How to Make No-Regret Decisions: An Alternative to Pro/con Lists
Photo by Daniel Mingook Kim
Do you struggle with making decisions? The crux of good decision-making is choosing what you yearn for, instead of what you’re conditioned to want. In this post, Nanami, a certified coach, explores 1) why we tend to choose what we believe are supposed to want and 2) how we can make choices that align with our truth by listening to the body.
Where do we look for our answers?
Do you seek others’ opinions when making decisions? If you said yes, you are not alone. You are normal. We’ve been taught from a young age that we cannot trust our knowing and should look for validation from others who know “better.” The truth is nobody knows you better than you. Others can tell you what they expect you to do that will meet their agenda or societal/cultural norms. But they know little about what’s important or what’s possible for you. Only you know what is best.
In the modern world, we heavily rely on our minds to decide what’s right. I used to list pros and cons and calculate opportunity costs to make decisions, which I later found disappointing too often. You may have also experienced that your mind tells one thing, and your gut tells another, not knowing which one to trust.
While our minds are good at judging what’s expected of us, our bodies are, in fact, the ones that tell our truth. The body sends us 11 million bits of information every second. The conscious mind, however, can handle only 50 bits of information a second. Because it cannot handle every piece of information, the mind takes cognitive shortcuts based on thought patterns that are not necessarily true to the senses. In other words, when we ignore the body’s signals, we tend to make decisions that don’t align with what we yearn for. Those decisions can end up pausing challenges to our well-being, whether it’s emotional, physical, mental, or relational.
How do we listen to the body’s signals?
When we listen, the body communicates with us what we truly want through a form of sensations. It responds to situations and thoughts in two ways: relaxation or contraction. Here is how to make decisions using the body as a compass:
Imagine your favorite people, objects, places, and activities. Observe how it feels in your body. When I help my clients do this exercise, the sensations they describe are usually “relaxed,” “light,” “open,” and “freeing.”
Next, think of your least favorite people, objects, places, and activities and notice how your body reacts. I often hear people describe “contracting” “tight” “heavy” and “suffocating.”
Get used to those opposite sensations in your body. Then when you make a decision, let sensations slowly emerge and feel what choice your body wants to make.
Find out more
As a certified coach, I will help you not only calibrate your body compass but also tend to your sensations, so you can listen to your body’s messages and make choices that align with your truth. You can learn more about my coaching work here or book a free call to see if we are a good match.
I’d like to credit the tool to Martha Beck, a life coach mentor who I trained coaching with.