Embracing Decision-Making
Trusting Yourself to Decide Quickly
Fast decision-making is not about haste; it's rooted in self-trust and conviction. By committing to decisions, Amy stresses how she has learned to break the cycle of indecisiveness, a game-changer she attributes to her Enneagram type nine personality, which often prioritizes harmony over action.
Choosing, even in the absence of complete information, propels us into action, creating motion and, consequently, outcomes. Amy’s personal milestone of deciding to write a book and successfully publishing it serves as a prime example. She brings out how the decision was less about guaranteeing success and more about setting into motion the forces that allow success to emerge.
Analyze, Adjust, Advance
Having laid down the importance of fast decision-making, Amy pivots to the importance of reflection post-action. This important step in her strategy involves analyzing the decisions made and their results. Instead of dwelling on what went wrong, the focus should be to learn and make incremental tweaks—what she terms as 'micro adjustments'—to ensure continued progress.
By reframing how we approach adjusting our course, Amy advises not to see it as starting over but as optimizing. The data garnered from each action offers valuable insights that, if used wisely, guide our next steps more assuredly towards our goals.
Reconditioning the Brain for Success
Practice makes permanent. By continuously making decisions, we reinforce to our brain that we are capable and that we trust in our judgment. This ongoing process inevitably builds confidence, which, as Amy points out, is essential for personal and professional growth.
Conclusion: The Impact of the Decision-Action Cycle
The beauty of Amy's advice lies in its simplicity and universal applicability. Whether you're a struggling entrepreneur or someone looking to make a career move, the principle remains the same: action is productive, whereas inaction is stagnation.
As listeners and readers, we take away not just an anecdote of success but a methodical approach to achieving our goals. Decision-making is an art that, when mastered, becomes the key to unlocking potential and progress. Tune into Amy's podcasts and follow her journey on YouTube for more insights into creating the life and business you desire.
Episode Links
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Transcript for Episode 301. I Doubled My Sales By Doing This One Thing
Amy [00:00:03]:
I am such a big believer in taking action. Action creates momentum, and momentum creates results. Right? Easier said than done, though. So how do you go about taking action when you feel stuck? When life's happening all around you, when you're overwhelmed, when you're frustrated, when everything seems heavy around you? How do you push through that fear and take action? This is something I discussed in part four of my book, the CEO method. And I really encourage you to dive in to those fears and limiting beliefs in the book. But today, I want to focus on a strategy that I have started using. And this strategy is so simple, yet so powerful that I wanted to take the time and dedicate a whole entire episode to this process because it's literally helped me double my sales.
Amy [00:01:09]:
It's helped me transform my business and.
Amy [00:01:13]:
Grow it even more.
Amy [00:01:15]:
And it doesn't cost you any time. It doesn't cost you any money. It doesn't cost you any energy.
Amy [00:01:21]:
In fact, it's actually going to give you back time and energy. So what is this? It's fast decision making. It's learning to trust yourself and get into action by making a decision. Now, true story. I am the world's. I used to be the world's most indecisive person.
Amy [00:01:49]:
I am the Enneagram nine.
Amy [00:01:51]:
I'm the people pleaser. I like to just go with the flow. I want everyone to be happy, even.
Amy [00:01:56]:
If that means sacrificing my own happiness.
Amy [00:01:59]:
I don't like to rock the boat. So for me, I would sit in indecision as a way to stay safe. Because at the end of the day, that's our brain's job. Our brain is designed to keep us safe. So by sitting in indecision, I was keeping myself safe. And you may be experiencing this, too. So I committed over this past year to making decisions. And it sounds so simple, right? Just make a decision.
Amy [00:02:36]:
Oh, my gosh. It was life changing. Take, for example, the book on November 12, 2023. I was like, you know what? I keep getting these signs over and over and over. So I made a decision to write a book, and I did it. I've really gotten out of sitting in indecision. It felt like a great decision at the time. And what it did is it got me into action, which created momentum, and then momentum created the result, which, on March 26, my book was released into the universe.
Amy [00:03:13]:
Action creates momentum, momentum creates results. But sitting in indecision, that is making a decision. And this was something that my life coach taught me and called me out on, to be quite honest with you years ago that not making a decision is making a decision. Sitting in that state of indecision was my choice because I felt safe there, because these, the unknown, the future. With that decision, I didn't know what was going to happen. That wasn't a certain thing.
Amy [00:03:52]:
I was staying stuck. I was playing small, but I decided.
Amy [00:04:03]:
I made the choice. I made a decision to stretch outside of my comfort zone. So often we spend so much time stuck in our heads analyzing all of the possible scenarios that our brain gets physically tired. It gets so tired because we're constantly running these scenarios through our mind over and over and over, when we could have used that energy to get into action, to create those results. And it really comes down to trusting yourself. Trusting yourself is so, so absolutely powerful, but it's hard. But by taking these micro actions, by making these small decisions over and over and over, you're telling your brain that, okay, I trust myself. I have enough faith and belief in.
Amy [00:05:06]:
Myself that I know no matter what the outcome, that I took action.
Amy [00:05:17]:
This starts to build confidence in yourself. You're starting to present, I can't talk today. You're starting to provide your brain with proof that it's possible. Those things are so important to you that they are possible outcomes. And a lot of times I think it's because we're afraid of being beginners again. We don't want to make mistakes. But when you take the time to get honest with yourself of what's working, what's not working, you don't need to do anything that you think you should be doing. What you should be doing is what feels good to you, what feels aligned for you.
Amy [00:06:05]:
That's the beauty of running a business. There's no one right way or wrong way to do it. If you listen to any of the gurus out there, they're going to tell you that their way is the right way. The right way is the way that feels good for you. So in creating this habit of making fast decisions, what I really started to do is change my process. I'm starting by making that decision to get into action. And then after I have taken action, I'm taking the time to assess and analyze. How did that go? How did that feel? What could I have done differently? And then I adjust.
Amy [00:06:59]:
I make those minor little tweaks rather than pivoting, rather than starting from scratch. Every single time, I take the data that I have gained, because we can only gain data through taking action. And I use that data to adapt and to adjust and to tweak my actions moving forward.
Amy [00:07:27]:
The data is giving us so much.
Amy [00:07:30]:
Information, it's allowing us to change course, make those small little adjustments so that we're still making that forward progress. But it all comes back to making a decision. Making a decision is the key to getting into action. And when you get into action, when you learn to trust yourself and make those decisions quickly, that's what leads to progress. And you can adjust along the way. I hope this episode was valuable to you. We're now streaming over on YouTube, so make sure to check out our video feed.
Amy [00:08:19]:
And until next time, cheers to making the money you want so you can create the impact you desire.