Learning to make mindful decisions can save you a lot of stress in your business and life by preventing you from wasting time, effort, and emotional energy.  As a female leader, you must be able to make calm, clear-headed decisions in a timely fashion and not be weighed down by fear, distraction and second-guessing yourself.

A mindful decision is a decision you make consciously. It draws from this invisible source of wisdom, called your intuition.

By using your intuition, this direct line to Source/Universe/God, you’ll feel much more confident in your decision. 

A mindful decision is the opposite of a reactive, subconscious choice made for you by your automatic habits and unquestioned beliefs.

When you make a mindful decision, you empower yourself because you’re choosing, regardless of the outcome. You’re acknowledging there is a risk if you go down a certain path, and you’re willing to take the risk.

In this blog, raise your awareness and learn 4 reasons why it’s hard for female leaders to make mindful decisions. In next week’s blog, I’ll discuss strategies and techniques to overcome this resistance.

Understanding Your Decision Making Process

Recognize Your Decision-Making Style

Or do you tend to make decisions methodically, very calculatedly and slowly? If so, you’ve probably been accused of being an over-thinker. Unlike the impulsive decision maker, you feel pressured when you have to make a decision quickly.

Or maybe you tend to avoid decisions altogether, because you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, or you don’t want to feel uncomfortable for whatever reason.

Maybe you don’t avoid decisions, but fall somewhere in between the quick and the slow decision maker.  They are all OK. The idea here is to know thyself.

Examine Your Beliefs and Biases

On the other hand, making decisions may come more easily to you if you had (have) loving, supportive, parents who encouraged you to trust yourself, make mistakes, and get back up to try again after dusting yourself off.

Your unique personality and human design also play into how you make decisions.

The variety of beliefs that will impact your ability to make good decisions is vast and is beyond the scope of this blog.  Suffice it to say that your beliefs directly impact your decision process in every way possible.

Understand the Impact of Emotions on Decision-Making

When you feel negative emotions, they can hijack the best laid plans. Emotional management is really time management since the emotions dictate what you will or won’t do.

Intense feelings like shame, guilt, anger, and fear can keep you stuck in a pattern of non-action, non-decision, rendering you helpless to create the life you desire.

Identify the Source of Stress and Anxiety

I heard Dr. Alex Loyd, the creator of the healing codes, at one of his workshops say, “The moment you make a goal your body goes into a state of anxiety, fearing all the ways you could fail.”

The source of your stress and anxiety when making a decision is a false belief that you are inadequate and incapable of achieving what you REALLY want in life. Since the prime directive of the subconscious mind is to keep you safe, it doesn’t want you to make a decision about important matters, only to be hurt by repeated painful disappointments.

What Can You Do About This Decision Difficulty

So you cut off other alternatives when you make a decision. You can pray to God or the Universe and ask, “If I’m meant to go this way, increase my desire for it. If I’m not, then decrease my desire.”

In next week’s blogs, I’ll cover techniques and strategies to help you overcome decision-making difficulties.

Conclusion

Add to this the fact that women are more notorious for pleasing people and avoiding decisions altogether, and you have a recipe for disaster when it comes to leadership. There is a better way.  Look for techniques to become a better decision maker next week.