How getting out of your head helps you make better decisions
Think through your problems.
That’s the mantra of the day. The advice given to every person who runs up against a brick wall in their life. The solution to your life’s dilemmas, we’re all told, is to think.
Think. Think. Think.
And, inevitably, this advice leads to a chronic case of over-thinking. We get caught in the circles of our mind, convinced that another lap will lead to the breakthrough we so desperately seek. Anxiety creeps in. Self-doubt. And an overwhelming feeling of dread.
We’re in a thinking spiral.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve worked with a number of clients who have been up in their head about important work or life decisions. Problems that could have a real impact on their livelihood.
And in each case, we were able to make a powerful breakthrough. Not by thinking the problem to death. But by taking a different approach.
I’d like to share two of their stories with you.
Client 1: Getting work off the ground
My first client works in international development for a large donor organization.
She came to me with a dilemma. She wanted to build a program that would enable her team to strengthen their work around gender equality.
Her end goals was clear: develop 80 team members.
But she was up in her head about the logistics. Should she hire a vendor to support the work? If so, which vendor? How would she vet them? How should she structure the program? What should it focus on?
After taking time to pause the conversation, get grounded and connect with her body and her heart, I asked her a simple question. “What do you feel your first step should be?”
With the weight of thinking cast off, she spoke her first step out loud. She wanted to connect with her people. Understand what they were feeling and experiencing. Understand what they’d want out of a program like this.
We moved on to discuss the tactic of deep listening.
Through this conversation, my client was able to realize that she didn’t need to solve the end product all at once. In fact, by listening to her instincts, she was able to devise a much better solution. One that worked for her and her team.
Client 2: The difficult conversation
My second client is a real estate agent.
In our conversation, he shared a particularly difficult seller he was working with. The house had been on the market too long. And he was starting to worry it wouldn’t sell.
Fear. Anxiety. These feelings dogged his everyday business and he kept trying to think his way to a solution.
As we connected, I asked if we could take a step back. Stop. Focus in on connecting to his body and his emotions.
And then I asked the all-powerful question, “What’s the first step you would take today, if you had to take a step?”
This simple question unlocked the floodgates. As he talked it through, realization lit up his voice. In his professional opinion, the house was priced too high. And if he was pushed to give an opinion, he wasn’t sure the seller really wanted to sell after all.
“I need to have the difficult conversation with them,” he said. Even if it means losing the sale.
Through this conversation, he was able to identify the source of the problem. Something he knew intuitively, but was struggling to see clearly. The issue wasn’t the market or the home itself. It was the seller and his own fear of losing the sale.
Take a step back
If you notice, in both cases my clients needed fresh eyes on the situation. Only, they didn’t need the fresh eyes of an outsider. They needed the fresh inner eyes that came from stepping back, connecting within and trusting their own instincts.
They knew the answer. But they’d buried it in over-thinking.
In our society, we’ve over-emphasized the role of thinking. And, in doing so, we’ve buried the powers of intuition and mind/body connection. We’ve elevated thinking to the only solution. And that’s a mistake. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, our thinking mind is built for safety and it’s limited in what it can do.
As my clients demonstrate, the best solutions don’t come from the head. They come from deeper within.
So, my invitation to you is this.
Stop. Take a step back. Give yourself the space to go within, breathe, feel and revisit the situation. Don’t rely on the next thought to give you clarity.
Then, from this more grounded, connected place ask the simple question.
“What next?”
A process for getting out of your head
Setting aside the thinking reflex of your brain can be challenging. Especially if you aren’t comfortable with this approach.
I’d love to help guide you.
This is the process I use with my clients. The exact process I walked the clients in this article through to make powerful discoveries. And you can use it too.
Once you’ve moved through this process and you feel calm and connected ask yourself “what next” in relation to the issue you were struggling with. Then listen. See what you sense, feel and notice.
Want to learn more about getting out of your head?
At Resources Reimagined, I’m committed to the belief that every person has the capacity for an amazing life. And that sharing our gifts with others is a beautiful calling. But often, to reach our highest heights, we first have to reshape how we view the mountain.
That’s where mindset training comes in.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey.
Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discovery call and see what mindset training can do for you.