Sometimes, when I think about ideas that may be interesting to blog about, my problem is that I don´t remember whether I´ve already written about a particular topic, so I have to start searching for keywords in the archives to confirm that I´m not repeating myself too much.

Last week I said I was going to explain a very simple exercise to clarify values... It turns out I already did, in June last year, in this article: Things that matter.

And today´s article was going to be entitled "Decisions", but then I realized I had already used that title a little over a year ago, and coincidentally, that article included one of the two quotes I had in mind for today. I have such a bad memory sometimes!

Oh well, it´s no harm revisiting a topic like this one again, and I still have the other quote I wanted to share with you, plus a new one I found along the way, so here it goes.

(Photo of the famous Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in Northern Ireland, which we visited a few months ago. To cross, or not to cross? That is the question.)

How good are you at making decisions?

I always considered myself to be quite indecisive, but I´ve realized that, over the years, I´ve become better at it: I still think a lot about things, that´s not something I´m going to be able to avoid, but at least now I take action earlier, sometimes much earlier, instead of getting stuck in paralysis by analysis or procrastinating out of fear of making a mistake, as used to be the case.

Now that I think about it, I believe coaching has had a lot to do with this. As I explain in this other article, coaching is mainly focused on the present and future: being clear on where we are and where we want to go, and taking conscious and purposeful steps towards that goal. But in addition to that, coaching helps us to be more open-minded: to see ourselves as capable and resourceful individuals, as persons who can achieve many things (maybe not everything, but a lot of things) and to see the world as an environment that´s full of possibilities, where there are multiple ways to solve each problem, and where each step that we take brings us new learnings, especially when we don´t get it right on the first try.

And throughout our journey, there are decisions to be made, sometimes challenging, but necessary... Here´s the first quote for today, food for thought (thanks, Luis):

Easy decisions, hard life.
Hard decisions, easy life.

Jerzy Gregorek

What do you think? It´s a little harsh, but if you think about it, it´s true: very often, we choose the easy or comfortable option in the short term, whether it´s regarding healthy habits or many other things, because we don´t see (or we don´t want to see) the long term consequences.

In fairness, our own brain doesn´t exactly help with this process: it lives in an eternal present, and its goal is for us to survive, so our autopilot is always going to favour the short term; that´s why a hamburger is always going to be more appealing to us than a salad, to save us from starving to death later on. Luckily, even if it´s at the cost of extra effort and a certain amount of temporary discomfort, we can override those short-term impulses and make more balanced decisions (on food and everything else). And then, by practicing those new behaviours until they become habits, we make it easier for ourselves in the long run.

By the way, there should be no need to say it, but I´m going to say it anyway, just in case making decisions as a responsible adult implies fully accepting the consequences. Which means no complaining and no blaming others. Speaking of blame, here´s the second phrase for today, I hope it helps to lighten the load a little (thanks, Hernán, you showed me this many years ago):

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Our Judeo-Christian tradition has taught us to label everything as "good" or "bad", and to believe that everything that´s "good" gets rewarded (maybe after this life), and everything that´s "bad" gets punished. But in life, things are rarely so black or white, and besides, feeling guilty is not going to solve anything, so I´m proposing a different approach: thinking that every one of our actions has its consequences, and those consequences can go in favour of and help (others, as well as us), or, on the contrary, they can go against and harm.

What kind of consequences do we want to generate? Let´s swap guilt with responsibility.