How many thoughts do you think you have a day? Would you believe me if I told you that you have over 50,000 thoughts every single day and that the majority of those are tied to decision-making?
Triggering your decision-making is much easier than you may realize. As soon as you get out of bed in the morning your mind starts to make decisions. Make your bed or leave it? Take a shower first or let the dog out? Hair up or down? Jeans or pants? Cook breakfast or grab something quick? Pack a lunch or go out? Drive the interstate or backroads to work?
And those are just a fraction of the decisions you make while starting your day!
Have you ever heard of decision fatigue? Decision fatigue affects your mood, stress levels, energy levels and well-being. You experience this type of fatigue when you are overloaded with decision-making.
For years our society has glamorized busyness. The harder working and busier you are the happier you must be, right? Research is starting to show that this could not be further from the truth. Though we tend to focus on our physical health and appearance, our mental health has an even more important role in our lives.
The same way we tend to neglect our nutrition we can also neglect our mental health. Giving ourselves too many decisions to make during a given day takes a toll on our minds. Just like we can overwork our muscles, we can also overwork our brains.
In addition, when we get tired of making so many decisions in a day we tend to start making bad ones. It always seems like the easiest decisions are the bad ones doesn’t it? We grab fast food instead of cooking, clutter starts to pile up on our desks and at home, we start to miss getting good rest and feel like we’re not accomplishing what we set out to do each day.
You’re probably thinking to yourself “How do I stop making so many decisions?”. After all, we have to plan our meals, wardrobes and daily commutes don’t we? And we can’t take that decision-making out of our lives completely, can we? Stopping all decision making would definitely result in a life disaster- the same stress, fatigue and unhappiness that comes along with making too many decisions. But there is an answer to ridding your life of decision fatigue.
I have two words for you; plan ahead!
The same way we schedule weekly meetings, vacations and take the time to shower every day, we also need to plan the little things in our lives to avoid decision fatigue.
Prepare your breakfasts in advance. Decide that you’re going to take the same route to work every day. Schedule days when you pack your lunch and days when you eat out. Take your vitamins at the same time every day. Go to bed at the same time. Schedule date nights weeks in advance.
And the second MUST is to make these absolutes. Don’t give yourself the freedom to waiver. All of your planning is nonnegotiable. If you plan on packing your lunches on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, there’s no wavering allowed! Monday, Wednesday and Friday it is! Period.
Save yourself from the stress of daily monotonous decisions and you’ll have more brain power to get you through the day. And when you have extra brain power left over -because you will- use it to do things that you love. Give yourself the gift of using that energy for your own happiness.
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