307. Don't Let the Bully Steal Your Truth (prevent future regret)

Speaker A: Well, hello my friend. I'm your host, konigraaf. Thank you so much for allowing me back into your ears today. I want to talk about decision making again, but a little bit different than before. Also about something that drives so many of our decisions, either as business owners, but also in our private life. But we might not always be aware of it, or if we are aware of it, we might not dare to say it out loud. I'm actually talking about the fear of future regret. That specific sneaky thought. What if I look back a year from now or six months from now or whatever and feel like I made the wrong decision? Let's take an example. Let's say you're facing a big financial decision like selling your house. This is a decision where it's objectively there is no right answer, right? The market could go up, the market can go down, nobody knows. But we still have to make a decision. We still said we want to sell our house and so we will have to accept an offer or not accept an offer. And we need to define some rules around when we do accept an offer and when we don't. But here is what can happen. You can get an offer and it's a fair offer, let's say. And instead of feeling really relieved that there is actually an offer on the table and that you can work from here on the deal, you find yourself circling the same thoughts over and over and over. What if I look back a year from now and feel like I left money on the table, I made the wrong decision, I jumped too quickly. You're worried that your future, you will be judging you down the road. And that feels very real and is feeling also threatening. And it keeps you paralyzed and not wanting to make a decision or stalling your decision, right? So a recent call with one of my clients, she presented me with a scenario similar like that. And she was quite emotional around it. Not just because of this big scary decision, but also because after talking this through with her, she realized something about herself. She realized and recognized that she has a tendency toward regretting her decision, toward second guessing herself. So it's a tendency to always look back and wonder, what if I would have decided different? What if I would have waited? What if I would have acted quicker? And Michael Singer says to this, this is really fruitless and useless because you can't change the past. So you're really tormenting yourself with something that you can't even change anymore. So it's of no use. And here still we are doing it and me included, right? So Now, I'm m not saying just other people are doing this. I do this too. But I have learned over the years to do it less. Let's just say like that. So here is what I said to her, my client, and this is really the heart of today's episode. The message I want you to hear specifically, if you want, if you need to make a money decision, I want to say to if you have a natural tendency towards regretting your decisions or towards beating yourself up over past decisions, if that is your pattern, then no price or no amount of money will ever feel high enough or will ever prevent that. Because the tendency toward regret doesn't go away just because the number is bigger. So think about it this way, again with the house example. Whether you sold your house for 500,000, 550,000 or 600,000, that inner bully voice, the one that screams at you, you should have waited. You should have known better. You left money on the table. It will show up regardless of the sale price. Why? Because it's not really about the money. It is a pattern. Now hold that thought that it is a pattern. Because here is what I also want to offer you. What I see a lot is that people only look at half of the equation when they make decisions like this. They ask, what is the risk of accepting an offer, let's say the offer for the house. What if I leave money on the table? But they rarely ask, what is the cost of not deciding? What opportunities will I miss while waiting for something else? What is this uncertainty doing to me right now, to my feelings, to my nervous system, to my sleep, my mood, my mindset? How long am I willing to put my life on hold for a maybe to stay in this indecision, in this waiting spot? What is the version of me that keeps waiting costing the people around me? How am I acting towards these people? What do these people have to, um, experience around me, with me in this limbo space? And also, what does staying stuck in this indecision says about how much I trust myself and my decision making. And very important, when I say what does it cost me? Again, I don't just mean financially. I mean in the three types of wealth that I talked about in episode 301, a few weeks. Time, wealth, energy, uh, wealth and integrity. Wealth. Every m. Day, week or month, you wait for a better offer or a better moment or a better feeling. What is that really costing you? It could cost you time, wealth, time you could be spending on the next chapter of your life, the next thing, the next life. That is Waiting on the other side of this decision, it could cost you energy, wealth. The mental load of an open decision is enormous, especially if it's such a big decision. The circling thought, the what ifs, the what, watching the market, the hoping, the dreading, that is all not free. It might be free, like you don't have to pay dollars, but nevertheless, it is very expensive. And it can also cost you integrity, wealth too. Because at some point you have to ask yourself, I'm not making a decision in the hopes of more dollars. But what? At what. But at what price? At the price of my peace of mind, at the price of my energy, at the price of my sleep and my mood. And what about the people around me, my partner, my kids and my friends who live with the version of me that's stuck in this limbo? What is it costing me? What is the real cost? And that real cost rarely shows up on a spreadsheet. On a spreadsheet. So the real question really isn't just how do I get enough money? The real question is, what is the full cost of this decision? And what is the full cost of not making the decision? Now, let's go back to what I said earlier about the future. Regret is not about the money. It's a pattern. I want to offer you a solution for this pattern. Years ago, I heard my coach, Brooke Castillo, say something that changed my inner dialogue. And recently, Stacy Beaman reminded me in an email with the same idea. This idea, when I first heard it, was mind blowing to me. But since then, it has helped me so much to not beat myself up for decisions I made in the past. So here is what Brooke and what Stacy both are. Make a decision and then have your own back, no matter what. I know that sounds simpler than it is in reality. Still, think about what it means for a moment. Most of us are very good at defending the people we love. If your best friend or your child made a tough decision with the best information they had at, uh, the time, and six months later someone was beating them up over it, you would defend them like a mother bear, Like a mother bear defends their cub, you would say, she did the best she could with what she knew at the time, you would assure her too, that she's made a good call. But we rarely do that for ourselves. We give the bully free rein. We often even join in beating ourselves up. And that's what my client was worried about. And that's why she didn't want to make a decision, or that's why she was paralyzed. Making A decision or that's why it was so hard for her to make a decision. She knew she had to make one, she knew she wanted to make one, but she was struggling. So having your having your own back means deciding in advance that you will be that good friend to yourself, that no matter what the outcome, you will not abandon the version of you that made the that call. And this is also how and where self trust gets built. It's not before the decision, it's after it. Specifically how you think about your decision afterwards and in how you treat yourself after the decision. And this is why I said to you earlier that a big important question is what does staying stuck in this decision say about how much I trust myself? Because if you have your own back, if you decide in advance that you will have your own back, you can trust your decision. And this is also why Stacy said something that really landed for me as well. And it's around confidence. She says confidence is what happens on the outside when self trust is happening on the inside. Now, as you know, I don't just want to talk about things in abstract ways. I always want to offer you a practical thing or way in how to implement what I'm suggesting. So here's the practical thing I recommended to my client. And that's the same thing I want to offer you too. For whatever decision, big or small, what you're sitting with right now, you can do the right. When you make the decision, write down all your thoughts and your feelings, what you are doing and why, why you decided the way you did, what options you have looked at and compared the pros and the cons, what mattered to you and what and what doesn't. And again, not just about money, it's also about time and energy and the peace of mind. You write it all down for the future you for when that bully in her head shows up six, nine or 12 months from now and tries to yell at her for making the decision the way she made it. Because like I said earlier, if you have the tendency to beat yourself up over past decisions, then it doesn't matter if you sold at, ah, the highest price possible or not. If you made decision A or decision B, the bully will always find the reason why the decision was flawed and beat you up for it. Now, in your case, it might not be about the sale of a house, of course, or an investment you decide on. Maybe it's about a hire you made for your team, a client you took on or didn't take on, or a client you let go, or a pivot you took in your business, right? It really doesn't matter what decision. When you have that voice show up, you want something to be to fall back onto. And by that time you might have forgotten how you felt exactly and what your thinking was exactly. And that's why writing notes or even a voice memo to yourself will take you back back and will also confirm that you were very clear and grounded when you made the decision. And this will shut up the bully. You want to be able to go back and say, I was there, I made the decision on purpose with the information I had for reasons that were real and true to me at the time. And I'm not going to let a, uh, future feeling or thought or a bully in my head erase my past truth. And this is what having your own back looks like. Not to be confused with blind optimism in yourself or pretending it was easy, or pretending it's the right thing, or trying to ignore the nagging feeling and the nagging loud voice in your head. That's not working. It's standing by yourself the way you would stand by someone you love. So this is what I want you to take away from this week's episode. Before you decide, ask yourself the full question. Not just what does this cost me in dollars? But also what does waiting cost me in time and in energy and in peace of mind? There is more to wealth than money. If you need a refresher, you can go and listen again to episode 301. And then when you make the decision, also document the decision and have your own back the whole way through. So before I end, I want to say you deserve to be defended by the person who knows you best. And that person is you. So next time you make a big decision, or any decision, really, try being your own mother bear, document it, stand by it, and refuse to let a future feeling or thought rewrite a past truth. That is what having your own back looks like. And over time, that is how you build unshakable self trust. Okay, my friend, I would love to hear from you and what you think about having your own back. For me, that was a very new and surprising concept when uh, I first heard it and it has really changed the way I treat myself, the way I think about myself, but also the way I make decisions. If this is, um, a new concept for you, like it was for me, or even if it's not, I really would like to hear from you and I would love to hear your thoughts. If you get my weekly emails in your element, just hit reply on one of them and tell me what decision that you are having your own back on right now. And if you're not signed up for my in your element yet, well, first of all, what the heck, you're really missing out. But you can also find me on Instagram at I amconigraph and you can send me a dm. Um there and tell me what decision are you having your own back on right now? Okay, my friend, thanks for listening all the way to the end. It truly means a lot to me. Have a beautiful week. Take good care. Talk to you next time. Bye for now.