Ep #5: The Truth About Decisions

I’m Mikki Gardner, and this is the Co-Parenting with Confidence podcast, episode number five, The Truth About Decisions. Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to be. My name’s Mikki Gardner. I’m a Certified Life and Conscious Parenting Coach, with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I’m here to help you do the same. If you’re ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well, get ready and let’s dive into today’s episode. Hi, friends, and welcome. I’m so excited to be here with you today and we are going to be talking about all things decisions. It might not sound super exciting, but I love this topic because this is, again, one of those topics that is all about empowerment and creating your best life. Showing up as the mom and the co-parent you truly want to be. But before we dive into the episode, I just wanted to tell you about some things that are coming up. Now, I keep hearing from people—you know, my clients, in my DMs, on social media—how hard it is to make memories with our kids when they’re not there—when we’re sharing custody. And with the holidays approaching, this comes up so much. So many women and moms feel like they just want to stop time when our kids aren’t with us. We miss them so much that we’re consumed by it, and we end up not showing up in our life the way that we want to. You are not alone if you’re feeling this way. And I really wanted to do something before the holidays so that we can all start to address this. So, I’m hosting a free workshop next week. That’s going to be Tuesday, November 16, at 6:30pm Eastern Time. This is a free workshop for you. And it’s for courageous moms who want to learn to thrive, not just survive, the holiday season post-divorce. We are going to look at all the ways that you can start to be intentional, take control, and start to create new memories and new traditions with your kids in your new life. So, if you’re interested, please go over on my Instagram and in the Linktree, you can just sign up. Again, it’s a free workshop. And we will get together in this intimate setting to help you today to create the holiday season that you can thrive in, not just survive in. So, with that said, I want to dive into today and decisions. Really, how to make a decision and how to feel good about it. So, in episode four—if you haven’t listened to it, I highly recommend that you go listen to that. But in episode four, we talked all about choices—the agency that we do have, and that we have more choices than we think. So, once we’ve recognized those choices, well, the next step is making decisions. So, I’ve got all my choices in front of me, but what do I do? Sometimes it’s really clear-cut. Sometimes it’s not so much. But what I see so often happening—I know in my own life and with my clients—is that we’ll make a decision. We’ll think, “Okay, I made that decision.” And then we’ll second-guess it. Then we just end up in this spiral of worrying about, “Did I make the right decision? Did I make the wrong decision? What will happen from that decision?” And we’re just stuck. Or sometimes, we get stuck in indecision. The overthinking. The worry. And then we just get stuck there, not taking any action either. And so, in both of these positions, what we’re doing is handcuffing ourselves. We’re falling into victimhood, alienating ourselves from the options and the control that we do have, and getting stuck in black-and-white thinking, or right versus wrong. We are in a culture that is very black and white. It’s either good or bad. It’s either right or wrong. It’s this way or that way. But frankly, that’s just simply not how life works. A lot of times, it’s not black or white. It’s in the gray. Sometimes my right might be someone else’s wrong. So, when we start to understand this, we have to start to look at the decisions that we’re making and how to do that. Listen, we don’t want to be wrong. Most of us are really good-natured, good-meaning people who just want to be right, who want to do the right thing, who want to lead a good life. And we’re so afraid of making the wrong decision that we don’t make any decision at all. But sometimes there is no right or wrong decision. There’s just a decision. And really, all we can ever do is make the best choice we can with the information that we have available today, and that’s just what we can do. We can always redecide later. When we know more, we can do more. So, when I look at decision-making—and what we’re going to be talking about today is really creating a guidepost—a way to align ourselves in the direction that we want to go. Cathy Heller always says that clarity comes from action. And this is so true. We have to start to take action. We have to start to make decisions and move forward because that’s what gives us more clarity, provides us more answers. So, the more we learn to do it, the better choices we’ll have available to us. And sometimes, we change our minds. We’re human. That happens. Sometimes, we get more info, and we’re like, “Ugh. Wow. Really wish I had known that before.” And then we pivot. And we switch. And we change. This is being resilient. This is being a self-motivated, empowered person. This is what we do to teach our children that when we have the answers or we know more, we can always change. We can always shift. We can always adjust. And this is learning to be adult, taking responsibility for ourselves, and moving forward. It isn’t a problem when we need to change. It’s just how it works sometimes. So, what we want to do to make decisions—to empower ourselves to be able to make a decision without second-guessing it or without getting all wound up in the indecision—we have to start to create clarity. And the way that I like to do this is start to define what’s important for me. Because when I know what is important for me, what my values are, what the general direction is that I want to go, I might not know the quote-unquote “right decision,” but I at least know that I’m headed in the direction that I want. And this just simply feels better. So, where does this show up? Well—I see this show up for my clients a lot and I know for myself—in not wanting to rock the boat. Wanting to keep people happy. Wanting them to feel comfortable. Not wanting there to be any discomfort. So, when I am stuck in that place, I’m not making clear decisions. I’m making decisions that are cloudy, that maybe aren’t aligned with what I want. And this is when I start to second-guess, when I start to overthink, or when we start to stay in indecision. Another place that I see this is when our children have these big feelings, when they’re struggling. We don’t know what to do. We end up feeling really helpless and then that helpless feeling starts to create more and more helpless feelings. We don’t know where to go. We’re not sure what to do. And we just do nothing. Another place that I see it so often is when we know we have a decision, and we might want to make one decision, but we know our ex will disagree with it. This causes a lot of conflict and a lot of indecision. We start to worry—worry about will happen, what will happen when he disagrees, what will happen if there’s conflict. You know, all of the things. But I heard once that worry is just a prayer for chaos, and it’s so true. It’s not about what is true or what is present. It’s all of the worry—the sort of thinking in advance—worst-case-scenario thinking in advance. And it creates just more indecision. So, when we are in this indecision, or we’re not making decisions, or we’re second-guessing ourselves, what we’re really doing is staying in victimhood. We’re limiting the choices that we have available to us. We’re alienating ourselves from the empowerment that we do have, and we’re creating inflexible thinking. Again, that all-or-nothing. So, I’m going to give you some areas that I’ve seen that show up. I was just on the phone with a client the other day who, she and her ex, he pays for all of the medical expenses. That’s just one of the things that was in their agreement. So, there’s a credit card. He handles that. But sometimes, what happens when the credit card doesn’t work? And then she doesn’t want to bring it up because fear of, “What if he gets upset? What if he decides that he doesn’t want to do this anymore?” We get into the conversation where all the “what if”s... Well, that “what if” is just that prayer for chaos. So, instead of making decisions, cleaning up how she’s feeling about it, she stayed in that indecision, not knowing how to approach it, not knowing when to approach it, overthinking it. But the only thing that she guaranteed herself in that moment was that she wasn’t getting it dealt with and not getting the bill paid. Can you see that? Another time I’ve seen it is, a lot of people have different feelings about screen time. I’m not making a commentary on screen time right now, but I’ve seen it with my clients where, one house, it’s sort of a free-for-all. But then at my client’s house, she wants structure around it. She wants limits around it because she has views around it. But because it’s one way at the other house, she doesn’t feel like she’s able to have the limits at her house because it’s quote-unquote “unfair.” So, she feels trapped and she says nothing. But really, what’s happening is she’s betraying her values. She’s sacrificing what’s important to her, feeling really helpless and really resentful. So, instead of making a decision that’s aligned for her, and holding that decision even when it’s uncomfortable, the indecision is really what is causing her pain and her suffering in those moments. So, that’s what we have to work through about getting clarity for her around what is the decision she wants to make, and then how can she step into it? We can see from these examples how being unclear and how the decision was actually getting in the way of moving forward. So, what I want to do, as I always want to do in these episodes, is give you tangible ways that you can start to implement this into your life—how you can start to make clearer decisions. So, the first one is to decide what you want. This is actually one of the things I work with my clients a lot on because, as women, as moms, we actually don’t often know truly what we want. Deep down, what is in alignment for us? What is our true intention? And so, we actually have to start to get into the habit of wanting what we want—of getting clear on what that is. And often when I say, “Well, what is it that you want?” “I don’t know.” How often do we say that? “I don’t even know what I want.” And we can feel so unclear about it. So, what I like to do is start with an exercise of deciding what you don’t want, because that usually is a lot easier for us. So, make a list after this and just write down all the things you don’t want in life. What are the things that you don’t want in your relationships anymore? What are the things you don’t want in your house anymore? What are the things you don’t want in your social life anymore? What are the things that you don’t want for your health and your body? When we start to look at what we don’t want and we have that list, then we go through each, line by line, and we flip it. What is it that we do want? What can we know from what it is we don’t want that we actually do want? Sometimes, I don’t want to be exhausted. I don’t want to feel run-down. So, what I really want is energy. And so, I can use this information to start to do things that will encourage and fulfill my energy. So, do you see how it’s just little things—to look at what I don’t want will then decide what I do want. Find those commonalities—those seams between it—and those start to become the things you do want in life. Start to look for the values that you want. What are values? Well, these are the things that really matter to you—that deep down drive you to do what it is that you want to do. So, for me, when I create values work—and there are a lot of resources on the internet with values, or I’m happy to share with you one of the value exercises that I do with my clients. But we start to really narrow in on what is important to me? For me, honesty, connection, and well-being are three of my top values. So, these almost become like a funnel system for me. When I have choices available, or I’m looking to make a decision, or trying to figure out what to do next, I use these as a guide. Are one of these buckets filled up by the decision? Is the decision or is that action in support of the values that are important to me? And if they are, okay, now I kind of have a checkmark to go forward. If it’s not in line with my values, I don’t do it. So, can you see how we might not know exactly which way to go, but if we’re headed in the direction of—if we’re always being intentional and living from our values, living from what’s important to us, living and working towards what we want—then we’re always going in the direction that we need to be headed. The other thing that I like to offer: whenever we have a decision to make, so often, we’ll start asking everyone around us, “What should I do?” We call our best friend, “What do I do?” But when we do that all the time, what we’re really doing is telling ourselves that we don’t know, that we can’t trust ourselves, and we’re always looking outside for validation, for support, and for decisions. We’re kind of outsourcing our decision-making. This isn’t what we’re talking about when we’re talking about aligning towards clarity and towards what we want in our lives. So, an exercise that I always like to do is, when I have a decision to make, I sit down. I close my eyes. And I ask myself first. Often, “I don’t know” might be the question. But I have to get curious and ask, “Well, if I did know, what would I know?” Or “What do I know around this?” We start to get curious, and we start to get quiet and still so that we can access our inner wisdom—our intuition. And then we let her make the decision for us. We start to trust her to tell us which direction to go. Here’s the thing: we have all of the answers that we need inside of us. I believe firmly that we have everything we need already available to us. We have to be able to listen. We have to be willing to hear and to trust that voice inside of us that is our inner wisdom. That’s the part of us that is connected to the divine and actually has everything available. We just haven’t been able to listen because that’s not the way that society tells you. You know, a lot of people will tell me, “Well, how do you know that that’s true?” Well, here’s how I know it’s true. I have a little acorn sitting on my desk right now. Within that acorn, everything that’s necessary for that acorn to become the giant oak tree is inside of there. We come complete. We come already with everything we need. It’s just a matter of getting out of the way, getting sunlight and water, and allowing ourselves to grow. And when we can trust that we have the answers inside of us—when we can trust ourselves to make the decisions and always be headed kind of in the right direction—this is the most powerful place we can come from. It’s about learning to trust yourself to know, accessing that intuition. It’s about holding onto what you want. Holding onto those values so that you can create more clarity. It’s also about letting go of other people’s opinions—of needing other people to agree with you all the time—and learning to trust that you’re headed in the direction that you need to be going, that your greater good is aligned with the decisions that you’re making today. And it’s allowing ourselves to be messy and to make mistakes because you know what? We’re human. That’s what we do. We’re actually supposed to. Nothing has gone wrong. The way that we learn is by making mistakes and failing. Marie Forleo has one of my greatest—I absolutely love her quote and I use it all the time with my son. But her definition of “fail” is “a faithful attempt in learning.” I love that because we’re learning. Again, we’ll grow, we’ll pivot, and sometimes we’re wrong. Sometimes we have to make amends. Sometimes we have to go completely a different direction, and sometimes we have to sit with the discomfort of making a decision that was not in our best interest. But we can always decide differently when we know more. And so, I want to leave you with a little story of one area that making decisions in my life has really impacted me. So, when I decided to leave my marriage, I did it from a place of wanting to create a family. It wasn’t going to be the family that I had in that moment. It wasn’t going to be the family that lived under one roof happily with all the Christmas cards going out every year. But I had to understand that what I had available to me was a number of choices. And the choices that I wanted to start making were to create a family that I loved and to be always in support of that. So, I had to start to make decisions and follow through on things that would support that vision of what I wanted—to be a loving family that worked together, that had each other’s backs, that might look different than I imagined, but this is what I wanted to do. And this was my “why.” This was what was important to me and in line with my values. So, I had to start making decisions from that place. I had to start taking action from that place. I had to start letting go of certain things and start embracing new ideas. I had to learn how to love my family the way it was. I had to learn how to love my ex in a different way. I had to learn how to love my ex’s partner, now his wife. And learn how to work together as a team and as a family. Now, I’m making it sound really simplistic here and like it’s just a decision. It is not. It is not easy. I made a gazillion—and still do—a gazillion mistakes, almost on the daily. But I have to stay aligned, because when I realize that I’m aligned with where I want to go, with what’s important to me, and I’m always coming from that place of building a more loving family, I can be confident that I’m showing up the way that I want to. I can be confident that even when I don’t see the result that I want, that we’re headed that direction. And I don’t believe that a loving family can be wrong. I don’t believe that that’s true. So, for me, I know that I’m headed in the right direction. And I’m not saying that this works for everyone. I’m just simply sharing a decision that I decided to make for myself. A decision that I make daily. That I use to align all of my actions and align all of the efforts that I make in life. And I’m confident through that. It helps me be more confident. It helps me be more intentional. And it helps me to be more conscience in the life that I’m living. So, I just wanted to share all of this with you. And again, to give you those tangible ways that you can start to implement this into your life today, because so often, we just feel stuck. Stuck in indecision, stuck in worry, stuck in not knowing which direction to go. But clarity comes from action. So, when we can start to create almost a guidepost—a rule book for ourselves that we’re just going to follow this direction. It feels true for me, and I’m going to trust myself that I’m going to get there. And so, that is what I have for you today. And I just wanted to take a little bit of time to end this episode by thanking one of our lucky listeners who is going to get today her $75 gift card for Amazon because she subscribed, rated, and reviewed the show, which I’m so excited about. So, Martha, thank you so much. Martha Lane is going to get this. She sends just a beautiful review that I’m so happy about where she feels that there is solid advice on this podcast. She’s loving that we’re not broke and that we always have a choice in how we can response. I love that you’re getting value from this. It makes me so, so happy. So, Martha’s not alone here, and there will be a couple other listeners who are going to get that $75 gift card from Amazon. Because to celebrate the launch of the show, I want to give you a gift, just like you’re giving me a gift for rating and reviewing. If it’s not a five-star review, that’s totally fine. I just want you to give me honest feedback so that I can create an awesome show that provides a ton of value. So, if you want to enter the contest and get in on this giveaway, please visit CoParentingwithConfidence.com/PodcastLaunch. Again, that’s CoParentingwithConfidence.com/PodcastLaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. And I’m going to be announcing the next winners on an upcoming episode. Thank you so much for listening. I’m so grateful that you’re here. And please take care of yourself because your family needs you in your highest self. I’ll see you next week. Thanks for listening to Co-Parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit CoParentingwithConfidence.com. I’ll see you next week.