May 27, 2025 • 21 mins
How to stop overthinking decisions—especially the ones that keep you stuck. If you’re someone who spends too much time weighing every option, replaying every possible outcome, or feeling anxious about making the “right” choice, this episode is for you.
I explore how shifting your mindset—by treating decisions as experiments—can free you from analysis paralysis. You’ll discover:
Why most decisions aren’t as high-stakes as they seem
How changing your language can reduce pressure and fear
Why real clarity comes from taking action, not overthinking
This is for overthinkers, perfectionists, and anyone ready to make more confident choices in everyday life. Let’s break the cycle and start moving forward.
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fiona Kane (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
with Fiona Kane.
Today I'm actually going to betalking to you about decision
making and rumination, so reallykind of about the sort of the
things that can reframe thingsand the things that can change
things in regards to that,because so many of us get stuck
(00:21):
in ruminating about decisionsand not sure what I should do.
Us get stuck in ruminatingabout decisions and not sure
what I should do and whathappens is we spend so much time
thinking I'll begin that when,or I don't know whether or not I
should do that, what willhappen if all of these things go
wrong?
That we just don't get thingsdone and we just don't do things
in life.
So there's so many decisionswhere we just don't need that
(00:43):
level of rumination.
Now, if your decision is aboutyou know who should I marry, or
something like that, of coursethat's a different situation
where you do want to spend moretime thinking about it and you
do really want to get thingsright if you can.
Even then, of course, no, it'smodern times.
You don't necessarily have tostay with that person forever,
(01:04):
but it is ideal if we can makeour marriages work, of course.
Anyway, I digress, but manydecisions are just not as big as
we make them out to be.
And even today, the world welive in now, 2025, people have
more than one career.
So even the decision about whatcareer you should do, it
doesn't matter.
You can change and more oftenthan not, the experience we have
(01:27):
in one thing will actually helpus in something else, even if
it seems like it won't.
You know, I spent many yearsdoing secretarial work and the
skills I had doing that reallyhelped me in my own business,
right.
So you know, it could be theskills you learned as in like
what you did at university orwhat you did in your course.
It could be the skills youlearned as in, like what you did
at university or what you didin your course.
It could be the skills youlearned by the people, skills or
(01:48):
the fact that you had to marketyourself in a certain way.
It could be the skills youlearned by being on the ground
in a certain situation, or thetravel that you did for a
certain job.
There's a whole lot of skillsthat we get that help us anyway,
even if we're not sort of doingthat thing forever.
So it is really important to notget stuck on making choices,
(02:12):
and today I was actuallylistening to an interesting
podcast.
I love Chris Williamson's showwhich is called Modern Wisdom,
and he had I think his name wasGeorge Mack on the show and he's
a really interesting man andhe's obviously been doing lots
of different research and whathe said is in regards to like,
(02:33):
when you're ruminating ondecisions, he has a great
reframe that he uses.
So his reframe is to call themexperiments, not decisions, and
I think that is a really greatreframe because an experiment is
quite different to a decision,because we do create, we make
words a big deal right and weput some words as like they're
(02:56):
heavier than other words.
We put a lot of weight on themand I think the word decision
there's a lot of weight on thatword.
So when you change the worddecision to the word experiment,
it's okay.
This is just something I amgoing to try which is very
different from I've got to makethis decision right.
So the word decision is verystrong and it feels like it's
(03:17):
got a lot of weight on it and alot of ramifications to it,
whereas the word experiment isvery different and the thing
about experimenting is that,essentially, making a decision
is making a decision, even ifyou were driving somewhere,
right.
You make a decision, you come toa crossroads.
You don't know which way to go.
You say, well, which one?
(03:38):
I'll just go this way, rightNow.
If this way doesn't work, well,what do you do?
You end up going the other way,or you find your way back, all
right.
So essentially, in many thingsin life, it's the same thing
that you make a decision, butthat decision doesn't mean you
are bound to go in that onedirection forever and you can't
change anything, you can't addanything, you can't remove
(03:59):
anything.
It's just a choice to moveforward, because moving forward
is always a good idea.
Occasionally it's good to stop,you know, whatever, but moving
forward is a good thing.
So a big part of this isactually just moving forward,
and when we move forward we getmomentum and we get experience
and we learn things, and that'swhat keeps us going right.
(04:22):
So you know, I think he'sabsolutely right in his
reframing of the word decisionto experiment.
I use the same thing with myclients in regards to food.
So I say we're going to have afood adventure.
A food adventure is verydifferent and has a very
different energy to we're goingto go on a diet, or we're going
(04:45):
to restrict your diet, or we'regoing to take foods away or
whatever other language.
When you just say, let's have afood adventure, let's have an
adventure and see how you feelwhen you eat different ways and
you try different things,language is very powerful and it
has a very different feelingfor it and a very different
feeling.
The words just have differentfeelings, different heaviness
(05:09):
and different energies aroundthem.
So I would encourage you inyour own life, to, whether or
not you're thinking aboutdecisions or whatever it is, one
is just I always go back tojust be really, really aware of
the language, be aware of thewords you say.
And when you're making decisions, like so many of us, we get
caught.
Well, what if people will laughat me?
(05:31):
Or what will people say?
Or what if I get it wrong?
Well, what if, in most cases,getting it wrong is not the end
of the world?
In the majority of cases,getting it wrong is just
learning another way of notdoing it that way.
That that didn't work, we'lltry it a different way.
Or that didn't work, we'll trysomething different.
And you know, I think that oneof the uh, one of the things,
(05:52):
that, uh, powerful things thatsome people do when they're,
when they do courses and thingslike that is they actually start
with people with.
Okay, let's start and imaginethat you've passed away and
you're actually at your funeralservice or your wake, or
whatever you call it, right, andyou're at this wake and you're
(06:13):
hearing what people say aboutyou, right?
And you're hearing what'shappening there.
Okay, at this point, did itmatter that you took the wrong
turn?
Did it matter that you made acareer decision that you later
on regretted and so you changedit to something else?
Did it matter that you kind offell over and made a fool of
yourself or whatever?
Probably not right.
So we do put a lot of weightinto things that really
(06:37):
shouldn't have that much weight.
And the truth is that if we'reafraid to get it wrong, if we're
afraid to be wrong, if we'reafraid to make a mistake, if
we're afraid to look silly, wewill never achieve anything.
And all the people that doachieve great things, they are
willing to look silly first.
All of the people like what'shis name?
(06:58):
Is it Tony Hawk who does theskateboarding?
I think it is.
He's probably an older one.
I'm sure there's much youngerpeople now.
But whoever these people areright.
People who do motorsports, theydo any kind of sports Actually.
They do singing, they play theguitar, whatever it is.
These people have been willingto do it wrong a lot of the time
and do it badly and literallyfall over and make a fool of
(07:19):
themselves and look silly andall of the rest of it.
And they've been willing to dothat over and make a fool of
themselves and look silly andall the rest of it.
And they've been willing to dothat over and over and over
again until they get better atit.
And eventually they get betterat it and they become experts.
And then people actually paythem to do it or pay them to
watch them sing or whatever itis right.
But how did they do that?
They weren't just born with it.
(07:39):
They might have been.
Obviously, people are born withcertain kind of more natural
talents than others, but theystill weren't born being able to
do the thing right.
They're able to do the thingbecause they practiced it lots
and lots and lots of times andthey got good at it because they
practiced it.
So just be aware that when weget caught in that rumination
and when we get caught in thatdecision-making thing.
(08:01):
For most decisions it is notworth.
You know, you spend the twoyears that you spent thinking
about it.
You could have tried one path,tried the other and be off on
the third.
Or, you know, you cook themwith gas because you figured out
which way works and which waydoesn't and you're doing it
right, you're doing the thing.
So don't waste your life on notdoing the thing, on not
(08:22):
exploring, because really that'swhat it is it's an exploration.
So it's an experiment.
It's an exploration, right?
It's an adventure, and life isall of those things.
And if we use that language andsee it as that way and see it
as a place to experiment and trydifferent things and see what
fits and see what works and seewhat we're good at and see what
(08:43):
we're not good at, becausethat's the other thing you don't
know your strengths and whatyou can do and what you can't do
and all those things, until youtry and do it.
You go out and you do it andthat's how you find out.
I've had this same conversationwhere I've talked about people
kind of like navel gazing andwondering who am I?
And the truth is, you find outwho you are by going out in the
(09:04):
world and by being right.
You go out in the world and youdo stuff.
You go out in the world and yoube around people.
You go out in the world and youactively get involved.
And that's actually how youfind out who you are, because
you find out what yourpersonality is like.
You find out what yourstrengths are.
You find out what yourweaknesses are.
There might be some weaknessesyou can strengthen and there
(09:24):
might be some weaknesses.
The only way you strengthenthem is by just avoiding those
and hiring someone else to dothat thing, or letting someone
else do that thing and you dosomething different.
But whatever it is, you findout what that is.
But you don't find out whatthat is by sitting down,
wondering and worrying about itand thinking what if, what if?
And you could do the what ifsforever.
(09:49):
I could sit here and spendyears what if-ing about
everything.
It doesn't change the outcome.
The outcome is we're all goingto be dead one day.
That's the outcome.
Right In between now and thenis our time to be alive.
It doesn't change the fact thatyou might fall over and make a
fool of yourself.
It doesn't change the fact thatlife is full of all of the
changes.
You're going to gain friends,you're going to lose friends.
You're going to have love.
You're going to lose love.
(10:10):
You're going to have grief,you're going to have happiness.
All of that's going to happenin life, no matter what.
But if you go out and you'reactually prepared to do the
experiment and the explorationand all of those things and go
out and just be part of life andget involved in life, at least
you get to live yours right.
And also, that's whenever youread if you've ever read
(10:30):
anyone's book, anyautobiographies or any watch the
movie or anything about peoplewho've achieved great things.
There's one thing they all havein common they just get in there
and get stuff done, don't theyright?
They just make it happen.
They make it happen becausethey do it.
They just get in there and getstuff done, don't they right?
They just make it happen.
They make it happen becausethey do it.
They don't make it happenbecause they perseverate about
it.
They make it happen becausethey do it.
(10:50):
So I'm not saying never stopand think about things, never
listen to your intuition, neverweigh things up.
Absolutely do those things, butdon't spend so many years on
your life, or perseverating onsomething that you should just
be doing and trialing, like justdo the experiment, figure out.
You know that didn't work, thatdidn't work.
I'll try this way now, right,because I think that in most
(11:14):
cases, there's more to be lostby perseverating on things and
by worrying about things thanthere is by actually doing
things, moving forward.
Even if the moving forward isdoing small steps, the moving
forward could be okay.
I'm going to start this thing,I'm going to learn this thing,
I'm going to try this thing.
I'm going to book to talk tothis person because this person
(11:35):
is an expert on the thing, somaybe I'm going to ask them
about the risk reward, whatever.
But most people they don't getto the end of their life and
regret what they have done.
Sometimes we regret some things, but largely the reports I hear
back is that people regretthings that they haven't done,
they haven't said.
So I regret that I never triedthe thing because I was too
(11:56):
scared or I didn't tell people Iloved them, or I didn't speak
my mind, or I didn't stand upfor myself or whatever it was.
That's what people regret.
So keep in mind the fact thatit is really important that if
you find yourself someone who'sruminating on things, at some
(12:17):
point you just have to make achoice.
So just make one.
Just make one and don't call ita decision, call it an
experiment, because if youchange it, sometimes a lot of
achieving stuff in life I'vecome to understand is these life
hacks.
These life hacks are aboutchanging up here.
They're about changing ourneural pathways and changing the
(12:38):
way we think.
And sometimes that's just liketaking out certain trigger words
or understanding there'scertain trigger words so that
you play around with it and youplay around with the language,
and you play around with thelanguage in a way that makes
something feel possible for youwhen maybe it didn't feel
possible before.
Because when you say you haveto do this, you have to get it
(12:59):
exactly right and you have to bea perfectionist and all things
I've talked about perfectionlots of times, perfection just
gets in the way because youcan't do it, so it's never going
to happen.
But when you just say, hey, I'mgoing to experiment, I'm going
to try this thing, I'm going toexplore this thing, right, so
I'm going to explorepossibilities, right, that's
very different to say I'm goingto make this momentous decision
(13:23):
and so many things in lifearen't momentous decisions.
Some things are, but manythings aren't.
And a lot of us waste so muchtime in the weeds of all of
these much less importantdecisions.
And the truth is, if you getgood at making these decisions
and figuring it out and figuringout how to reassess when you go
wrong or just change gears, ifthings change or change things
(13:45):
up, whatever happens in life,then the more that you'll
understand that the bigdecisions you can make as well,
because you'll actually havemore faith in yourself.
Because one of the biggestthings is like what if?
What if I fail?
What if it's too hard for me?
What if I can't do it?
But there's always anothersolution.
And so that's the other thingtoo is that the people who do
(14:05):
well in life, the people whosucceed, that the reason they do
well is because they knowthere's always a solution right.
So they're just of the mindsetthat, no matter what happens,
there's always a solution.
And I think if you are of thatmindset, you are more likely to
go and try different things,whereas if you get caught up but
(14:26):
what if?
And I won't be able to.
And the truth is, if you lookback in life, even the times
that were awful, and the timesthat you were stuck and the
times you didn't know what to do, or the times you made mistakes
.
Well, you're still here, right.
So you figured something out,so you plotted your way through
it, so you figured it out in theend, right, and that's the
(14:49):
truth is.
We do.
The truth is we figure it out.
And the truth is that even theworst things that happen, we
figure them out, and we figurethem out because we have to.
So sometimes that's the otherthing too, because you think, oh
, I don't know how I'd ever copeif this happened to me.
And then you do because ithappens and because you have to.
(15:09):
So you can't really prepare forit, though, you just can't.
You know, and it's like I'vetalked about it before my mother
passed away four years ago, andI've talked about it on this
podcast on and off, because itwas very significant for me, as
it is for everybody, if not most, most people.
When your mother passes and youknow, I could have done all
this, and I sort of did to acertain degree with preparation
(15:30):
of how am I going to feel, how'sit going to be, you can't deal
with it until it's in front ofyou, right, it's in front of you
.
Then you deal with it and thenwhat you do?
You have the emotions, you havethe grief, you do what you need
to do and it doesn't mean andI'm not saying four years down
the track, I'm completely overit, and I'm not ever I don't
ever cry or I'm not ever sad,but I've survived, I'm okay, and
(15:52):
I have some really sad momentsand I have some really happy
moments.
I'm not in as bad a place as Iwas four years ago when it
happened.
So you know, we do get, we do.
You do get sort of more used toit.
You get just more used toliving without the person.
I suppose that's the thing.
It's not quite four years, it'slike three and a half, I think,
uh.
But you know, the thing is yousurvive the thing because you
(16:13):
have the thing happen and youand you survive it, right, the
only way you know you're goingto survive it is because you do
it and anything difficult that'shappened.
You know, I've.
I've been, I've sat, beensacked before, lost my job.
I I've had all sorts of issueswith finances and with
relationships and differentthings in my life, and how did I
survive them?
Well, you kind of have to,because the thing happens.
And then what do you do?
Are you just going to go andclimb in bed and say, well, okay
(16:35):
, that's it, life is done, orare you just going to get on
with it?
And really, we just have to geton with it, right?
So it's the fact that we justneed to get on with it in life.
And sometimes you know, evenwhen someone dies, the sun still
comes up the next day, right,sun still comes up, you still
need to have a shower, you stillneed to eat, life still happens
, you still need to pay thebills, right?
(16:55):
No-transcript, you survive it.
You learn how to figure it out.
And so when we get caught up indecisions and caught up in using
really big language arounddecisions like it's the end of
life for most decisions whichare not anything that dramatic
(17:15):
we really hold ourselves backand we really make life
difficult for ourselves.
So I actually really likeGeorge Mack's language around
this.
I really like the fact that hecalls a decision an experiment,
because an experiment is exactlywhat it is and I think in life,
if we thought more in terms ofbeing curious, having an
(17:38):
experiment around things andtrying things and exploring
things.
I think, if we use that kind oflanguage, that helps us to
understand what life is allabout, because life is all about
those things and the truth isthat things are changing all the
time and technology is changingall the time and whatever.
So no one can know all thingsand be prepared for all things
that might happen in the future,because we don't know what's
(18:00):
going to happen in the future.
So we experiment, we explore,we change track.
When we need to change track,train change track, both I think
both probably are valid, butyou know, we just you know do
what you need to do and werespond to situations as they
arise.
But I just really love thatlanguage and I think so much of
(18:21):
life is about the language hack,of using language that doesn't
freak you out and andunderstanding that you are much
more resilient than what youbelieve that you are and you can
deal with stuff.
But the only way you can is bydoing it.
You do it, you survive it andyou know you can survive it.
And you do it and make mistakes, but you know you can come back
(18:44):
from them.
So you know you go throughsomething hard, you go through
something difficult, but youcome out to the other side and
the only way we really know, ashuman beings, that we can do
that is one is by looking atwhat other people do, but the
other is actually literally bydoing it ourselves and finding
out that we can do it.
So you get trust in yourself.
I've talked about this a lot.
(19:04):
When we show up for ourselveson a regular basis, we trust
ourselves, and so we're onlygoing to trust ourselves and
trust in ourselves and trust inour ability when we use them,
and you're only going to usethem when you go and do life,
and life is about a whole bunchof little decisions.
So, rather than call them alldecisions and have this big
language around it, if that isholding you back, change the
(19:27):
language up and it might makeall the difference for you.
So I hope that was really reallyuseful and please refer back to
Modern Wisdom with ChrisWilliamson.
It's his podcast I'm referringto and it was his interview that
he did with George Mack, soit's worth checking that out.
It was really, really I foundit really beneficial and I don't
(19:50):
know if he's spoken to himbefore, but the time I'm
recording this is actually March2025.
So if there's more than oneinterview, it's that what I'm
talking about, but I'm sure anyhe's done will be really, really
useful and helpful.
So thank you for listening orwatching.
I hope that you learnedsomething today and please again
, can you please like, subscribeand share?
(20:11):
80% of people who watch andlisten to this podcast are not
subscribed, and that makes a bigdifference to how many people I
get in front of, how manypeople get to see and listen to
this podcast and benefit fromany of the things that I'm
teaching about and learningabout and exploring in my
podcast.
So I really appreciate if youcan like, subscribe, share and
(20:34):
also if people do reviews thatmakes a big difference as well
ratings and reviews.
So I would really appreciateall of that.
I hope you have a lovely weekand I'll see you all again next
week.
Thank you, Bye.
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
with Fiona Kane.
Today I'm actually going to betalking to you about decision
making and rumination, so reallykind of about the sort of the
things that can reframe thingsand the things that can change
things in regards to that,because so many of us get stuck
(00:21):
in ruminating about decisionsand not sure what I should do.
Us get stuck in ruminatingabout decisions and not sure
what I should do and whathappens is we spend so much time
thinking I'll begin that when,or I don't know whether or not I
should do that, what willhappen if all of these things go
wrong?
That we just don't get thingsdone and we just don't do things
in life.
So there's so many decisionswhere we just don't need that
(00:43):
level of rumination.
Now, if your decision is aboutyou know who should I marry, or
something like that, of coursethat's a different situation
where you do want to spend moretime thinking about it and you
do really want to get thingsright if you can.
Even then, of course, no, it'smodern times.
You don't necessarily have tostay with that person forever,
(01:04):
but it is ideal if we can makeour marriages work, of course.
Anyway, I digress, but manydecisions are just not as big as
we make them out to be.
And even today, the world welive in now, 2025, people have
more than one career.
So even the decision about whatcareer you should do, it
doesn't matter.
You can change and more oftenthan not, the experience we have
(01:27):
in one thing will actually helpus in something else, even if
it seems like it won't.
You know, I spent many yearsdoing secretarial work and the
skills I had doing that reallyhelped me in my own business,
right.
So you know, it could be theskills you learned as in like
what you did at university orwhat you did in your course.
It could be the skills youlearned as in, like what you did
at university or what you didin your course.
It could be the skills youlearned by the people, skills or
(01:48):
the fact that you had to marketyourself in a certain way.
It could be the skills youlearned by being on the ground
in a certain situation, or thetravel that you did for a
certain job.
There's a whole lot of skillsthat we get that help us anyway,
even if we're not sort of doingthat thing forever.
So it is really important to notget stuck on making choices,
(02:12):
and today I was actuallylistening to an interesting
podcast.
I love Chris Williamson's showwhich is called Modern Wisdom,
and he had I think his name wasGeorge Mack on the show and he's
a really interesting man andhe's obviously been doing lots
of different research and whathe said is in regards to like,
(02:33):
when you're ruminating ondecisions, he has a great
reframe that he uses.
So his reframe is to call themexperiments, not decisions, and
I think that is a really greatreframe because an experiment is
quite different to a decision,because we do create, we make
words a big deal right and weput some words as like they're
(02:56):
heavier than other words.
We put a lot of weight on themand I think the word decision
there's a lot of weight on thatword.
So when you change the worddecision to the word experiment,
it's okay.
This is just something I amgoing to try which is very
different from I've got to makethis decision right.
So the word decision is verystrong and it feels like it's
(03:17):
got a lot of weight on it and alot of ramifications to it,
whereas the word experiment isvery different and the thing
about experimenting is that,essentially, making a decision
is making a decision, even ifyou were driving somewhere,
right.
You make a decision, you come toa crossroads.
You don't know which way to go.
You say, well, which one?
(03:38):
I'll just go this way, rightNow.
If this way doesn't work, well,what do you do?
You end up going the other way,or you find your way back, all
right.
So essentially, in many thingsin life, it's the same thing
that you make a decision, butthat decision doesn't mean you
are bound to go in that onedirection forever and you can't
change anything, you can't addanything, you can't remove
(03:59):
anything.
It's just a choice to moveforward, because moving forward
is always a good idea.
Occasionally it's good to stop,you know, whatever, but moving
forward is a good thing.
So a big part of this isactually just moving forward,
and when we move forward we getmomentum and we get experience
and we learn things, and that'swhat keeps us going right.
(04:22):
So you know, I think he'sabsolutely right in his
reframing of the word decisionto experiment.
I use the same thing with myclients in regards to food.
So I say we're going to have afood adventure.
A food adventure is verydifferent and has a very
different energy to we're goingto go on a diet, or we're going
(04:45):
to restrict your diet, or we'regoing to take foods away or
whatever other language.
When you just say, let's have afood adventure, let's have an
adventure and see how you feelwhen you eat different ways and
you try different things,language is very powerful and it
has a very different feelingfor it and a very different
feeling.
The words just have differentfeelings, different heaviness
(05:09):
and different energies aroundthem.
So I would encourage you inyour own life, to, whether or
not you're thinking aboutdecisions or whatever it is, one
is just I always go back tojust be really, really aware of
the language, be aware of thewords you say.
And when you're making decisions, like so many of us, we get
caught.
Well, what if people will laughat me?
(05:31):
Or what will people say?
Or what if I get it wrong?
Well, what if, in most cases,getting it wrong is not the end
of the world?
In the majority of cases,getting it wrong is just
learning another way of notdoing it that way.
That that didn't work, we'lltry it a different way.
Or that didn't work, we'll trysomething different.
And you know, I think that oneof the uh, one of the things,
(05:52):
that, uh, powerful things thatsome people do when they're,
when they do courses and thingslike that is they actually start
with people with.
Okay, let's start and imaginethat you've passed away and
you're actually at your funeralservice or your wake, or
whatever you call it, right, andyou're at this wake and you're
(06:13):
hearing what people say aboutyou, right?
And you're hearing what'shappening there.
Okay, at this point, did itmatter that you took the wrong
turn?
Did it matter that you made acareer decision that you later
on regretted and so you changedit to something else?
Did it matter that you kind offell over and made a fool of
yourself or whatever?
Probably not right.
So we do put a lot of weightinto things that really
(06:37):
shouldn't have that much weight.
And the truth is that if we'reafraid to get it wrong, if we're
afraid to be wrong, if we'reafraid to make a mistake, if
we're afraid to look silly, wewill never achieve anything.
And all the people that doachieve great things, they are
willing to look silly first.
All of the people like what'shis name?
(06:58):
Is it Tony Hawk who does theskateboarding?
I think it is.
He's probably an older one.
I'm sure there's much youngerpeople now.
But whoever these people areright.
People who do motorsports, theydo any kind of sports Actually.
They do singing, they play theguitar, whatever it is.
These people have been willingto do it wrong a lot of the time
and do it badly and literallyfall over and make a fool of
(07:19):
themselves and look silly andall of the rest of it.
And they've been willing to dothat over and make a fool of
themselves and look silly andall the rest of it.
And they've been willing to dothat over and over and over
again until they get better atit.
And eventually they get betterat it and they become experts.
And then people actually paythem to do it or pay them to
watch them sing or whatever itis right.
But how did they do that?
They weren't just born with it.
(07:39):
They might have been.
Obviously, people are born withcertain kind of more natural
talents than others, but theystill weren't born being able to
do the thing right.
They're able to do the thingbecause they practiced it lots
and lots and lots of times andthey got good at it because they
practiced it.
So just be aware that when weget caught in that rumination
and when we get caught in thatdecision-making thing.
(08:01):
For most decisions it is notworth.
You know, you spend the twoyears that you spent thinking
about it.
You could have tried one path,tried the other and be off on
the third.
Or, you know, you cook themwith gas because you figured out
which way works and which waydoesn't and you're doing it
right, you're doing the thing.
So don't waste your life on notdoing the thing, on not
(08:22):
exploring, because really that'swhat it is it's an exploration.
So it's an experiment.
It's an exploration, right?
It's an adventure, and life isall of those things.
And if we use that language andsee it as that way and see it
as a place to experiment and trydifferent things and see what
fits and see what works and seewhat we're good at and see what
(08:43):
we're not good at, becausethat's the other thing you don't
know your strengths and whatyou can do and what you can't do
and all those things, until youtry and do it.
You go out and you do it andthat's how you find out.
I've had this same conversationwhere I've talked about people
kind of like navel gazing andwondering who am I?
And the truth is, you find outwho you are by going out in the
(09:04):
world and by being right.
You go out in the world and youdo stuff.
You go out in the world and yoube around people.
You go out in the world and youactively get involved.
And that's actually how youfind out who you are, because
you find out what yourpersonality is like.
You find out what yourstrengths are.
You find out what yourweaknesses are.
There might be some weaknessesyou can strengthen and there
(09:24):
might be some weaknesses.
The only way you strengthenthem is by just avoiding those
and hiring someone else to dothat thing, or letting someone
else do that thing and you dosomething different.
But whatever it is, you findout what that is.
But you don't find out whatthat is by sitting down,
wondering and worrying about itand thinking what if, what if?
And you could do the what ifsforever.
(09:49):
I could sit here and spendyears what if-ing about
everything.
It doesn't change the outcome.
The outcome is we're all goingto be dead one day.
That's the outcome.
Right In between now and thenis our time to be alive.
It doesn't change the fact thatyou might fall over and make a
fool of yourself.
It doesn't change the fact thatlife is full of all of the
changes.
You're going to gain friends,you're going to lose friends.
You're going to have love.
You're going to lose love.
(10:10):
You're going to have grief,you're going to have happiness.
All of that's going to happenin life, no matter what.
But if you go out and you'reactually prepared to do the
experiment and the explorationand all of those things and go
out and just be part of life andget involved in life, at least
you get to live yours right.
And also, that's whenever youread if you've ever read
(10:30):
anyone's book, anyautobiographies or any watch the
movie or anything about peoplewho've achieved great things.
There's one thing they all havein common they just get in there
and get stuff done, don't theyright?
They just make it happen.
They make it happen becausethey do it.
They just get in there and getstuff done, don't they right?
They just make it happen.
They make it happen becausethey do it.
They don't make it happenbecause they perseverate about
it.
They make it happen becausethey do it.
(10:50):
So I'm not saying never stopand think about things, never
listen to your intuition, neverweigh things up.
Absolutely do those things, butdon't spend so many years on
your life, or perseverating onsomething that you should just
be doing and trialing, like justdo the experiment, figure out.
You know that didn't work, thatdidn't work.
I'll try this way now, right,because I think that in most
(11:14):
cases, there's more to be lostby perseverating on things and
by worrying about things thanthere is by actually doing
things, moving forward.
Even if the moving forward isdoing small steps, the moving
forward could be okay.
I'm going to start this thing,I'm going to learn this thing,
I'm going to try this thing.
I'm going to book to talk tothis person because this person
(11:35):
is an expert on the thing, somaybe I'm going to ask them
about the risk reward, whatever.
But most people they don't getto the end of their life and
regret what they have done.
Sometimes we regret some things, but largely the reports I hear
back is that people regretthings that they haven't done,
they haven't said.
So I regret that I never triedthe thing because I was too
(11:56):
scared or I didn't tell people Iloved them, or I didn't speak
my mind, or I didn't stand upfor myself or whatever it was.
That's what people regret.
So keep in mind the fact thatit is really important that if
you find yourself someone who'sruminating on things, at some
(12:17):
point you just have to make achoice.
So just make one.
Just make one and don't call ita decision, call it an
experiment, because if youchange it, sometimes a lot of
achieving stuff in life I'vecome to understand is these life
hacks.
These life hacks are aboutchanging up here.
They're about changing ourneural pathways and changing the
(12:38):
way we think.
And sometimes that's just liketaking out certain trigger words
or understanding there'scertain trigger words so that
you play around with it and youplay around with the language,
and you play around with thelanguage in a way that makes
something feel possible for youwhen maybe it didn't feel
possible before.
Because when you say you haveto do this, you have to get it
(12:59):
exactly right and you have to bea perfectionist and all things
I've talked about perfectionlots of times, perfection just
gets in the way because youcan't do it, so it's never going
to happen.
But when you just say, hey, I'mgoing to experiment, I'm going
to try this thing, I'm going toexplore this thing, right, so
I'm going to explorepossibilities, right, that's
very different to say I'm goingto make this momentous decision
(13:23):
and so many things in lifearen't momentous decisions.
Some things are, but manythings aren't.
And a lot of us waste so muchtime in the weeds of all of
these much less importantdecisions.
And the truth is, if you getgood at making these decisions
and figuring it out and figuringout how to reassess when you go
wrong or just change gears, ifthings change or change things
(13:45):
up, whatever happens in life,then the more that you'll
understand that the bigdecisions you can make as well,
because you'll actually havemore faith in yourself.
Because one of the biggestthings is like what if?
What if I fail?
What if it's too hard for me?
What if I can't do it?
But there's always anothersolution.
And so that's the other thingtoo is that the people who do
(14:05):
well in life, the people whosucceed, that the reason they do
well is because they knowthere's always a solution right.
So they're just of the mindsetthat, no matter what happens,
there's always a solution.
And I think if you are of thatmindset, you are more likely to
go and try different things,whereas if you get caught up but
(14:26):
what if?
And I won't be able to.
And the truth is, if you lookback in life, even the times
that were awful, and the timesthat you were stuck and the
times you didn't know what to do, or the times you made mistakes
.
Well, you're still here, right.
So you figured something out,so you plotted your way through
it, so you figured it out in theend, right, and that's the
(14:49):
truth is.
We do.
The truth is we figure it out.
And the truth is that even theworst things that happen, we
figure them out, and we figurethem out because we have to.
So sometimes that's the otherthing too, because you think, oh
, I don't know how I'd ever copeif this happened to me.
And then you do because ithappens and because you have to.
(15:09):
So you can't really prepare forit, though, you just can't.
You know, and it's like I'vetalked about it before my mother
passed away four years ago, andI've talked about it on this
podcast on and off, because itwas very significant for me, as
it is for everybody, if not most, most people.
When your mother passes and youknow, I could have done all
this, and I sort of did to acertain degree with preparation
(15:30):
of how am I going to feel, how'sit going to be, you can't deal
with it until it's in front ofyou, right, it's in front of you
.
Then you deal with it and thenwhat you do?
You have the emotions, you havethe grief, you do what you need
to do and it doesn't mean andI'm not saying four years down
the track, I'm completely overit, and I'm not ever I don't
ever cry or I'm not ever sad,but I've survived, I'm okay, and
(15:52):
I have some really sad momentsand I have some really happy
moments.
I'm not in as bad a place as Iwas four years ago when it
happened.
So you know, we do get, we do.
You do get sort of more used toit.
You get just more used toliving without the person.
I suppose that's the thing.
It's not quite four years, it'slike three and a half, I think,
uh.
But you know, the thing is yousurvive the thing because you
(16:13):
have the thing happen and youand you survive it, right, the
only way you know you're goingto survive it is because you do
it and anything difficult that'shappened.
You know, I've.
I've been, I've sat, beensacked before, lost my job.
I I've had all sorts of issueswith finances and with
relationships and differentthings in my life, and how did I
survive them?
Well, you kind of have to,because the thing happens.
And then what do you do?
Are you just going to go andclimb in bed and say, well, okay
(16:35):
, that's it, life is done, orare you just going to get on
with it?
And really, we just have to geton with it, right?
So it's the fact that we justneed to get on with it in life.
And sometimes you know, evenwhen someone dies, the sun still
comes up the next day, right,sun still comes up, you still
need to have a shower, you stillneed to eat, life still happens
, you still need to pay thebills, right?
(16:55):
No-transcript, you survive it.
You learn how to figure it out.
And so when we get caught up indecisions and caught up in using
really big language arounddecisions like it's the end of
life for most decisions whichare not anything that dramatic
(17:15):
we really hold ourselves backand we really make life
difficult for ourselves.
So I actually really likeGeorge Mack's language around
this.
I really like the fact that hecalls a decision an experiment,
because an experiment is exactlywhat it is and I think in life,
if we thought more in terms ofbeing curious, having an
(17:38):
experiment around things andtrying things and exploring
things.
I think, if we use that kind oflanguage, that helps us to
understand what life is allabout, because life is all about
those things and the truth isthat things are changing all the
time and technology is changingall the time and whatever.
So no one can know all thingsand be prepared for all things
that might happen in the future,because we don't know what's
(18:00):
going to happen in the future.
So we experiment, we explore,we change track.
When we need to change track,train change track, both I think
both probably are valid, butyou know, we just you know do
what you need to do and werespond to situations as they
arise.
But I just really love thatlanguage and I think so much of
(18:21):
life is about the language hack,of using language that doesn't
freak you out and andunderstanding that you are much
more resilient than what youbelieve that you are and you can
deal with stuff.
But the only way you can is bydoing it.
You do it, you survive it andyou know you can survive it.
And you do it and make mistakes, but you know you can come back
(18:44):
from them.
So you know you go throughsomething hard, you go through
something difficult, but youcome out to the other side and
the only way we really know, ashuman beings, that we can do
that is one is by looking atwhat other people do, but the
other is actually literally bydoing it ourselves and finding
out that we can do it.
So you get trust in yourself.
I've talked about this a lot.
(19:04):
When we show up for ourselveson a regular basis, we trust
ourselves, and so we're onlygoing to trust ourselves and
trust in ourselves and trust inour ability when we use them,
and you're only going to usethem when you go and do life,
and life is about a whole bunchof little decisions.
So, rather than call them alldecisions and have this big
language around it, if that isholding you back, change the
(19:27):
language up and it might makeall the difference for you.
So I hope that was really reallyuseful and please refer back to
Modern Wisdom with ChrisWilliamson.
It's his podcast I'm referringto and it was his interview that
he did with George Mack, soit's worth checking that out.
It was really, really I foundit really beneficial and I don't
(19:50):
know if he's spoken to himbefore, but the time I'm
recording this is actually March2025.
So if there's more than oneinterview, it's that what I'm
talking about, but I'm sure anyhe's done will be really, really
useful and helpful.
So thank you for listening orwatching.
I hope that you learnedsomething today and please again
, can you please like, subscribeand share?
(20:11):
80% of people who watch andlisten to this podcast are not
subscribed, and that makes a bigdifference to how many people I
get in front of, how manypeople get to see and listen to
this podcast and benefit fromany of the things that I'm
teaching about and learningabout and exploring in my
podcast.
So I really appreciate if youcan like, subscribe, share and
(20:34):
also if people do reviews thatmakes a big difference as well
ratings and reviews.
So I would really appreciateall of that.
I hope you have a lovely weekand I'll see you all again next
week.
Thank you, Bye.
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