Hello, fellow high achievers! Welcome to another insightful episode of Billable Hour Burnout. I'm your host, Lauren Baptiste, and today we're diving deep into a crucial skill for any successful professional: mastering effective decision making.
The Cost of Indecision
As high-achieving women, we're often juggling multiple responsibilities and facing countless decisions daily. But have you ever stopped to consider the real cost of indecision? Decision fatigue can creep in, leaving us overwhelmed and exhausted. Let’s break it down:
Time wasted
Increased stress and anxiety
Lost opportunities
Decision fatigue
Decreased confidence and clarity
Indecision can be particularly damaging when you're already feeling burned out. It becomes harder to take risks, and you might find yourself stuck in a cycle of hesitation and self-doubt. That’s why developing effective decision-making skills is crucial to combat this.
A Three-Step Process for Effective Decision Making
To combat indecision and its negative effects, I’ve developed a simple yet powerful three-step process for effective decision making:
Decide from your gut: Trust your initial instinct. Nine times out of ten, you already know the right decision.
Review supportive details: Quickly check any necessary information or documentation, but don’t get bogged down in the weeds.
Commit: Trust yourself and communicate your decision confidently.
This three-step approach is designed to reduce decision fatigue and help you make quicker, more confident choices.
Practical Examples of Decision Making
Let’s look at how this process can be applied in various situations:
Daily decisions (e.g., what to have for dinner): Create a system to minimize decision fatigue, such as assigning meal themes to each day of the week.
Home renovation: When faced with an unexpected high cost, use the process to evaluate your options and make a confident decision rather than freezing up.
Work crisis: A client shared how she used this process when her firm’s technology froze on the day of an important client deliverable. By quickly assessing the situation and making decisive choices, she was able to manage the crisis effectively and avoid the paralysis of decision fatigue.
Overcoming Decision Fatigue and Boosting Confidence
By implementing this effective decision-making process, you can:
Reduce stress and anxiety associated with indecision
Save time and mental energy
Seize more opportunities
Enhance your leadership skills
Boost your overall confidence
Remember, effective decision making is a skill that can be developed and refined over time. The more you practice, the easier and more natural it becomes, allowing you to prevent decision fatigue from derailing your success. Decisions like, "Should I quit my job?" no longer hold you back from what it is you want in your career and life.
Your Next Steps
Are you ready to transform your decision-making skills and take your career to the next level? Here’s what you can do:
Subscribe to my newsletter at www.acheloawellness.com/newsletter for more insights and strategies.
Book a consultation call with me to discover how we can work together to end overthinking, reduce decision fatigue, and create more free time in your life.
Join my six-month coaching program, Freedom, where we’ll work together to master effective decision making and overcome the challenges holding you back from the success you deserve.
Don’t let decision fatigue hold you back any longer. Take that first step today and watch as your confidence soars and your career flourishes. You've got this!
Remember, I’m here to support you every step of the way. Let’s make those big decisions together!
Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, made specifically for high-achieving women working in accounting, finance, law and consulting who know that a life without overwhelm is possible. Each week I share insights and opportunities to simplify your life to enjoy more free time. You can be "BalancedAF" when you enter this community. Subscribe here.
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What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
The real cost of indecision and how it affects high-achieving women
A three-step process for making effective decisions quickly
Practical examples of how to apply this decision-making process in various situations
How to overcome decision fatigue and boost your confidence as a leader
Watch The Full Episode:
Full Episode Transcript:
[Host]: Hi, everybody, and welcome.
[Audience]: Hello there. Hi.
[Host]: I'm seeing some of you on Instagram Live. Hello. Hi. On LinkedIn. Hello. On YouTube.
This is billable hour burnout, and today we are talking about mastering effective decision making. Let's do this.
I love this one because if you're a high achieving woman, you know you need to make a lot of decisions all the time and you need to do them rapidly. You need to do them quickly. You need to do them effectively.
Today I am talking to you about the cost of indecision and a process to help you make precise decisions in rapid fire time.
But first, welcome to the show. My name is Lauren Baptiste, and this is billable hour burnout. If you need helpful tactical advice that actually helps you have the career of your dreams, you are in the right place. If you want to enjoy the career that you've spent decades building, you are in the right place.
If you're finding yourself here today, it means you're looking to experience more work life balance, more ease, more confidence, and you're ready to make it happen without having to quit your job or burn down your life.
I'm your big four auditor and regulatory tax compliance turned life coach, and you're listening to billable hour burnout. On the show, I share simple tactics and modern strategies to help any woman in accounting, consulting and law. You ready? Let's do this.
Another episode. Episode 26 here. Now, I always love starting with a little bit of a personal update. First, I hope you're doing great. I hope that you're free. Fall is feeling good. I know this time of year for a lot of us has a lot of back to school energy and finding new routines. So I hope you're finding that and feeling good as you're doing it.
This weekend was my husband's birthday and we had all these plans. But as coaching goes right, life is 50 50. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. Sometimes life is all highs. Sometimes it's not.
So last week I gave you an update that my pup was feeling not so good. Sadly, that got worse. I have good news, now that I'm on the other side of it is that she is getting better. But it meant that we canceled my husband's birthday trip. It means that we spent, or I spent the day in the dog er.
So I know that sometimes we have all these plans and they don't go according to plan. And that's why I love the power of coaching. So it just helps my mind know, okay, this trip will happen at another time. What's most important is getting my dog healthy. What's most important is all these other things, right? And I'm putting it into perspective where sometimes we're like, this was it. We put so much energy into it, we let it take us out. And that's why I'm just so grateful for coaching. It doesn't let me go there anymore.
But I missed this one trip. But I have some other fun travel coming up. I'll be in Nashville for Iwin's unlocked conference, and then I'll also be at Bock keepers AI unchained conference. That one's going to be in Napa. So I have some beautiful travel coming up. And if you're going, I want to know. I want to know if I'm going to see you there. So let me know.
Let's dive into our client success story. I actually post this today on the feeds because I want to share that my clients performance went from underperforming to exceeding expectations in six months.
Now, I bring this up because I think a lot of you high achieving women out there are like, that would never happen to me. Or I wonder why she's talking about underperforming. Because we are always at the top of the top. You were the valedictorian. You were the varsity athlete. You were the summa cum laude. You were always the creme de la creme, the top.
But many come to me because they. They are experiencing a shift, right? They all of a sudden, life starts changing and they notice. They get their first bad performance review ever. They notice that they're having their first trouble in their marriage ever. They're noticing that they're not getting respected at work for the first time ever.
But here I'm celebrating that my client went from underperforming to exceeding expectations because of my coaching program freedom. She experienced the success so quickly because she started to prioritize essential work over busy work. She started trusting herself, and she used the tools in coaching, like I was talking about in my scenario. She talked about the tools that she's using, that she learned from our program to stop spinning in confusion, dread, or overwhelm. And then all of a sudden, her life skyrocketed.
So I just love sharing that story. I think it's nice to hear that. One thing to know is that she didn't have come just because she had a bad review. She came because that was the tipping point. And sometimes that's what's happening when I meet you, is that you come to me because you're feeling like, all right, now things are at a no return. Like, I need to change something because my husband and I are resenting each other and we're about to get divorced, or I have this bad review and I'm about to get fired or something. That's no return.
So not only did her success at work start to skyrocket, we also. I started to notice that she exercised more. She spent more quality evenings with her husband. She started traveling to her weekend home far more because when you enroll in freedom, you become just so much more.
And so I wanted to share her story because you too can have this 180 if you're feeling like you've been stuck in your own, in this, like, version of yourself that you're not loving. So that's her win that I wanted to share that. I'm celebrating that online. I'm celebrating that with you because it's worth celebrating. We can. Life can change with coaching. I truly believe anything is possible with a coach and that everyone should have a coach.
But let's talk about today's conversation. We're talking about decision making. And indecision is a very expensive thing. I had a client that I was working with. This was a few years back. She was mulling over a new dishwasher for weeks. Weeks. She had a cost of not buying this dishwasher. Not only was she losing the time of comparing dishwasher a versus dishwasher bhdem, but she was also washing the dishes morning, noon, and night. She was spinning in indecision, and it was affecting her time and her energy. And honestly, for the difference of something as small as a dishwasher, we realized we had to get in front of a process for decision making.
So I'm here to ask you, do you hesitate when it comes to making decisions? Do you find yourself when a decision is brought to you? You say, let me think about it and get back to you. That's a default for so many women I work with, because when we're doing and juggling a million things, it's the easiest, fastest thing to put off.
You'll say, even as small as, what do you want for dinner tonight? I don't know. I'll tell you a funny solution for this in a short bit, but there's a million decisions we make today. What do I want to wear? What am I going to eat? But then there's the bigger decisions of this engagement letter I'm putting out. And do I have all the services? Am I charging the right amount? Right. Are you struggling with the decision of keeping a client even though they pay you, but they make your life hell, right? Like, are we keeping them? And are you, like, hesitating on keeping them or firing them? Are you stuck in a decision of staying or going at your job?
Indecision is a problem, and here's what it looks like. Procrastination. There's the pain of indecision now, of punting that. Let me think about it and let you know. And then there's the pain of actually having to decide later but doing so more removed. And you're also likely feeling more pressured because you have to get back to somebody and rushed.
Now the problem, and I get it, your brain doesn't want to decide because decisions have finality to them. But when you say, let me think about it, what my guess is is that you don't have a process to decide in the moment. And that's what I'm going to walk you through today.
And when you're burned out, here's the thing, too, that I know to be very true is making a decision feels harder. It's harder to make a risk, to take a risk. It's hard to say yes or no, depending on the decision, because it's likely been a while since it's felt like you've made a good decision.
I've talked to some burned out women who came to me, and they're like, I'm at this place. I know I need this for myself. I need support. But I hired a PR person who didn't work out, and I hired maybe like an employee that also didn't work out. And they're seeing all of this proof of things that aren't working. So then they're starting to feel stuck. And so my guess is you may be feeling that, too, if you're hesitating on your decision making.
So instead, what you do is you put off the decision, you delay the decision, you hesitate on the decision. And I want to talk through the real cost of indecision now. We can say fomo fear of missing out. We could say time wasted. We could say inefficiency for starters. Right? If I think about that dishwasher situation, definitely time wasted, definitely inefficient. Maybe not fear of missing out, but there was definitely those other ones.
But let's go deeper. There is also increased stress and anxiety. Deciding is a stressor. It is. Now, we can decide instantly, and it can feel like a pinch, or it's like holding a pinch for weeks, months. Like this would hurt. I would likely bruise myself if I held. Now, if you're listening to this. I'm actually pinching my shoulder right now. But if you're watching me, you can see I'm pinching my shoulder. Now, the longer it takes me to make a decision, the longer I feel this endured pain.
Now, some of you may say a pinch, holding a pinch shouldn't hurt. But the longer you do it, the longer it will start to hurt, it will start to bruise, and in the body, we feel that as stress. I want you to think about, we're coming into that time of year when thanksgiving happens and you eat too much food, you don't feel good. There's a stress happening in the body, and the same is with that pinch, and the same is with making a decision.
When we don't make a decision, we increase the stress and anxiety in our body, and it creates this, like, lingering mind. It keeps us in ongoing tension. It has us feeling this, like, undercurrent of anxiety. And so I know that feeling. And so whether it's a Thanksgiving meal that comes to you, but there is stress every time we hold all of these indecisions, undecided decisions.
So, okay, stress and anxiety, time loss. We know this. There's actually an opportunity that you lose you. That you might lose an opportunity if you don't take action. So, indecision. Are you sure? Have you tried to look for a house in the last four years? Maybe three years? If you wait, you actually can lose opportunities. Delaying decision making can mean you don't miss or that you miss out on getting a house that you wanted. It could mean not taking up an opportunity of a business proposal that came your way, but you sat on it too long. It can mean not addressing your goals. There are so many things that get lost when we hang an indecision.
There's a term. So here's the third one. Decision fatigue. The more decisions you delay, the more they pile up. They contribute to being exhausted. It can impair your ability to make both minor decisions. Like, what do you want to do tonight? To. Should I invest in XYZ stock? Right. It can be. It can get in the way if we think of fatigue and decisions. Right. Nobody wants that. It doesn't feel good, but we can notice the effect of it.
All right, so, indecision. Talking about time wasted, increased stress and anxiety, lost opportunities, decision fatigue. I also just want to talk about inefficiency. I know I briefly said that, but when we stall on decisions, it really stalls who we are. It stalls on our growth. It stalls on the leader that we know we can be that we want to become.
Think about this for a second. You're a leader. You're maybe partner level, or you're trying to get there and you're on your way there, but you notice you keep hesitating, you keep not making decisions. What's going on? Right. All of a sudden, your confidence will start to decrease. The more you hesitate, the more fear will set in. So there's an inefficiency. Yes, but there's a greater cost of loss, confidence and clarity and ability. And we start to crumble on the inside when we are not making decisions.
All right, so now we know the cost of indecision. So I want to teach you a process to make decisions. A process is valuable because what it's going to help you do is understand what's coming at you, what you need to do about it, and how to move through it. Decision fatigue, to me, feels like bottlenecking. It's like everything piles up and not enough can move through the funnel. It's like if you think of, like, sand through an hourglass, only a couple of grains of sand can move through where so much sand is stuck.
So in that bottlenecking, instead, we can have a process and then create so much more grains of sand can come through, or the bottleneck is bigger so that we can get more done. I don't want you to experience decision fatigue anymore.
So let's dive into this process.
Step one, decide from your gut. Nine times out of ten, you already know when a decision comes to you. For example, you're looking for a new software developer for your, you know, new software for your company. Let's say you are given a pitch. Nine times out of ten, you know, this is right for me, and this is or this isn't right for me. I want you to really feel into that. I know when you're feeling burned out, it's harder to trust your gut, but we have to start somewhere. And that's why there's still two other steps to the process.
So I want you to feel, okay, this new software person, this new software program, does this feel right for my business? I'm going to say yes. The presentation was good. It felt good. I said I needed this. Okay, so decide. You just did. That's a secret. But because we are high achieving women, we want to make sure we feel good about our decision. So that's what steps two and three are for.
Step two, review any supportive detail that you need. For example, do you need to check any timing or documentation to support the decision? The idea is to do it with a plan, do it succinctly, and to not get sucked into the weeds. For example, for the dishwasher, it could have been, know this, know the specs, know how big the dishwasher needs to be, know what you need it to do. Do you, like, really always put your pots and pans in there? Then maybe you want one that's really good with pots and pans. Okay, so then make sure it has that. And then, right, we can move to three.
But I, I want to give you specific considerations because it's one thing to just say, okay, specs, you know, check and move on. Because some of us, when we're dealing with big engagements like this software person that we're hypothetically bringing in, I want you to think about it in these three considerations.
First is the financial impact. Do you or your team, do you have the budget? If not right, a lot of you get hung up here and say, well, I didn't have a budget for this, but maybe you didn't know you needed the software until now. How will you make space for it if you were not prepared for it? Because most of us want to stop in this moment and say, I can't afford it. I don't have budget for it. But I want you to think about what adjustments might need to be made to have this software come in. Maybe what is the cost savings by bringing in this software? Maybe you don't need as many employees and you're able to cut down or cut down your own personal hours because it saves you time. If you decided you were a yes, you need to create a roadmap to make this part happen because this is where I see most people get hung up. Is that financial impact?
Number two, get buy in. So personally, that might mean getting a green light from your spouse. Professionally, that might mean, mean getting a sign off from leadership. At this point, I want to remind you, you already decided. You decided the software was what I needed. You decided you were a yes. But I want you to really lean into, all you're figuring out now is the how you're going to pay for it, how you're going to make that investment. Are you going to put it on a credit card? Are you going to pull from your 401K? Do you have savings for your business? I want you to really get specific, but really this part should be easy because you know the process in making it happen and because you have the buy in. The buy, yeah, the buy in.
So this is where you say to your partner, this is just to give you a heads up. I'm investing in this software for my business. We're pulling it from this fund. And I'm just letting you know and I know that you support me, and so this is where I'm going to get your help and for even the business, right? You give them that proposal or that spec of like, here's what I, what we need. Here's what's going to cost. Here's how we're going to pay for it. Here's the cost savings. I want your buy in. Can you sign off on this? Right. This should be easy since you've already done the pre work.
Okay, so now everybody's on board. And this is where step three comes in. Step three of the considerations. Not step three. It's confusing. So this is the third consideration, not the third step of the decision making process. So the third step, the third consideration is a personal double check. Now that everybody's on board, is this right? Is this what you really want? This should be even easier at this point. All of the I's are dotted. All of the t's are crossed. All of the ducks are in a row. So just take a moment to breathe. Is this what I want? Yes. Let's go. Let's get that dishwasher, let's hire that software person or whatever. Buy that software.
So, okay, step three of the process. Commit, commit. This is the part where you trust yourself and you communicate your decision. This is where you say yes to the software person. This is where you buy the dishwasher. This is where you do the thing. So you decide from your gut, you review, you commit. It's that easy.
There's three steps, but I want to give you a few examples. So here's, let's talk about this one first. Here's a decision that you have to make daily. What do you want to do for dinner? You need to decide this every day for the rest of your life. Now, my recommendation here is to make this as easy as possible. I actually, this may sound a little wild, but I've come up with a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday plan of, like, Monday is soup day. Tuesday is pasta day. Right. And I don't want to overthink meals. I just want healthy meals that are good and easy to put together. And so the more I think about what do I want tonight? Creates indecision, creates fatigue, creates overwhelm. And then the easy way out is like, I'm just going to do takeout instead.
So I'm inviting something different for you. Decide ahead of time. I saw this reel on Instagram that I thought was really funny. It was a husband and a wife in the car. And the wife says, where do you want to eat for dinner? And the husband says, guess. And he acts like he's going to surprise her, but actually he has no idea and he doesn't want to think about it. So she replies, I don't know that taco place. And he goes, spot on. You guessed it. And she goes, really awesome decision made, right? It could be as easy as, like, where do you want to go? The italian spot, the thai spot, the whatever, right? Like, you can overdose, think it, or you can create a process, make it easy for yourself.
I get that not every decision can be this easy, but this is a decision that you have to deal with every day, and that does create decision fatigue. Let's talk about another decision. A home renovation. You finally book that consultation with the interior designer you've been following on Instagram for two years. You and your partner have been thinking about it for a long time, and you're ready to start the project. On the consultation with the interior designer, they lay out the plan and they ask you, are you ready to move forward? Would you like to move forward? You're so excited about the idea of the help, but you realize the cost was way higher than you expected. So you freeze. You hear what they said? And you said, let me think about it and get back to you.
Now, that's not necessarily a problem, but it's a problem if you don't use a process to make that decision. It's a problem if you just punt it for the sake of punting it. So in your gut, you're a yes, you want this renovation. You've been wanting this for years. Then we go into the considerations. You're a resourceful woman. You figure out how to find money for this renovation. You buy, you get input. Number two, from your partner to say, let's go. We want to do this. Here's how we're going to do it. You ready? You feel the difference of asking for permission, saying, oh, can we spend it on this? Versus, here's how we're going to do it. Do you feel that? Amazing. Number three, right? Everything's a go. Now you sign. Now you commit. Now you take that next step forward. Amazing.
I want to give you one more decision. This is a client situation. Now, during the summer, one of my clients, she's a managing director and public accounting firm. She had a tough situation, dropped on her plate. Her firm's technology froze randomly on the same day, a client was expecting a same day deliverable. Now, she could have spun in uncertainty, but she decided to make a decision in the unknown. She decided, I'm going to figure it out one step at a time, and I'm going to share her process with you because I know this comes up a lot. It can feel like I have no control. But I want to remind you that you always have control in every step, in every regard, in every situation.
So here's what she did when this happened. She called an all hands meeting with her team to understand the gravity of the matter and figure out, could this be done another way. She spoke with her firm's it team to understand the restoration time. They expected it to take days, so she knew waiting on the software wasn't an option. Right, micro decision here. She then calculated the cost of waiting versus the cost of doing it manually. Like I mentioned, it couldn't wait days. So she did the cost and she's like, all right, we're going to have to do it manually, just based on time. That's what we're going to have to do. And then she communicated it to the client. As soon, as soon as she could, she explained the circumstance. She told them that it would cost them a day. Meanwhile, had she waited for the software based on the restoration to come back, it could have been almost a week. The client didn't even bat an eye. They're like, totally get it. We'll figure it out. It's okay. She didn't spin in uncertainty. She decided to relinquish control. That's the work that we do together. She created. She used this decision making process and made one even specific for her situation so that she could decide and move forward.
Now, let me ask you this. We've gone through many situations today. Are you sitting on the fence about something? You can actually decide right now by using this process. Decision making doesn't have to be hard drawn out, energy draining. It can actually be simple, empowering, easy confidence building. Because overthinking is creating regret. Overthinking is creating FOMo. Overthinking is then now putting you in indecision.
This is the work I do with my clients. I help you cut down on stress by learning how to make sound decisions with ease. You ready? Here's the most fun part. Let's create a winning decision making strategy just for you. When you book your consultation with me, we'll discover how working together can end overthinking and create more free time to enjoy your life. It's going to be the easiest, best decision you've ever made.
Now, this is what happens in my coaching program, freedom. I told you about my client's success earlier, but I want to take a minute to tell you about freedom. Freedom is a six month long coaching program. As part of that program, we meet twice a month. In addition to meeting twice a month, there is continued connection points via the signal app. This is where my clients ask me anything. They want to ask about decision making. They want to ask about, um, you know, a hard conversation. They want to ask me about sleep. I'm here for all of it. It's in that signal access in the app that we keep things moving. And it's in the calls that we start to uncover the indecision, fatigue. Right. And all of the things that are holding you back.
The program, freedom, is made simply for high achieving women like you who want and are ready for success, but are feeling held back because of your circumstances. That ends today. So today I'm inviting you to book a consultation call with me. This is exactly where you're going to get to where you want to be. The woman who can make decisions quickly, easily, without fatigue. The woman who feels confident in her day to day, who's not held back by fear. Who has free time at the end of the night to eat dinner and with her family and put her kids to bed. This is what happens when you work with me.
I'm absolutely just. Based on my work, based on what I've been doing, I'm the best person here to help you solve this problem. If you are in accounting, consulting law, because I lived it, I experience it, and I moved through it, and I've graduated over 100 women who have experienced it. So this is my offer to you. Step one, jump on my newsletter. If you're not on my newsletter, you absolutely should be. You can go to my website, www.akaloawellness.com newsletter. Jump on on there today, then book your consultation call on the website. You can find the link to book your consult. Or you could dm me here, dm me on instagram, dm me wherever you're finding this, and say, hey, can you send me the link to the newsletter and a consult? Boom. Done. You will be transformed by the end of the week just by taking these two actions, just by deciding I'm worth it, just by deciding now's the time. I'm making one small decision, and I'm going to run with it.
All right, everybody, you ready to make some big decisions? You now have a three step process for how to do it. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you like this, drop a comment and let me know what you think. Come find me on Instagram at theloren Baptiste LinkedIn. Lauren Baptiste Facebook, Lauren Baptiste coaching YouTube, Lauren Baptiste coaching. But truly, wherever you hang, you can find me. I love doing this. I love hearing what's working for you, what you're learning from it, how you're transforming. It's so good. So keep bringing it week over, week over week.
Thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn more about Lauren, meet Lauren Baptiste at Acheloa Wellness or my one on one coaching program, freedom, visit my website at Acheloawellness.com. all right, everybody, have a wonderful rest of your week. See you next week. Bye.
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