I heard a great sermon the other day about how to heal your heart. Your soul. Your life. It spoke about how you can deceive yourself by believing in things that are not true. You convince yourself that what is likely not a good idea, is a great idea. Only afterwards you say to yourself “what was I thinking”!
The human mind makes approximately 35,000 decisions a day.
Having heard that I could only think that the vast majority of those are made in the unconscious mind. Maybe a small percentage are made with a conscious effort and mindset. Of the small percentage made with active thinking, how many are we making that are good decisions?
What is it about our decision making process that causes us to make bad decisions? I would say most of the decisions we make are good and those that turn out bad are made with good intentions. But what causes us to convince ourselves that something is good for us, when it probably is not?
I would say that we often make decisions by listening to our internal voices. The voices that we listen to in our mind. Don Miguel Ruiz calls these our mitote. It is the thousands of voices inside our minds that speak to us constantly. Some call it our thoughts, but the mitote is the fog that is created by the thousands of voices trying to speak at once and often competing for your attention. They are the voices of your emotions and your beliefs.
When you make a conscious decision, you are mulling it over in your mind, listening to your inner thoughts or voices. They help you make up your mind on what you will do. Will I watch TV, go outside and enjoy the day, take that promotion, switch jobs, start that diet, eat healthier foods, or quit smoking. Everything in life is a choice. And every choice is a decision. The ones that really matter are ones you think about before making your decision.
If we have important decisions to make we might ask someone else to help in that decision. Get a second opinion. Maybe get advice or counsel. This is my thought process, what could I be missing here? It’s good to seek out advice or counsel from others. Often you turn to your spouse or a good friend. I know that one of my best friends from college has helped me make some important job decisions in the past and I have helped him in turn. My wife helps me make many important decisions.
If we are the type that seeks advice and listens to others to help make good decisions, what inner voices do we also seek out to help us make good decisions?
Of the thousands of voices inside, who are we listening to and who do we ignore? Some call it our gut, some a hunch and others our hearts. But deep inside there is a voice that is giving us advice on our decisions. Which ones are we listening to?
We might regret a decision we made when it turned out wrong or bad. Can you think back and identify which voice gave us that advice? If we can, we can start to selectively listen to the inner voice much like we selectively seek out someone to help us make good choices. We can ignore the voices with bad intentions and listen to those with good intentions. For as you see, the voices inside our heads are coming from emotions we have and beliefs we’ve come to. And most of those emotions and beliefs are based on fear or self-doubt. Self-limiting beliefs. Cast those voices aside and use the emotions and beliefs that serve you well. Ask yourself am I listening to the right voice, emotion or belief, or does this one not serve me well?
If you can select the beliefs and emotions that serve you well, you will be giving yourself sound advice and your decisions will likely get better. If you do, you may be onto something here.
Allyn Vaughn
Photo by Lubo Minar on Unsplash