choices and ask if they’re really true or are they based on fear (of rejection, failure, risk)? Do the recommendations sound like the real you or are they the kinds of advice you’ve heard from friends, family or colleagues?

To get the head and the heart working in sync, let your heart define the dream and let your head create the blueprint for how that dream can be achieved. The more closely you are in tune with your own values and passions, the more effective your decision-making will be in helping you to create a life that is meaningful for you.

The tricky part can be knowing when there’s a real constraint or if you just need to push yourself beyond a comfort zone. I would cite most American Idol or X-Factor contestants as proof positive that having a dream is not enough - you have to have talent as well. Some helpful questions can be: do I have all the resources (talent, finance, support) to make this possible and if not, where might I find them? Another killer question can be: is this the right time? As the old adage goes, nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Equally, nothing is a greater disaster than an idea past its prime.

Finally, the benchmark test when faced with making a decision between two clear choices is to get quiet, close your eyes and imagine walking down a path until you meet a fork in the road. Follow the signpost for the first choice and notice how it feels and what the landscape looks like. Does it feel light and joyful or heavier and less comfortable? Do the same for the second choice and see how it measures up. Your imagination and feelings can give you a clear signal when all else fails.

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter