Biz Bestie Bite: Decision Fatigue

  You're listening to the My Biz Bestie podcast, where female biz owners find their support system to have their back through the highs and lows of running a business and to make the journey less lonely and a lot more fun. Here is your host, licensed therapist, entrepreneur, and your biz bestie, Amber Hawley.

Hey there, bestie. I wanted to let you know that the My Biz Bestie Inner Circle is now open. The Inner Circle is a monthly membership for ADHD and easily distracted women who live in Distraction City. With shiny object syndrome and live life with other tendencies that keep us from doing our best work.

You can join today as a founding member for just 49. And if you do so by December 17th as a gift with purchase, you will get free access to January's your one thing goal planning workshop. So head on over to mybizbestie. com forward slash inner circle for more information. Today's episode is a new segment I'm calling the biz bestie bite, where we have a focused discussion about one topic or concept.

So you get the maximum benefit in a minimum amount of time. Today, I'm going to talk about decision fatigue. You may have heard that term before. Maybe it makes you think about an article you read about various male CEOs who wore the same thing every day as a way to overcome their decision fatigue. And while that is a valid strategy, there is a little more to it and it impacts many of us far more than we realize.

And let's face it, that whole emotional labor for women thing really adds to this. So it is something I see a lot and like I said, I think it shows up in ways that we don't even realize, right? We might think, oh, you know, I don't. I feel like making a decision or I'm just so tired and I just need to rest and everything will be fine.

And right now, given how many changes we have all been through in the last year, This is even a greater problem than ever. The fact is there are lots of times that we do things automatically as habits. And we might think that they're not habits. We might think, Oh, I'm making this choice or I'm doing this thing, but there's so much that we do on a day to day basis.

That really is just automatic, right? Like do you think about brushing your teeth or do you just get up and do it and start brushing your teeth? Right. It's one of those kinds of things. And this year, Everything has been changed. Our routines, where we go to work, what we do in our free time, how we cope, all of it has changed.

And very suddenly, so there's lots of things on a day to day basis that we're actually having to consciously think about. And. do differently than we ever have before. And you might say, yes, you know, it's been months though. We've been in this for months. Like it should be different now. That's something I'm hearing from a lot of people where they're kind of beating themselves up.

Like, okay, I get it at first I had COVID fatigue and now I should be better. And I have my new routines. I have my new patterns. But this stuff is so ingrained in us and it's still, still, there are these things that we have to think about that we never had to before. Like, oh, are you going to go eat in that restaurant?

Or is it okay for so and so to come over? And especially if you have children in your house asking to see their friends or do X, Y, Z. I mean, all the time. We're having to really think about these things that have a big impact. And so it's one of those things of this causes that fatigue over time. So one is a lot of our world has been kind of turned upside down.

So that's one piece of it. The other piece is like we said, that emotional labor, having to be responsible for so many things, having to make a lot of decisions. And so while, you know, it's kind of funny when we talk about Steve jobs. Or Mark Zuckerberg wearing their. com uniform, so to speak as a way of reducing these decisions that they have to make.

There is something to that. There is something about making things automatic and letting go of what we think we have to be doing to show up. First though, I'm going to go through a couple of signs that decision fatigue might be plaguing you. One is procrastination. Now, some of you are probably like, Hey, that's no different.

My friends, I've been experiencing that a long time. Well, one, I think as a society, we probably are under this chronic fatigue of decision making and stress and overwhelm anyway, even before 2020 happened. But like I said, it's. I think you see it on greater levels, right? And so maybe there are things that you didn't procrastinate on before that you are now like this whole, like I'll deal with that later, that kind of thing.

So it's just one of those signs. It could be, there can be other things going on, but it's just one of those things to look at. Another one is impulsivity. So, so far, both of these things I described are also very ADHD traits. And since I know I have a lot of people here who identify as ADHD or think they might have ADHD, you're probably like, well, yes, of course.

But again, this is one of those things that the decision fatigue can really amp up those traits that maybe you already naturally have. And so we saw this, you know, with people talking about the Their drinking levels or how they were eating or the shopping online. You know, I've seen it, a lot of different things that are people are posting about and I've made many jokes that basically like once the pandemic started, I started eating like a teenager with money.

So it was like, I'm just going to do what makes me feel happy. I want to get that serotonin hit. I want to feel good because the rest of the world is not feeling good. So that's something to be looking at. Is that happening? The other is avoidance. So are you thinking like, I can't deal with this right now, you need to make a decision, or I'm just going to have to hold off on something, which again, normally can happen.

This, the problem with this, especially in our business is we can become the bottleneck, right? And then that makes us feel even more pressure. If it's like, Hey, I've got all these big decisions to be making. And I feel just so overwhelmed. It kind of makes you want to go to sleep. And the last thing is indecision.

You know, I think a lot of people can be very decisive people, but then there's certain things that come up where they're like, I just don't know. And they kind of waffle back and forth and they kind of stay in this cycle of, I don't know, I, you know, what's the right answer here. And I think I've seen a lot more of this this year.

It, maybe it feels like the stakes are bigger, but I think it's also speaks a lot to the overwhelm. So that's something to look at. The other thing with this is to be aware of how much this impacts us. There have been studies done to kind of show the burden that mental fatigue or decision fatigue has on us.

And they've done studies where people are asked to remain stoic during a tearjerker movie. And then afterwards they're asked to do puzzles or Uh, like a hand gripped exerciser. The people who didn't allow themselves to get emotional during that movie. And I think that that's one of the most important points, kind of tend to give up a lot faster.

And it could be explained by they put forth this mental energy and it just exhaust them on a certain level. And so you can see how that's such an arbitrary small thing, but we're dealing with a lot of this emotional stuff on a day to day basis. We're having to be strong for our kids or for our employees or for our families.

were having to be stoic, perhaps, to show up as a professional. You have to realize that by doing that. And sometimes there's reasons to do that. And sometimes there's not right. But by doing that, you're really exhausting yourself. So then when temptation comes along later, you're going to be way less able to, to resist, right?

So I'm going to give you a couple of quick strategies. I mean, I could, I feel like I could talk about this for a very long time and really go much deeper into this, but I want to give you some quick wins because frankly you got a lot on your minds. So first thing. Is rest self care and rest. So some of this is we just need to give our brains and our bodies a break.

There's no easier way to do that than to be getting the proper sleep, or you've seen what's happened to so many other small businesses, and you want to make sure you stay ahead of the curve, which is all well and good, but you do have to take that time to rest. And it's one of those things. The more that you do that, The more that you're able to make better decisions and especially on those bigger decisions.

So get the sleep, take the time off, take the downtime, take the weekend off, take the day off, whatever it is you need to do that. The other thing is prioritizing. This one, again, I could do a whole episode just about prioritizing, but. It's one of those things that we think we know we should do that, but we never get to it.

It's really important to think about what are the most important decisions I need to be making and what are things that really just don't matter right now. And it could be something that you actually care about, but you're like, Hey, I can put a pin in that and I can deal with that later. Cause it's not something I have to deal with right now.

And I think that's a big piece for a lot of business owners is understanding like, Hey, there was this big project or thing that I was working on and that was my goal for 2020. But then everything kind of hit the fan and you had to either regroup or pivot or whatever it was. You need to just keep that pin in that thing.

Don't let that be in the forefront of stress of like, Oh, I should be doing this. That's that whole shitting on yourself. You need to say, okay, what is the one thing that really matters for me right now? And focus on that. Also letting go of things that normally you would take care of. And so that could be accepting help.

From other people in your business or from your family, if it's stuff at home, that's causing you all, you know, lots of additional stress or things that you all have always taken care of, but now you need some extra support in doing that. So it's figuring out, do I delete these things? Do I get rid of them?

Do I just take them off my to do list? If, if not forever, then at least putting a pin in it for a little bit, is it delegating it out to somebody else, whether that's home stuff or work stuff? Okay. Is it hiring somebody who's an expert in something that is, is a big need for you is like important for your business, whether that be around visibility or sales or whatever that thing is, that's causing you to have to sit there and make a lot of decisions, you know?

So it's the whole delegate, delete, automate, you got to figure out those things. And automation is a big one. And this goes back to kind of, you know, wearing that black, uh, turtleneck and, and jeans every single day. Now you don't have to do that. Although I will say in COVID, I have found like, I swear I can wear an outfit up to like three days because I'm not really going in public.

So I don't know if that's necessarily good. But I really don't have to think about it very much. I just wake up and there I am. But I do think it's about figuring out what are the things that I can let go of that just really aren't that important. And, you know, that doesn't mean they don't, they can't be important down the road, but just for right now, given what's going on, and having to kind of reassess

I know for me, a lot of things that I've been, that I feel stressed about, like, I'll just say like, this is something I just am not ready to make a decision on right now. Like I'm putting that on a back burner in a way that's, you could call that avoidance, but I think it's, it's not something that I'm avoiding that I need to take care of.

It's more of like a want to do kind of thing, or that would be nice to do. Avoidance is when it's something you really should be taking care of it. And you're like, yeah, I don't want to deal with that. And the last thing I'm going to add here is just general stress management. How are you taking care of yourself?

Are you connecting with others? Are you having fun? Are you eating healthy? Are you exercising? Those are all things that help us feel rested and rejuvenated and help us manage our stress levels. And the more stressed we are, the more we're going to be experiencing this decision fatigue. And then we start to do those things like procrastination, the impulsive.

The avoidance, you know, all of that, which impacts us negatively. And then it's like this vicious circle that starts to build on itself. So hopefully this gives you an understanding and you can see. You know, where are you at? Are you feeling, are you feeling this? Are you noticing a lot of decision fatigue or maybe even forgetfulness?

That's kind of one of those other signs that you're in this place of overwhelm. Well, I hope this helped you. I hope you take it seriously and not just, you know, push it off and say, Oh, well, I've just got to do it better. Or why haven't I gotten my, My stuff together yet, because the reality is we're all going through this and this is real.

It is big. There's a lot going on. And so just be kind to yourself. Thank you for joining me today. As we discuss the emotional side of business, it really is my mission to help entrepreneurs stop suffering for success. And I hope that this episode helped you in some small way towards that. If you feel like you could use some one on one support for dealing with decision fatigue or some other problem you're dealing with, head on over and book an SOS session right now through the end of the year, I'm offering 50 percent off all SOS sessions when you use the code bestie.

So don't miss out on this opportunity to do a deep dive and get personalized strategies and support for you.