You've Already Made This Decision | EP 587

That decision you keep picking up, turning over, and setting back down? It's costing you more than you think... and you've probably already made it.

This episode is about the difference between real discernment and fear that's gotten very good at impersonating wisdom.

Full show notes, transcript, and chapters at sheilabotelho.com/587

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Transcript

The Decision You Keep Avoiding

Sheila 0:01

There's a decision that you've been postponing. You know what it is, you've known for a while. And every month you don't make it is costing you in revenue, in energy, in the version of your business that you're not building yet. And this episode is going to change that. Hi, welcome to the podcast. I'm Sheila Botelho, and I believe true success is built from the inside out. And I'm so glad that you're here today because this episode, I believe, made the land for you in just the right way. And I say that because what I'm talking about today is something that I see very consistently in the leaders and founders that I work with. And truly, it's something that I lived myself in a very personal way recently that I'm going to share with you today. We are talking about the decision that you keep postponing. Not the small ones or the operational ones, the one, the one that keeps coming back, the one you've thought about more times than you can count, that shows up in different clothing every few months, that you've rationalized and re-rationalized. And somehow you still haven't made that one. And by the end of this episode, I want you to have more clarity on what that decision actually is, why you're still circling it, how to tell the difference between genuine discernment and fear that has gotten very good at dressing itself up as wisdom and what it actually takes to finally move. So I'm going to start somewhere personal because I think the most useful thing that I can do is share from my personal experience. And it just lands in such a way that feels really relatable. So my husband and I postponed a significant decision for many years. We wanted to move, not just across town, but make a real move, the kind where you look at the decades of a life that you've built somewhere, and you have to genuinely ask yourself, am I staying because I want to be here? Or am I staying here because leaving feels like too much? Because there's one thing about just leaving a community or a town or a continent, even. And then there's all of the intricacies that go along with it. So for a long time, every time we'd get close to the real conversation, something would come up. We'd start looking. But then a season of life made it feel really inconvenient. Our kids and where they were in their lives, family nearby, who we are deeply connected to, friendships, decades of friendship, so woven into the fabric of who we were that we genuinely couldn't picture what tending them would look like from somewhere else. So we'd look at the decision and then we'd set it back down. And then life would move forward and something else would come up and we'd pick it up again and we'd set it back down again. And this went on for years until we finally had to be honest with ourselves about what was actually happening. Because here's the thing: it was never really about timing. We were waiting for a window that was never going to open on its own. There was always going to be a reason. There was always going to be something that made the moment feel slightly wrong. And what we finally understood, truly understood in our bodies, not just in our minds, is that the inconvenience we were trying to protect ourselves from was not assigned to weight. It was just the cost of admission for something we genuinely wanted. And once we actually moved, once we were in the middle of it, something unexpected happened. We started to discover things we were ready to release that we hadn't even known we were carrying. Obligations, ways of operating, certain dynamics that had just been part of the landscape for so long that we'd stopped questioning them. And some of those things, it turned out, were really, really healthy to let go of. We just couldn't see that until we were in motion. And the other thing I want to name, because I think this is a real thing people encounter all the time, it's that this decision involved other people's feelings. It wasn't just our feelings to navigate. There were people who loved us who didn't want us to go, people for whom our being there was meaningful and our leaving them felt like a loss. And sitting with that, holding space for their feelings without letting those feelings make the decision for us. Well, that was some of the most emotionally complex work of the whole process. And what we realized is that we could still pour into every relationship that mattered. We just have to be even more intentional about it. We'd have to show up purposefully for the people we loved rather than just being geographically convenient. And frankly, we all have experiences like this where we live very much in close proximity to people we care about, and yet you never see them. Because life is busy, life gets in the way. So intentionality is a thing, whether you live close to someone or not. And then we realized we should have been doing that all along.

unknown 5:36

Right?

Naming Your 90 Day Decision

Fear Disguised As Wisdom

Three Questions For True Clarity

What Moving Forward Really Takes

The 48 Hour Momentum Step

One Day Intensive And Closing

Sheila 5:36

The move didn't threaten our relationships, it actually clarified them. I'm sharing all this because I want you to see that the anatomy of a postponed personal decision and a postponed business decision are almost identical. The mechanism is the same, the emotions are actually very similar. And the way through feels pretty much the same too. So let's bring this into your world. I invite you to pause here for a moment and really just for even 10 seconds with me and ask yourself this question. What is the decision that I've been circling for 90 days or more? Take a moment with this, and you can come back to this as well, but let it come up for you. Don't overthink it. It's probably sitting right there anyway. Your nervous system already knows. What is the decision that you've been circling for 90 days or more? Do you have it? Okay. Here's what I want you to notice about that decision. It keeps coming back, right? Maybe it comes back as a different question, framed differently, contextualized differently, appearing in a different conversation or maybe a different moment. But the core of it is the same. And your reaction to it has a familiar quality, a familiar feeling. That's truly not a coincidence. I want you to look at it as data. Because here's what I know after years of working with founders and leaders at high levels of growth in different fields, most of the time, by the time a decision has been circling for 90 days, you've already made it internally in the quiet part of yourself that isn't negotiating anymore. The postponing isn't really about the decision itself. It's about what making it out loud is going to require you to release and to address. And that's where it gets interesting because release is uncomfortable. Even when what we're releasing is something we're genuinely ready to let go of, it's familiar. So even when the thing we're holding on to has already stopped serving us, it can be hard to let go. There's something in us that wants to keep holding, to keep managing, to wait until we have a little more certainty before we loosen our grip. And in business, this looks like the offer you haven't launched yet, even though you know it's the right one. It keeps coming back. Or the pricing you haven't updated because you're not sure the market will receive it. The niche you haven't fully stepped into because claiming it out loud feels like closing doors. The partnership or relationship you know that isn't aligned anymore, but you haven't ended because ending things feels harsh. Or the product that you just know you were the one to be making. The direction you've been nudged toward repeatedly that you keep setting back down because the timing doesn't feel right. If any of those landed, if you felt your chest tighten at one of them, that just might be the decision. And the question isn't whether the timing is right, the question is whether you're ready to stop waiting for it to be. Now, here's where I'd like to go deep with you because this is the piece I think that gets the most muddled, and for good reason, because fear is sophisticated. Fear has gotten very good at impersonating wisdom. And if you're self-aware, you're intuitive, you're a growth-oriented person, which I'm guessing you are if you're here. Fear knows exactly how to speak your language. So, how do you actually tell the difference? The first thing to look at, and I invite you to look at this with your own decision right now, is does it keep coming back? Fear recycles, it shows up with the same emotional signature, even when the circumstances change. If you've been in the same conversation with yourself about the same decision or a version of it multiple times over multiple months or years, and your reaction has that same familiar quality every time, that is also data. Discernment tends to be decisive. It has a settled quality, even when the answer is hard. Fear loops, it argues, it negotiates. It always has one more reason to wait. The second thing I look at, and this is the question I actually ask my clients and ask myself, is this would my life genuinely be improved by the outcome of making this decision? I'm not saying like, would it be comfortable or convenient? Because often these things are not comfortable or convenient. If anything, discomfort and inconvenience are the very hallmarks of knowing you're making a big change. And often it's a really good change. And this is maybe something that's not applauded by everyone around you. But what would actually genuinely be improved? How would you be more yourself? Would your business be more aligned? Would you be operating at a level that reflects who you really are right now? If the answer is yes, if you can see clearly that the outcome of this decision moves your life and your work forward in a real way and you're still not moving, that really is fear. That's not discernment. Because discernment would look at that same outcome and either say a clear yes or no. Discernment doesn't need to keep revisiting the same question. It doesn't need another month or another quarter or another sign. And the third thing I want to name, because I hear this one constantly, it's what I call the constriction of the new. The constriction of the new. When you imagine making this decision, does something in you feel tight, constricted, like you can't quite breathe into it fully? Well, what most people do with that feeling is that they interpret it as a no. They think that if this were right, it would feel expansive, it would feel good. And because it feels tight, it must not be aligned. But I want to offer you a different interpretation. That constriction isn't always a no. Sometimes, and I would hazard a guess to say more often than not, it's truly the feeling of becoming someone that you haven't been yet. It's just not familiar to you. It's the feeling of your current identity bumping up against the edges of the next version of you. And that feeling is uncomfortable, but it's not a stop sign, it's a threshold. The question to ask when you feel that constriction is not, is this wrong? The question to ask yourself is, is this new? Because if it's new, the discomfort is expected. That's just what expansion feels like from the inside before you've done it. So let me give you a quick framework you can actually use right now. There are three questions, and I invite you to sit with each one genuinely. And you can come back to this anytime you find yourself facing another big decision and seeing if you've just been circling it for too long. Question one, have I had the same reaction to this same decision or a version of it more than one time? If yes, that pattern is worth examining. Question two, if I set aside timing, logistics, and other people's comfort, would my life be genuinely improved by saying yes to this? Not easier, but would it be improved? And question three, does this feel constricted because it's wrong or because it's new? And can I tell the difference? And as you ask yourself these questions, give yourself space, write them down if you want, and really take a breath after each one. Let the answer come up rather than think it up. Your body knows before your mind catches up. Okay, so you've identified the decision, you've looked honestly at whether it's fear or discernment. And let's say you know truly that this is something you need to do. You know it's fear, you know the outcome would improve your life, you know it keeps coming back because it's not done with you yet. It will circle back around. Now what? Well, this is where I want to talk to you about what moving actually requires. Because I think we sometimes imagine that the people who make bold decisions have something we don't. They've got more courage, more certainty, a cleaner situation, a better moment. And that's not what I've seen. What I've seen in my own life and in the people that I work with is the people who move are the people who've stopped waiting for the moment to cooperate and they started creating the conditions instead. So the first thing I want to say is this you've heard it before. I'm just going to repeat it. There is no such thing as perfect timing. Very simple, right? But I want you to really sit with that because if there's no perfect timing, if the timing was never going to be cooperating with you anyway, then you're already allowed to move in this moment. You've been allowed to move all along. The permission you were waiting for was never coming from the outside. And the second thing, and this connects directly to what I shared about our move, is that some of what you need to release, you won't even know about until you're in motion. You cannot fully inventory what you're carrying until you start to set it down. It's like you don't know how many moving boxes you need until you actually start unloading closets and drawers, truly. And some of what you discover in that process will deeply surprise you. You'll find things that were heavier than you realized, things you were ready to release that you didn't know you were even holding on to. And that releasing, even when it's uncomfortable, is often the most clarifying part of this whole process. The third thing is about other people's feelings. And this is a big one. It's one of the biggest things that I see holding anybody back from decisions they know they need to make. Other people's discomfort with your growth is real. It's valid. And it's not yours to manage at all. You can love people deeply and still make a decision that they're not comfortable with. You can hold space for someone's feelings and still move forward. Those two things are not in conflict. In fact, the most loving thing you can often do is to make the decision with integrity, be transparent about it, and to show up with intention for the relationships that matter to you rather than stay stuck out of loyalty to a version of yourself that no longer fits. Because I've learned a lot about this. The relationships that are truly meant to sustain do not require you to shrink. They expand with you. And the ones that can't hold your next level, those are part of what you're releasing. And that looks different for everyone in every circumstance, even if if it means just releasing to a different part of your life or releasing the amount of time you spend together. And finally, the decision doesn't require certainty. It requires a clear enough yes. Not a perfect yes, not a risk-free yes, not a universally approved yes, a clear enough yes and the willingness to figure out the rest in motion. That is all it has ever taken. That is all it takes right now. So let's make this concrete before I close because I don't want this to stay at the level of concept and you just move on to the next episode. I want this to be useful in your actual life this week. So here's what I invite you to do: name your decision out loud if you can. Write it down if that's more your style, but get it out of your head and into a form that can actually look at you because decisions that live only in our minds have a way of staying vague enough that we can keep avoiding them. When you name it specifically, when you write, I've been postponing the decision to do this, raise my prices, or end this partnership, or launch this offer, or generate this new revenue stream? It stops being abstract and becomes something you can actually work with. Then ask yourself three questions. The ones I said before. Has this come back before? Would my life be genuinely improved? Is this the constriction because it's wrong or because it's new? And then if the answers point where I think they're going to point, ask yourself one more question. What is one thing I can do in the next 48 hours that moves me toward this decision rather than away from it? Not the whole thing, not full execution, just one move, one conversation, one boundary drawn, one yes given, one thing that creates momentum instead of more deliberation. Because momentum is how we break the postponing pattern. It doesn't mean we have all the answers. It doesn't mean that more clarity is just going to arrive fully formed. But this happens by moving toward the thing in small enough increments that the fear doesn't have the time to mobilize a full defense. And if you move toward it and it turns out to be a no, a real, discerned, and settled no, awesome. You're going to know it. And that knowing will free you to put your energy somewhere else entirely. But most of the time, what I see is that the first small move toward a decision that has been postponed creates a level of clarity that months of thinking never could, because clarity is not a prerequisite for action. In my experience, clarity is the result of it. So if you've been listening to this and a specific decision kept resurfacing for you, if you found yourself nodding or pausing or feeling that familiar tightness, pay attention to that. It's not a coincidence. That is the decision showing up again. And this time, maybe it showed up because you're actually ready. Sometimes what you need in that moment isn't more time to think about it. It's one focused day to get clear, to build the map, make the call with someone who's fully in your corner. And that's exactly what my private one-day intensives are for. Just you and me, where we go deep on what's actually in the way, what the real decision is, and what your next chapter looks like when you stop postponing it. So you can find out more and apply at the link in the show notes or in the description below. And if you love this episode, if it landed for you, I'd be really grateful if you shared it with someone who needs to hear it in your life and leave a review if you haven't yet. It genuinely helps this show reach more people who have the inclination to finally be ready for this kind of conversation. I appreciate you being here. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week, and I will see you on the next episode.