Billy Keels  0:01  How to actually pummel overthinking and indecision. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's makeitoptional.com. How to actually pummel overthinking and indecision. If you have ever been in a moment of your life where you feel like your to do list continues to stack up a lot more than you can actually get through it. You're coming at the end of the day, you feel like you've tried to make the perfect decision, and that is causing you to feel dejected, overwhelmed and overlooking the most important things in your life. Then like, just dedicate a couple of minutes. And if this is not you, if you're with someone now who, or you know, someone who's suffering from these types of, like, emotional baggage and trauma, just stick around for a couple minutes, because this is going to be very, very helpful, especially if you're in a corporate role. You know, the person's in a corporate role, if they're a corporate exec, because this is one of the things that has recently come up in one of my client calls. And I thought, without going into too much detail, I want to just share this, because I've also heard very similar when I'm meeting with people through the direct messages on LinkedIn as well. And because I've heard it a couple of times recently, and myself, as a recovering perfectionist, realized that this is something that is affecting lots and lots of people. You're not alone, and let me tell you what you can do to actually pummel overthinking in indecision, because I've been there myself. So as I mentioned, like on a recent call with a client, we talked about just struggling. This particular client was struggling with overthinking and indecision, and so I wanted to really understand that. So one of the common practices that I like to do is go through the five whys. So really, is it about indecision and overthinking, or is it about something deeper than that? And so through a series of questions, finally understood what it was, but at the surface level, it's really overthinking, but that's causing a lot of overwhelm, frustration not being with the family, et cetera, et cetera. This particular exec, like in his early 40s, got a couple kids, and there's a lot of life dynamics that are changing. Right before it was just about work and how much work you could get done, the bigger the paycheck, the better it was. And now there's like, Okay, well, I've got these two babies to be around, or three babies to be around. I've got a spouse that's here needs attention. And so the thing is, yes, as you start to go through this at the at the surface, we started, we identified that it was about the client wanting to feel more confident and also make this better decisions faster, right? But when we really pulled back the layer, we understood that it was really about a hyper, active nervous system, and it was like, What can I do to not feel this way all the time, like I feel like things are under control, like I'm like my brain is not constantly on fire, my heart's not constantly fluttering, and I feel like I'm always trying to catch up. And as we went through this, it was, it was an understanding, and this is like, you're probably hearing this, and you realize that you've been in the same situation, because I know that I've been there, which is why I'm going to talk to you about what you can actually do to pummel this overthinking and indecision. So like, started recognizing, like, one of the very first things was, all right, well, understanding what was happening. And in this particular client was working through a to do list, and the Toluse the to do list, or the task list, right? The task list was done on a daily basis, and the task list was done basically when we started looking at it. The majority of the tasks came from other people. They came from Boss. They came from wanting to help other people. This person is in the enterprise space, of course, and this particular person said, hey, look, you know, my boss is asking me to do a lot of things, and I've got coworkers, and I've got people that are preparing client meetings, and I have to be the person that brings everything together. And so I started detecting some words that I used to use a lot myself. But the first thing was this task list that continued to get bigger, longer, rather than shorter, and focused on the right things. And there's also this other thing, is wanting to keep everybody happy, whether it was the boss, whether it was a coworkers. And then talked about, you know, different, wanting to be available for the family all the time. And although this person traveled a lot, it was like trying to be everywhere, trying to make everybody else happy, recognizing that you yourself become miserable because you're trying to keep your energy and focus on everybody else, and at the same time, to top it all off, the person wanted to continue to be promotable. Like that was the one of the main things. Like, I'm continuing to do all of these things because I want my family to be proud of me. I want my boss to know that I'm here to, you know, serve the company and be able to overachieve against my targets and just win every single place. And so what we started realizing is like, also too, there was a corporate culture the way that my client was interpreting it was like, have to have every single decision. Have to have. Have all of the information to make every single decision so that every decision was perfect. And I started thinking to myself, Okay, well, I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm recognizing the language, and I'm seeing what's happening here, right? And so when we went through an exercise, the exercise is very simple. It's as simple, clearly, as 123, and this is what you actually can do to pummel overthinking and indecision. We made it very simple, right? We started looking at sitting down at what are the priority tasks, or sometimes you can call them the to do's that you are supposed to do. How far out are you looking at them, and when do they actually need to be done? And most importantly, this is where most people overlook, is which of these things is going to move the priorities that you have, in fact, identified as the ones that are going to move the biggest boulders, not the little pebbles, but the big boulders, because they're going to help you get more time at work with your family. They're going to help you get closer to your target to make more money have more benefits, so that you can then use that for your time with the people that you love the most. But it all starts, first of all with prioritizing the the items that will move the biggest boulders. And so we went through that exercise, and then after having a clear idea of what the priority items, and they should there should be very few. It's like the Pareto law. It's the 80% of your time should be spent on 20% of sorry, 20% of your time should be spent on the things that are going to move 80% of these boulders, 20% of your time to move 80% of the priority items. So you've got to prioritize first and foremost, and then after that, based on the amount of time you think it's going to get fixed, this is the second step to be able to actually pummel overthinking an Indecision is to select the item that you are able to get done that is moving the biggest boulder on your priority list, not everybody else's your list. And one of the challenges is in even when you're an executive, you have to make the hard call. You cannot please everybody. It took me a long time to realize that, but you can't please everybody, but you've got to move your priorities you are in the role that you're in, whether it's at work or at home, because that is a role that you chose to be in, and you are in charge of your destiny, whether you continue to move up the org chart, move to the side, or move out at home, it's the same thing. Are you having the conversations that you need to have so that you can understand that the household is continuing to move in the way that you want it to move right? Maybe a little bit different dynamic there, because you've got a partner or spouse, or whatever the case may be, but number two is select the right item, and that puts the onus on you to work on right and then lastly, and this is the thing that is really important, especially when you are a high achiever who looks for perfection. It's not about having all of the information to make the perfect decision. It's about having the minimum set of criteria so that you can make the most informed decision at the particular point in time that you must make the decision. You gotta flip the script, the script. If you don't flip the script, you're going to be doing the same thing as everybody else, and you're going to be constantly overthinking, not making the decisions. And who suffers the most? You and your nervous system. You to get the minimum amount of information that you need to make the highest probability towards the outcome that you're looking for. It's as simple as one through three. You gotta prioritize number one. Number two, you've gotta be able to select the right priority item. And three, make sure that you have the minimum amount of decision, the minimum amount of criteria to make the best and most informed decision that you can at that moment in time so that the decision gets done. Sorry, I get a little bit passionate about this because it's something I suffered from this a lot, and I don't want you to have to suffer from the same and of course, when you're looking for perfection and you're you're that's one of the reasons that you're overthinking and you're not making the decision, you're going to feel conflicted, but follow this simple 123, process so that you can literally pummel overthinking an indecision, get it out of the way. You got to move forward. And here's the thing, on a very tangible level, when you do that, you're going to start to see that the right items on your to do list will begin to go away. You've made the decision, you've prioritized, you've selected the item, and you've made the decision, boom, it's gone. You're going to get the feedback if it was the right decision or if something needs to be changed. But get the big boulders off of your plate. Those are the things that have to move. These are the things that are going to give you the highest amount of leverage, and beyond just physically seeing that, here's where the real beauty comes in. When you are implement this process to pummel your overthinking and your indecision, you are going to feel that you are now having a clear process that is allowing you to make better decisions faster because you're moving. Through them, you're progressingBilly Keels  10:03  towards your priorities. You're not waiting for perfection, stagnating, overthinking and not doing anything. That's the beauty like that's where the real transformation comes in, because you realize that you're moving towards the at the speed of progress, not waiting for perfection, right? Because at the end of the day, when you do that, guess what happens to your nervous system? Oh, it feels so much better. You're not as tense, you're not as nervous, you can just feels great, right? Because you're making progress. You're moving towards your goals. And so listen, this is the thing. If this is not you, if you're not the person who's suffering from overthinking indecision, I am sure that you know somebody who is a high ranking, highly visible, highly paid corporate exec that is suffering from this, and you can be the person that helps them stop the suffering. All you gotta do is share today's episode. Share with one, share it with two people that you know are suffering from this overthinking indecision, and it's causing them to be constantly wired and tense. Help them to lower the nervous system activity so they can feel better about what's going on, progress towards their priorities and really start getting towards the harmony that they're looking for between their life and their work and vice versa. And while you're doing that, guess where I'll be. I'll be right here. Yes, I will be, I'll be preparing for the next episode. So until then, go out and make it a great day. And thank you very, very much.Billy Keels  11:39  Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's make it optional.com.