A Guide To Mindful Decision Making

Image: Letizia Bordoni Unsplash

We all know how tough it can be to make decisions sometimes. We can get caught up in the overwhelm of the moment and feel rushed to make a decision and often in those moments we don’t make the best ones. These decisions can often be made from a trauma response as well. If you find yourself in a fight, flight, freeze or fawn state when making a decision know that your nervous system became dysregulated and from this space your pre-frontal cortex shuts down making it much harder to think clearly let alone make good decisions.

I’ve been chatting away with a friend recently around making the decision to leave a job that is no longer a good fit, and I mentioned that making a decision from fear is not a great motivator for making a good decision. As human design tells us the mind/head/crown centre is a terrible decision maker, your strategy and authority are what will lead you in the right direction. Following your strategy and authority might sound easy but the reality of it can be a very different story.

If you don’t know I have a business human design chart as well as my own personal chart. We are both manifesting generators, with a strategy to respond however I have a sacral authority and my business has an emotional authority. This difference is actually really important to overlay the strategy with when making a decision. Why you may ask, well because the emotional authority needs to go through a complete wave of a high to a low and back to neutral. If you don’t go through this complete wave your decision may have be influenced by the mind or rushed either way often the decision leads to all sorts of negative outcomes. I found this out recently when making a decision for my business and I over rid its emotional authority and made it with my sacral authority which can make it in the moment. No surprise that decision has had many negative consequences albeit learning experiences. What did I learn from this is that if I am making a decision for my business I need to use it’s emotional authority and not my sacral authority.

I had an interesting experience late last week where I was considering a purchase but I couldn’t quite name why it wasn’t feeling good, it made sense on paper but there was an aspect of me that just wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until I was reading a blueprint that I had received at the start of the year that I went back to and had a look at April’s message and it made mention of making decisions based on what nourished me, not what impressed me or accelerated me that I finally understood what was stopping me from saying yes. The decision behind the purchase was coming from a place of accelerating my business but at the same time it didn’t feel nourishing. Once I had this piece of information I made the decision to not purchase easily, and that was a clear sign that it was the right decision. The other important part of this one was that I gave myself time to travel through my business’s emotional authority.

As you can see decision making is multi-layered and at times not easy and clear cut. We can be influenced by many factors when it comes to being presented with a decision that needs some thought. I’m also not talking about deciding what to have dinner here, these are bigger and more emotionally ladened decisions, such as large purchases, business decisions, investment options and so forth.

“Mindful decision making is a process, it may be a quick one but more likely there will be layers that you need to go through to get to your yes or no.”

Sarah Yeoman

My Guide For Mindful Decision Making:

• Check in and see if you are triggered in the moment when making a decision. this will often lead to a decision being made from a trauma response and not one that is from a place of discernment. Allow yourself to come out of the triggered state before contemplating your decision.

• If you are aware of your human design strategy and authority. Use these as guides to help make your decisions. Check in with your strategy then overlay that with your authority. Don’t be afraid to say I need to get back to you if you need to go through your emotional or lunar wave. Also don’t force your emotional wave, sometimes it will be fast and other times it may take days or longer to complete.

  Here is a refresh of the authorities in human design:

  1. Sacral Authority

  2. Emotional Authority

  3. Splenic Authority

  4. Ego-Projected Authority

  5. Ego-Manifested Authority

  6. Self-projected/G Centre Authority

  7. Mental Environmental Authority

  8. Lunar Authority

  Here are the strategies in human design:

  1. To Respond (Manifesting Generators/Generators)

  2. To inform (Manifestors)

  3. To wait a lunar cycle (Reflectors)

  4. To wait for the invitation (Projectors)

• Be aware of your motivation for making the decision. Is it from a place of competition, love, fear, rejection, or other emotion. When our emotions are involved, we need to be mindful that this may influence our decision. I believe the ideal place to make a decision from is neutral, that is we’ve taken the time to consider different sides and aspects of the decision and we are not either overly excited or fearful of the outcome. I think it is important to not hold a particular outcome when making decisions, if we remain open to what may come then we are less likely to place a burden on ourselves when we make this decision.

• If money is involved, I suggest asking the question “If money was not involved what decision would I make?”. I believe money is a terrible motivator for making mindful decisions, because money doesn’t provide us with a sense of fulfillment. I’ve been in jobs where no amount of money or so called financial security could override the toxic workplace culture. So, my suggestion is to remove money as a deciding factor and come back to what would nourish your soul.

• If you are having trouble making a decision that is a clear sign that you usually need more information before making it. This is where allowing time to explore other options, other stories that may be running behind the scenes before feeling pressured to make a decision. I believe a mindful decision is one where in the end it is made easily and with as little emotion as possible, it feels quite neutral. Sometimes there might be some excitement, ideally there is never doubt present and if there is I would highly suggestion holding off on making the decision until to have more clarity.

• Be mindful it may be a not right now decision and that is a decision to. Not all decisions end with a nice yes or no response sometimes they show up with uncertainty and a feeling that says I would like to but the timing feels off. Recognise this as a decision as well, timing has a place in your decision making process. I am a firm believe that what is meant for you cannot pass you, it it’s truly meant to be you will be presented with the decision again at some point in time that is more conducive to a yes.

Mindful decision making is a process, it may be a quick one but more likely there will be layers that you need to go through to get to your yes or no. The layers to mindful decision making can come in many forms from emotional influences, a sense of pressure, financial and so forth, making sure that you eliminate as many of those influences from the process I believe is vitally important to making a decision that is right for you. Mindful decision making helps take the stress out of deciding, so the next time you are considering a major life decision consider checking in and going through a process that I have highlighted above or one of your own to make sure that the decision you are making is one that nourishes your heart and soul.