#10 "Breaking Free: Tackling Decision Paralysis with Intuition"

In this episode of The Jeweler's View, we tackle a major stumbling block for many creatives: decision paralysis. Join your host Courtney Gray as she shares personal anecdotes and actionable strategies to help you overcome self-doubt, perfectionism, and the overwhelming number of daily decisions. From the importance of trusting your intuition to simplifying your decision-making process and letting go of perfectionism, this episode is packed with insights to help you make confident choices in your creative journey and business. Don't miss the encouraging stories, practical advice, and a special announcement about next week's guest. Tune in to learn how to get out of your own way and keep moving forward with confidence.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, friends, welcome back to the Jeweler's View. Today is a big one. Today I want to talk to you about a big one called get out of your own way, how to overcome creative paralysis and follow your intuition.

I can't tell you the importance of the intuition part for me. I have built big things and I have also seen a lot of failure. I think the big wins have always been when I trust my intuition to a T. They say trust your gut, whatever you want to call it. To me, it's straight up intuition.

Just listen to that inner voice. Your body will tell you. There's a lot of different things that will show up. Once you learn what they look like, feel like, you can start making decisions quicker, easier, with confidence. you can't go wrong. You just keep steering the right direction. Those moments when decision making feels [00:01:00] impossible. I know we all face them. We're all creatives. We get in our brains. It feels like you're stuck in quicksand, like it's just holding you down from moving anywhere, moving in any direction, whether it's right or wrong.

So today we're going to dive into this decision paralysis and how to move forward with confidence. I'm hoping by the end of this episode, in fact, I know you're going to have some actionable strategies to simplify decision making, let go of perfectionism and follow that gut, whether it's in your creative process or running your business.

what is decision paralysis? We all face decision fatigue, whether it's a big business decision or choosing what to eat for dinner. Did you know we have to make over 35, 000 decisions every single day? No wonder it's overwhelming and hard to choose. Starting it on my own, doing it my way, I put it off [00:02:00] for a lot longer than I'd like to admit, but the timing wasn't right and that's okay, too. There is a timing and a season for things. And this is the season I'm here and I'm doing it getting up and just making the move, taking the step, sit down by the microphone and hitting record.

 Honestly, I felt paralyzed for a long time, just wondering what's next, waiting for this big insight to hit. And sometimes it does hit like that. But the end of the road, I had to. Just do it. Just get up and make a move and begin.

Just begin. Just start. So instead of letting all the fear, and what will people think, and will they get it, and who am I to speak about these things, and is it helpful, blah blah blah blah, the inner voice of Rabbit hole that we all can relate to, I'm sure. why would somebody pay this much for my work?

At the end of the day, you just got to do it. You just Don't overthink it. Just put it out there and see from [00:03:00] there. How is it received? Do I need to readjust?

And guess what? You can. You can readjust. You can redirect your path anytime. those decisions that feel like, okay, if I, once I make this, I can't go back. That's just not true. Typically you can go back. I've had to learn this the hard way, feeling stuck, sitting in quicksand, for too long, and waiting to share what I'm meant to be doing.

I'm inviting you today. Really dive into this decision paralysis and understand it more so we can correct it Not get stuck overthinking. So why your intuition is key.

Your intuition is often faster and more reliable than overthinking. It's your brain processing past experiences and subconscious insights in the moment. We get clarity through action. The truth is clarity often comes after you make a decision, not before. Taking action is the [00:04:00] antidote to paralysis. When you're stuck, you can ask yourself, does this feel light and exciting or heavy and draining?

What feels light to you? I've really been tuning into this, especially since I quit drinking alcohol.

my intuition has been back on and full force it can come down to take a left or a right at the street. Deep down we have very good intuition. It's a matter of not clouding and getting out of the way of it and just really letting it guide you.

I was driving to an open house. I had a second school that we had started called Creative Side Metalworks. And this was something that I had been asked to start for a long time, and I had been telling myself, okay, when the time is right

I'm gonna start the second school and we're gonna teach art metals and metal sculpture, which was my background before jewelry making so I was driving to the open house of metalworks the second location and Was like, okay. I need to take a pause today. I [00:05:00] need to exercise. I want to feel good I want to be able to speak tonight I was driving down the highway and I thought, okay, I can go left, but it's really beautiful outside today.

What about going right? To the green belt we have this beautiful natural preserved area in Austin called the green belt it's a long stretch of area that you can hike Sometimes there's water when we get lucky I thought you know what I never do that. We're taking some time Let's go do that Today instead of hit the YMCA, so I took a right I followed that green belt 

it's one of those things you take for granted, that you have all this beautiful nature around you and you don't go use it because it's in your city and you just forget about it. But I didn't that day. . I better take my phone. I want to listen to music.

So I put my phone in my little arm pouch thing that I was running with at the time. And I started hiking. And something kept pulling me in this direction. I don't know what it was. I kept walking and it went [00:06:00] deeper down into the green belt than I ever probably would have another day. I'm not a big hiker.

I was like, if I do 30 minutes, I'm great, but I just kept walking. So I found myself at this river, the riverbed where sometimes there's water down there and I'm walking down. I was the only person out there, nobody around and I thought I'm just gonna see where there's this little trickle of water.

I'm gonna see where it's coming from and I kept walking and all of a sudden I heard this loud scream and I heard this bustling of bushes and tree branches and a woman's voice Screaming help and I was like, oh my god What just happened and I looked to my right and there's these 30 foot elevated cliff areas that go up from I was down in the bed and this was up above me and I walked up and I realized this woman had fallen 30 feet going after her dog.

 Hiking above and had tumbled to the bottom and was grabbing tree branches on the way, trying to stop herself. [00:07:00] She was a mangled mess. It was awful. she, Was laying there her fingers were broken. She had blood trickling. She had dirt all over her face. I couldn't tell if she was bruised Anyway, horrific scary traumatic story later if I hadn't been down there with my phone She could have been laying there for an hour.

I have no idea. They were able to find my location from my phone and down in the middle of nowhere fly a helicopter in and Lift this woman out to the hospital. She ended up being fine She had a broken wrist and some major bruises and stuff But my goodness what an experience and if I had taken a left that day Who knows?

I'm sure someone would have found her, but they may not have had their phone. It could have taken longer. When you're paying attention, that intuition will show up and it's not a big sign.

It's this little subtle thing inside, right? So when we listen to it and we have to make these 35, 000 decisions every day, it makes it easier [00:08:00] to just listen. Just go. Don't do that. Do this. Listen to your body. Your body will tell you. Again, your intuition is faster and more reliable than overthinking.

The truth is clarity only comes after you make a decision.

 So how do we simplify decision making? Let's keep it simple. Too many options can overwhelm anyone, including you and your clients. Narrowing choices down to two to three options in your creative process, when you're designing a collection or a piece or custom piece, pick three core ideas to focus on instead of a dozen.

If we narrow this down, it simplifies that decision making paralysis and just, it gets rid of it. You really don't need more than that. Store the other ideas away for another project. 

If you're working with a client or a wholesale client, maybe who wants to do a line with you. If someone's asking for this type of work, present them with no more [00:09:00] than two to three clear choices, small, medium, and premium, maybe. This will help them decide quickly and competently. 

Here's the mid budget. I like to go with the high and work backwards if needed, but it's up to you and how you like to communicate with your clients. This is one thing I think will save you a ton of time.  They want red. I could pick garnet, ruby.  There's so many different stones and materials and design aesthetics and setting styles that we could choose from. Don't show the customer everything, show them what they came for.

It's our job to guide them, right? This is going to cut out that overwhelm for you too, and get you moving forward with projects. We could have thousands of ideas. Dive in and just start with that one. Pick the one from the three, right? I like this rule of three thing.

 Letting go of perfectionism is a big part of this, and I know this comes up again and again, and we've talked about it before. . It [00:10:00] disguises itself as high standards but it often leads to procrastination and simple inaction. How do we reframe that? How do we reframe perfect to done? Remember, done means you're learning and growing. Perfectly usually means you're stuck.

Again, we can sit in this all day and wonder what we should do next. There can be tons of excuses. Until take action, you really aren't going to be able to define what's next.

Make that decision move forward. Trust your intuition. If it's a no, you're going to know it's going to feel wrong. So trust that, trust yourself and let's get out of our own way so we can make moves. We can make those decisions quickly with ease, without overwhelm or frustration. All right some practical steps to break free of decision paralysis.

Here's one you know me and my timers in the Pomodoros, if you listened to [00:11:00] that episode. Give yourself ten minutes to make a decision and stick with it. Sometimes it's less than that. I was thinking about this and really, there's, sometimes it's like a millisecond, like we get just a flash or a moment to make a decision.

 Think about driving your car. If you don't jerk out of the way right away, if you don't follow that impulse, that intuition, you could get in a wreck. You could hurt somebody, you could get hurt. So think of it, that way. Let's just make those quick decisions and trust it and stick with it.

 Pay attention when these things arise for you. Follow the 80 20 rule. Focus on 20 percent of the actions that will have 80 percent of the impact and let the rest go.

Trust that rule of three, limit yourself to three or less options for any decision, whether it's picking a design direction or deciding what to work on first. at the end of the day, ask yourself one question. 

If I couldn't change this decision later, what would I [00:12:00] choose? This will help you commit right away without a whole lot of delay or overthinking. Okay, so this week, let's identify one decision that you've been stuck on. Set a timer no more than 10 minutes. Let's make a choice today.

Find one project. Maybe it's that one that's been weighing on your mind or your bench and it's just staring at you asking to be completed. Let's pick it up and commit to completing it this week. Don't worry about perfection. Worry about getting it done.

Get it done. Get it out there. Move on to the next. And I invite you to try on this rule of three, limit your options for a task or a project and see how it simplifies things. Let's minimalize the overwhelm and overthinking. We know we have enough of that naturally.

So any tricks we can get to make it a little more simple, [00:13:00] we'll invite. , decision paralysis and perfectionism are hurdles we all face. But by simplifying choices and trusting your intuition, you can take action and move forward. I'm so proud of you for showing up and taking steps to overcome these challenges.

I know it takes daily work. I'm here doing the work with you. I want you to know how valuable you are and important and how much the world needs your creativity. Don't let indecision hold you back. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend or two or three and know I've opened up a few slots for my one on one coaching sessions so I can help you align your decisions with your goals.

Head over to my website CourtneyGrayArts. com, learn more, reach out through my email, and let's stay in touch. I want to hear what's working for you. I'd love to support you. I'm here rooting you [00:14:00] on the entire way. Next week, I'll be back and I have a pretty amazing special guest.

Not even going to tell you who it is. You just got to come and show up. Until then. Keep making those decisions, keep it easy, trust your gut, you know the right path, you know the right or left turn to take.

Onward and upward. [00:15:00]