Sometimes it is very difficult to make up our minds about what to do. And sometimes when we examine the decision in front of us, the choices are between doing what is easiest and doing what is best for us. So this is a no-brainer, right? The obvious choice is to do what is best for us. Yes, of course, but unfortunately that is easier said than done. My years of working in the mental health field have convinced me that people often have a very difficult time getting themselves to do what is best for them. Why is this so hard? What gets in the way? And, how do we get there from here?
 
But first another question arises. How do we know what is best for us? A smart-alecky answer to this is that it's the choice that is not the easiest one. And unfortunately most of the time this would be correct. The fact is that most of the time it is pretty obvious what is best for us. But sometimes it's not. What then? This can be a really complicated question. There have been whole books and even whole philosophies on the subject. But the short answer is that you gather as much data as you can. You search your soul. You listen to your intuition. And then ultimately you just have to decide. And, as I said in my essay on choosing, it is better to make some choice rather than no choice.
 
Sometimes the thing that we ought to do that is best for us seems very difficult indeed. Worse yet, sometimes it seems downright scary. Does it always come back to fear? Well I suppose that it does, especially for those of us that have had a difficult time of it in life. We have learned not to feel safe and to anticipate dangers. This makes every new thing scary. Our motto has become the old cliché "Better to sit still than to rise to a fall." Or we chant, "Same good, change bad." It seems like the easiest and therefore the best thing to do is just sit still, stand pat, and don't make waves.
 
The key word in that last sentence is "seems". The fact is that what is best for us by definition is also what will be easiest for us in the long run. If this does not seem patently obvious to you, let me elaborate. If we do what is best for us that means we do what will make our lives better, more enjoyable, more satisfying and more rewarding. It could successfully be argued that a more enjoyable, satisfying and rewarding life is also an easier life as well. Put another way, a life that in not enjoyable, satisfying or rewarding does not sound like an easy life at all.
 
So, what about the fears we have? There is a book entitled Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. I really like this title. It is good advice. The book is full of good ideas for how to function in spite of our fears. I recommend it. And, I think that the first half of this admonition, to feel the fear, is important to doing the second half, do it anyway. It is important to feel our fears. We do better when we know what our fears are. Then we are not blindsided by them. Feeling them gives us a chance to address as many of them as possible.
 
There are a number of ways to address fears. First of all maybe you just need more information. Sometimes we are fearful about something and then we get more information and our fears subside. So ask yourself what more information you might need in order to make a well-informed decision. Or we can change something to make it less fearful. An example of this might be like if I decided to write an article on a certain topic and found that topic too daunting. I could change my mind and write about another topic and save the first one for later. Another way is to choose something closer or more familiar as opposed to something that is further away or more foreign to us. We can approach something in a piecemeal fashion rather than taking it on all at once. There is a book about being a writer entitled Bird by Bird. The title is taken from the story of the author's father telling his son to tackle a report he is writing about birds by taking it one bird at a time, "bird by bird". We can familiarize ourselves with as much of the thing as possible before the time comes to actually take it on. We can familiarize ourself with something similar.
 
I remember one time I had a blind date with a woman and I could tell by her voice over the phone that she was a woman of exceptional beauty. I was intimidated. I needed to somehow prepare myself. There was a woman of exceptional beauty who was a member of a small fellowship that I also attended and she seemed approachable enough to ask for her help. She agreed to come to my house. I told her about my trepidation. I don't remember what all she said to me, but I think she reassured me that beautiful people were just people like everyone else and not to worry. Anyway it all went swimmingly. The woman I was dating turned out not to be intimidating. And, I got a new friend in the bargain. So be brave and who knows what extras you may gain that you weren't even expecting.
 
So what if you do all this and you're still too afraid to move forward and choose what is best for you? Then I think you have to explore what more you need to do to make it palatable, or at least tolerable. Maybe what you need to do is work on your fears internally. Where did they come from? What are they about underneath what they seem to be about? It's a case of peeling away the onion layer by layer until you've dealt with all the parts of your fear right down to its core. This is taking feeling your fear to the nth degree. An emotion that is fully felt, fully explored and acknowledged looses its power over you. And when your fear looses its power over you then you are free to choose what is best for you, as nothing is then standing in your way.
 
Desired Outcome:
To become increasingly able to choose what is best for us no matter how difficult it seems.
 
Discussion Starters:
Have you ever had difficulty making decisions? When was this? What decisions were they? Have you ever found yourself choosing what was easiest rather than what was best? What made you do this? Were there fears that were getting in the way? What did you do with your fears? Have you ever been able to feel the fear and do it anyway? Have you ever tried this approach? Have you ever been able to get yourself to change your mind from choosing the easiest to choosing the best? How were you able to do this? What worked? What didn't? What new strategies are you going to try?
 
Stan's comments:
I'll not attempt to answer any of your questions with the exception of #1 and the answer is, of course as I'm a complex human with varied experience unique unto myself. I enjoyed your writing as it seemed to get to the point and followed the logic of my experiences. There is an old saying, or so I've been told and that is about how to eat an elephant. The answer is, one bight at a time and that is the best method of decision making that I've found. Some decisions need to be made on blind faith or total intuition. Also, some decisions that were good when we committed to them can turn out to be bad in the future as we change as people and so do the circumstances that we face change.

John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com

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