Making Big Decisions: 6 Exercises for Clarity and Confidence

1. Introduction: In most cases, the only wrong decision we really make is denying ourselves the ability and opportunity to make any decision at all out of fear of choosing the wrong thing. My name is Melissa stagnant and I am an author, speaker, and founder of intentional and productivity. And I've created this class to help you address and move through the fear of choosing the wrong thing. So that you can make effective personal decisions with more clarity and confidence, intentional productivity, and a big part of having a happy and fulfilling life. It's about finding and focusing on the right things, the things that matter to you and that you want to say yes to. But the fear of choosing the wrong thing often gets in the way. This fear is so common and it can be crippling. Before I got into teaching and coaching, I spent years as a mental health counselor. And I can tell you that if this is something you struggle with, you are definitely not alone. And avoiding making important decisions doesn't end up serving you because it feeds this fear even more. So if you find yourself feeling stuck and struggling to make decisions. I've created this class for you to take a look at what's behind this fear. And try out six different exercises to engage with it and move through it. Dealing with fear and making decisions both get a whole lot easier with practice and with some effective tools and questions. In this class, you will learn about your fear and the feelings behind it so you can identify it and engage with it. You'll try out six different exercises to ask yourself new questions and explore what you want for your life and yourself. And you'll practice making small decisions. Clarify and reflect what you want, need, and envision. The goal or intention is for you to become more comfortable moving through this fear, identifying what matters to you, and making decisions to support that you are the expert and authority of your life, your decisions, your present, and your future. So the choices you make are up to you. It's not always easy to know which road to take, but that doesn't mean it has to feel so hard. Learn to unpack this fear, to ask questions and engage with it so you can move through it and make decisions, align with your values and move you closer to your vision for your work, your relationships, your interests and curiosities, and yourself. If you are ready to take these steps to gain clarity and feel confident and empowered in making decisions. Then join me in this class. I can hardly wait to get started and I'll see you on the inside. 2. Unpacking the Fear: Let's dive right into it. I want you to start by seeing if any of these feel true for you. You struggle to make decisions or take action toward what you want and envision for yourself. Because you're afraid you'll choose the wrong thing. Or maybe you're reluctant to even think about your vision because of this fear. Or you don't want to think about what you want and envision because you're afraid you'll identify your visions and dreams, get really clear, make a plan, and then never get there. If any of these field true for you, you might feel anxious, uncomfortable, guilty. So what often happens to avoid these emotions is simply keep doing what you're doing. Working hard to be more efficient and gain a sense of control around your day to day. But those feelings are still there and they show up through things like overwhelm, overwork, micro-managing, comparison, and perfectionism, lack of clarity, confidence, and commitment are often rooted in a fear of failure. And this fear gets in our way a lot. One way is through avoidance, avoiding making decisions as an attempt to avoid these uncomfortable emotions. Another is a term you might have heard before called decision paralysis or analysis paralysis, which is where you get stuck in your head forever weighing the pros and cons, doubting yourself and feeling unable to make a decision. I saw this in my counseling career and I see it now as I teach and coach others unintentional productivity. I've also struggled with this personally. I still do from time to time. But through observation and experience, I've learned that a key part of making the right decision or feeling able to make any decision at all, is having an asking effective questions and being willing to be honest with yourself and actually acknowledge and feel those uncomfortable emotions. They're going to be present either way. Think of emotions as energy in motion. And when those uncomfortable feelings arise, which they will and that's okay. Try giving yourself at 90 s to observe and feel what comes up. There's actually something called the 90-second rule, which is a term used by Harvard brain scientist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, author of whole-brain living and my stroke of insight. This rule states, when a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there's a 92nd chemical process that happens. Any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop when you react to something in your environment like a stimulus that makes you scared or angry. There's a 92nd process where your brain fires as signal and a stress hormone is released in your body to stimulate a fight or flight response. After that 90 s, it's flushed away. Any remaining emotional response is caused. Staying in that emotional loop, ruminating on a thought or event and creating an ongoing emotional and chemical response in the brain and the body, which is fascinating and also means each of us has the power and the responsibility to choose the thoughts we focus on. In the words of Viktor Frankl, who was a neurologist, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man's Search for Meaning. Amongst many other books, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose. Our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. With that, let's move into six different ways. You can start to explore your choices, growth and freedom. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but more a collection of exercises that you can try out and play with to begin your process of choosing what you want to focus on. What are your right things, the things that really matter to you, and that you want to say yes to. As you try these out, remember that it's okay to feel a little anxious and uncertain, just as it's okay to change your mind as things adjust and as new information comes to light, or you try things out and find what works for you. It's all allowed and there are no wrong answers. So let's get started. 3. Hell Yeah Test: Peter Drucker, known as the father of modern management, mentioned the importance of having what's called criteria of relevance for decision-making. And all that means is you have certain factors that you're looking at, judging and maybe measuring when making a decision. So it's helpful to know what these factors are and how much value you place on each one. For instance, when making a personal decision, you might look at which option most excites you, which will advance your career in the direction that you want to go, or which one might bring the most meaning and fulfillment. Maybe you feel like you need something new, a big change, or you might be craving more stability and familiarity. Most times I'd say we look for something meaningful. What will lead to our goals, our growth and fulfillment, or interesting what allows us to explore our curiosities. I want to start off with an exercise for the ladder, making decisions based on those curiosities. Because as communication coach and author Dorie Clark writes in her book, the long game, when you're still figuring out what feels meaningful. Or if you're a renaissance person drawn to many different things, she finds it's helpful to optimize for interesting. So if that's you, as ideas arise, I want you to consider this exercise called the **** yeah, test. This was created and made famous by author and entrepreneur Derek Sivers in his book fittingly titled ****, yeah or no, what's worth doing? He writes, if you feel anything less than **** yeah, about something, say no. We say yes too often. By saying no to almost everything. You leave space and time in your life to throw yourself completely into the things that matter. Most simple, right? Not necessarily easy, but it certainly can be effective. If you're not interested, say no, not excited or curious about something. Say no. You can use the 90-second rule from our last lesson to test this out. If you're responding to something or even taking a look at ideas that arise as you try out the next few exercises. And you don't feel overly curious or excited to pursue something, then maybe there's a better option. Tim Ferriss walks readers through something similar in his book, the four-hour workweek, he says that asking yourself the question, what do I want is too broad, too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer. Instead, he suggests a different question. What would excite me? Of course, there are some caveats to this, and I don't suggest applying this question to everything. For instance, if you have an idea of what's meaningful for you and you're going down the path towards your goals and your vision, then sometimes there are things that you must do and commit to that are less than thrilling. In that case, maybe focus on the subtitle of Derek's book, what's worth doing? And perhaps the question then is, is this worth doing? Is it meaningful or part of something meaningful? Is this essential to the goal or end result I'm after? Then if a definite and resounding yes or a **** yeah. It's a go. Or if not, can you say no to redirect your time, energy and attention towards what matters. I know it's not always so cut and dry, but this can definitely be a fun and effective exercise to try when weighing different factors. So a quick recap of exercise. One, the **** yeah, test. Use this to decide what to pursue based on interests and curiosities. Use the 90-second rule to observe your emotions when assessing an opportunity or different options before making your decision. Then, according to Derek Sivers instructions, if you feel anything less than **** yeah. About something, say no. The result by doing this is you leave space and time in your life to throw yourself completely into the few things that matter most. This is one quick exercise for you to use to optimize for interesting. In our next exercise, we'll take a look at meaning and values. So that whether you're guided by curiosity or meaning, you'll have a compass to guide you in making decisions. 4. Three Words: This next practice is called My three words and was developed by best-selling author and marketing consultant Chris Rogan. While he uses it to theme or set an intention for each year, you can use it at any time as a way to practice what I call values-based inquiry. Asking questions around what you value so you can get clear on what matters to you, what kind of person do you want to be and how you want to live. I first learned about this practice in 2016 while working with Mike Vardy at productivity is, and I've used it every year since. I find it helpful to identify and ground my year in three personal qualities, I want to cultivate, embody, or bring forward in my work. The, My three words idea is simple. Choose three words, not one, not four. That will help guide your choices and actions day to day. Think of these as lighthouses. Should I say yes to this project? Well, ask yourself, does this align with my three words? How do you choose your three words? Choose any three words you feel will guide you forward. Don't make it a phrase. Publish the book, for instance, is not a good choice because the word the is wasted. Try to make words actionable. Expand is better than bigger because it's a verb. The more utilitarian the word can be, the better. These words will act as your compass. Choose three that you can stick to all year. And finally, review them daily or regularly. The more you review your three words, the better. Plan them into daily routines. Use them as a mantra or reflect on them when you meditate. Like I said before, I do this exercise year after year, and I find it very effective and insightful. This is a great exercise to do at the start of a new year, your three words act as your lighthouses to help guide your choices and actions day to day. Choose any three words you feel will guide you forward. The most effective words are simple, practical, actionable, and meaningful to you for the best results, stick with your three words all year and be sure to review them daily or regularly. By doing this, you identify and invest in the qualities and values you think are important and that you want to embody or bring forward in your work. I think this is a great and simple exercise to integrate into your yearly planning. Now, we're going to move into a slightly longer timeframe in the next few exercises. So if you're ready to give that a go, I will see you in the next video. 5. Airport Test: Exercise number three. Like I said, we're now going to dive into a bit of a longer time-frame. Remember that the goal or intention here is to explore and gain insight into what you find meaningful, interesting, and important. As you now shift into a five-year timeframe, remember that you don't need to put pressure on yourself to create a roadmap for anything. Right now. You're just observing what comes up and playing with different ideas. This is all part of the process of finding what really matters to you and then choosing where you'll focus first. As I said in the beginning of this class, most times, the only wrong decision we really make is denying ourselves the ability and opportunity to make any decision at all. And a key part of making or feeling like you're making the right decision is asking effective questions, being honest with yourself and observing the thoughts, emotions, ideas, and images that come up throughout the process. Before I came across this exercise in the book, will it fly by Pat Flynn, I had done a few variants of it throughout my work as a counselor and through teaching a number of self-care and intentional living workshops. The practice, as Pat teaches it, is called the airport test. The idea is that the exercise aligns your goals and directions with your values and the vision that you have for your future self. So grab a piece of paper and something to write with, and let's get started. The first step of the airport test is to imagine that five years from now you run into an acquaintance at the airport, someone you haven't seen for the past five years, they ask you, how are you, how's life? And you truthfully respond with, I'm doing great, life is amazing, couldn't be better. Now, whether or not you'd actually give this response isn't the primary question. The main question here is what's happening in your life five years from now, that makes you respond or want to respond like this. With that in mind, step two is to divide your piece of paper into four equal sections, folded into four quadrants, or draw lines to split it into four equal boxes so that it looks like this. Next, consider the four most important areas of your life. These act as headings for each section. Some examples might be physical health, family, business or career development, finances, spirituality, friendships, and so on. Then for each section, you imagine yourself in that airport scenario telling this person all the amazing things that are happening in that area of your life. Notice and explore the thoughts, feelings, images, words, and ideas that come up. And as you do so, the key is to write these down in the present tense. I am, I have, I do, versus the future tense, I will. This makes you feel like you're already there, already in this ideal life you envision and allows you to step into it and more closely identify what it looks and feels like and what it means to you. As with any exercise in this class, mold and shape this to work for you. Personally, I can't quite imagine myself sharing a bunch of personal details with an acquaintance I haven't spoken to in over five years. So I just leave that part out or imagine I'm meeting a future version of myself instead. But I see a lot of value in this exercise. And I think it can be just as effective to simply visualize each component of your ideal life in five-years and do the exercise that way. Adding a visualization component to inquiry, especially when it comes to exploring big picture or seemingly far away questions, can be extremely powerful and lead to clear insights. What I like most about this exercise is that in terms of making decisions, it helps you identify what you value, what you want, the themes and the main areas of focus in your life to be. This insight can then help you decide between different options and opportunities as they arise. Similar to Chris Bogan's three words, you can then ask yourself, does this fall into one of my four quadrants or areas of focus? Does it align with my five-year ideal? Does this bring me closer to my vision? So let's do a quick recap of this exercise. The airport test. Use this to align your goals and direction with your values and vision for your future self based on the areas of life you deem most important. First, identified the four most important areas of your life. Then divide a piece of paper into quadrants, four equal sections, and title each one using the four areas you identified in step one. Imagine your ideal or amazing life five years from now. And identify what's happening in each area of your life that would make you say, my life is amazing. Finally, write down the thoughts, feelings, ideas, and images that come up in the present tense. By doing this, you gain insight into what you value and want as the general themes and areas of focus of your life, which is incredibly helpful when evaluating options and making important decisions. Now that you have an exercise for exploring the big picture and what you want your life to look like in five years time. Let's move into a few exercises that will help you turn that vision into your reality. 6. Keystone Goal: Focusing on one thing, one priority at a time, and investing your time, energy and attention into that thing is crucial to making meaningful progress. But it can be challenging to know which one to choose. This exercise is here to help. Building on the last lesson, this one is great for helping you determine which goal or priority is the right one for you to focus on, which is the first and most important. This exercise comes from Dorie Clark, world renown communication coach and author of the long game, amongst other bestsellers. And she says, it is often possible to identify one goal that if accomplished, makes everything else easier or more attainable. This is what's called your keystone goal. Now, Keystone has a couple of definitions. First, it is the central stone at the top of an arch, which unlocks the whole thing together. The second definition of Keystone is that it's the central principle or part of a system. So identifying a keystone goal is finding the central part of your system or overarching vision and focusing on that one thing that can hold it altogether or make everything easier and more attainable. Let's take one of these examples. Imagine for a moment that you want to build a consulting business that is part of your big picture vision and is an overarching goal, acting as a kind of umbrella over the rest. There are many different pieces to building this consulting business. Establishing yourself as a credible and recognized expert, gaining and maintaining clients, speaking at conferences and events. And perhaps you'd also like to publish a book. So where do you begin? You have a list of objectives within your overarching goal or vision. So can you identify one goal that makes everything else easier or more attainable? In this example, Doris sets the keystone goal, not as growing a consulting business, but instead writing for high-profile publications. Why? Because putting your focus there will help you generate more consulting business, more speaking opportunities, book sales, and so on. People will affiliate you with the publication you write for and see you as a credible expert. There'll be reminded of you and your ideas. So that keystone goal moves you toward your big picture goal, building a consulting business, while also helping you accomplish some of those smaller sub-goals along the way. Instead of focusing on a massive abstract or far away goal, try to find something simple and straightforward to set as your keystone goal. Focusing there instead is often more effective and efficient in the long run. But how do you do this? Identifying a keystone goal requires you to ask yourself questions around what you want and how you might get there. While also encouraging you to be on your own side. How can you make things easier for yourself? Susie more life coach and author of the book, let it be easy, reminds us that success comes from repetition and focus on your bigger vision. She asks questions like, where is this leading? What's essential here? And of course, how can I let this be easy? Another example is from number one bestseller, The one thing authors Gary Keller and j path is n, pose what they call the focusing question. What's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, Everything else will be easier or unnecessary. They say, this deceptively simple question can lead you to not only answer big picture questions such as, where am I going and what do I want? But also small focus questions like, what do I need to do right now to be on the path toward my big picture vision. The beauty of this approach, the focusing question, letting it be easy and identifying a keystone goal is that you shift from maybes and should and could to what you really want and what is absolutely necessary to get you from here to there. All while being on your own team. As opposed to feeling like you need to force yourself to take on a bunch of different things and then maybe beat yourself up when you're totally burned out. This is a much healthier and more effective approach. We'll expand on the keystone goal in the next lesson. But for now, let's recap what it looks like. Identify a keystone goal. It's often possible to identify one goal that if accomplished, makes everything else easier or more attainable. Once you've identified your vision or overarching goal, such as building a consulting business. Consider your sub goals. What are the pieces you need to put together or the objectives that you need to reach or manage in order to achieve your big picture goal. Then can you identify one goal that if accomplished, might make everything else easier or more attainable. Some questions to explore. Where is this leading? What's essential here? How can I let this be easy? And what's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, Everything else will be easier or unnecessary. By asking yourself these questions and identifying your keystone goal, you move toward your big picture objective while also accomplishing a few of the smaller sub goals. Along the way. You also shift from abstract thinking or maybes and could and should to what matters and what is absolutely necessary. All while streamlining your process and being on your own team. That is five wins in one. Keep in mind that this exercise is effective once you've identified your big picture vision. And you'll also need an idea of some of the objectives or subgoals involved in making that vision a reality. So it might not be your starting point, but it can certainly be helpful in streamlining your process. Let's move into the next exercise where we will expand on your vision, your keystone goal, and the steps in-between. 7. Goal Setting to Now: This next exercise continues the process of expanding your timeline while also focusing on what you can do now. Therefore, connecting one goal to the next and connecting your day-to-day actions with your future objectives. You'll see what I mean in a minute. First, the process so far has looked like this. You started with the **** yeah, test to practice the 90-second rule of emotion and focus on how you feel about certain ideas. Whether a new and immediate opportunity, a short-term goal, or a long-term vision. The second exercise, your three words, is generally applied on a one-year timeframe, like theming and New Year to set specific intentions or areas of focus. And exercises. 3.4 from the last two videos are great for five-year objectives, though both are certainly flexible and could be worked into shorter or longer timeframes. Now, this fifth exercise is here to bridge the gap between someday and today. When you have a vision in mind for your life, asking yourself, what can I do today to make this happen? Can feel ineffective or overwhelming. You might very well end up with a long list of things that you could do. And that's because there is a monstrous gap between your someday vision and today. And as you might imagine, there are quite a few steps in-between. By identifying these steps, it becomes much easier to know how to get from here today to hear Someday so that you can shift your thinking and planning to actually getting started knowing that what you're doing is in fact, leading you in the direction you want to go, which is great. It's much easier to work hard and stay the course when you believe your efforts will actually lead you to the results that you want. In the last exercise, I mentioned the book, the one thing by Gary Keller and j path is n d. Remember that are focusing question. They also outline a process which they equate to lining up Domino's. I said earlier that this process looks at an expanded timeline and I'm talking way down the line while also focusing on what you can do right now, today, next week, and so on and so forth. The process is called goal-setting to the now. It connects your present actions with future objectives, aligning one goal with the next, lining up your dominos so that it looks something like this. Now, how do you set this up? You begin by identifying your someday goal. Where do you want to be in 101520 years? What does your life look like? What is your big, big picture vision? And once you have a relatively clear idea of that someday goal, you can work backwards to reverse engineer your process all the way up to the present day and present moment. So where do you want or need to be in five years to reach that someday vision? And then to get to that five-year goal, what do you need to do? What goal or goals do you need to achieve within the next year? From there, you can identify smaller stepping stones. What milestones do you need to achieve, say, each month to get you to your one-year goal. What might you need to achieve each week to hit your monthly milestones? What about today and right now? The what and the why come before the how. And taking this approach makes figuring out the how the steps that you need to take a whole lot easier. Now, a couple of things to keep in mind as you go through the goal-setting exercise. First, I've given you a simple overview of the process, which looks like this. Actually going through the process will likely be and feel a bit messy. Lots of inquiry, asking yourself big questions and taking some time to sit with those questions. And if you're anything like me, lots of writing and brainstorming. Maybe you explore different ideas. Someday, goal or vision. Asking, what would this look like and what would be involved? Then? What if I pursued this path over here? Can I somehow merge the two together? Then once you've identified your someday vision, you might do the same with your five-year goal and your one year goal. I personally find it helpful to get my thoughts and ideas out of my head and onto paper where I can take a more objective look and play with different goals and timelines without feeling like it's this big tangled ball of yarn in my head. So when I do this exercise, I have a good few pages of different thoughts and words and ideas. That come up. Then I go through and I look at the different categories and patterns that I see related to goals and projects or values that keep coming up. Things like freedom, connection, community, joy, growth, fulfillment. These provide a really valuable insights. So I encourage you to take your time with the process. Because what you find and what comes up can act as a compass for this exercise and for future decisions as well. And the second thing to keep in mind is you can always play with these exercises and find a variation that works for you and that you will find effective. You might notice I changed the language every now and then. Someday gold becomes vision. Maybe monthly goal is a milestone, daily goal is a focus. Use words and phrases, questions in ways that resonate with you. That means something to you or make things clearer. You can play with different mediums too. Maybe you do this exercise with a pen and paper, or maybe you draw on a whiteboard or use post-it notes and then move them around. I do that a lot. Maybe you literally set up Domino's with your goals written on them and then knocked down the first one and watch them all fall. I don't know. There's no one right way to do this. Just as there's no one right way to make a decision, or even one right decision to make. The goal or intention is to gain these valuable insights that then guide your decisions. And you do that by asking questions and experimenting with different exercises. This is really you exploring curiosities and values, slowly realizing or revealing to yourself what matters to you. And then with these insights, you can begin shaping your decisions around these things. So don't be afraid to experiment with this or any exercise. We covered a lot in this lesson. So let's do a recap. Goal-setting to the now. It's purpose is to connect one goal with the next and your day-to-day actions with future objectives. The how it looks like this. Identify your someday goal, your big picture vision. Then identify your five-year goal, your one-year goal, and your monthly milestones. What's the one thing you can do this month and then this week to reach that one year goal. And what's the one thing you can do to get started today? And right now. By doing this, you gain insight into your vision and goals and the steps required to achieve them. You bridge the gap between today and someday. And you shift from thinking and dreaming to action equipped with the knowledge that what you're doing is in fact, leading you in the direction you want to go. There is a lot to explore here, so I'll leave you to it and whenever you're ready, I'll see you in our next video for our final exercise. 8. Fear Setting: Welcome to your last exercise. This one comes from Tim Ferriss, his famous book, the four-hour workweek. And it is all about defining and putting into perspective your specific fear or fears in order to overcome decision paralysis or analysis paralysis, which I mentioned at the beginning of this class. This exercise actually has two versions. One is a series of questions from the book. This second is an updated and more structured version, and I'll go through both before we dive in, it's important that I point out part of this exercise is to identify what's holding you back. And then to imagine the worst-case scenario and how you would work your way out of that. This can obviously be uncomfortable and depending on your fears and circumstances, it can be quite stressful, which is why I use it and recommend using it in the specific context of your goals and vision. If you're dealing with high anxiety or trauma, I don't want you to put yourself in circumstances, even imaginary ones that will re-traumatize you. If you have any concerns about doing this exercise, please just feel free to leave this one. I'll lay out the questions and the process here and leave that decision up to you. So first, the seven questions as laid out in the book, the four-hour workweek. Once you've identified a potential decision or route to take, define what you're afraid of, what's the worst that can happen if you did what you are considering? What are the doubts, fears, and what is that come up as you think about your decision or this change you want to make, would there be a permanent impact? If so, on a scale of one to 101 being minimal and ten being irreversible or permanently life-changing in a big way, how significant is the impact? And how likely is this to happen? Too? If things went wrong, what steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing even if temporarily, how could you regained control of the situation or your life if the worst-case scenario actually happened. Three, what are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent of more probable scenarios? First, identify the more likely positive outcomes of this decision. How likely are these to happen? How might you make them happen? Then again, on a scale of one to ten, rate the significance of the impact of these potential outcomes. What would they mean to you? How lasting would their impact be for if you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? Of course, you can adjust this too. What if you quit, lost all your clients, whatever the case. Adjust this question to relate to your fears and circumstances and then run through the first three questions. How would you get back on track if you had to? Five, what are you putting off out of fear? Which Tim then follows with what we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. Identify this, define what you're afraid might happen, and then basically commit to doing the thing you're putting off. Six, what is it costing you financially, emotionally, and physically to postpone action? This is measuring the cost of inaction. So if you don't pursue the goals you set in the last two exercises or the life you envisioned in the airport test, or the things you want to focus on and that excite you, then what would your life look like in one year or five years? And how will you feel knowing you didn't take that risk or make that change? And lastly, what are you waiting for? This is where you let go of waiting for good timing or assigned to get started. And you measure the cost of potential inaction. Realizing that most disasters are either unlikely or easy to repair, then find a way to commit to action. Now, the four-hour workweek was published back in 2007. And since then, Tim has fleshed out the process of bit more, especially in his 2017's TedTalk. So if you feel confident in exploring these seven questions further, I'll give you the expanded process next. You begin here with page one. Split your first page into three columns, and then at the top, identify the choice or action you're considering. Butter putting off. What if you quit your job, leave this relationship, pursue this goal or whatever the case. Then in the defined column, jot down what you're afraid might happen if you take that step. Tim suggests aiming for volume, right, without editing or judging what comes up. At this stage, it's just about getting things out of your head and onto the page. Once you have your list, move on to the prevent column and identify what you could do to prevent or decrease the likelihood of each fear or imagined disaster from happening. Then column three is repair. If those things are worst-case scenarios happened, what could you do to repair the damage even a little bit or temporarily? Or who could you ask for help? Tim poses this question. Has anyone else in the history of time less intelligent or less driven? Figured this out. And of course, the answer is probably yes. Page to explore as only one question, what might be the benefits of an attempt or partial success? What good might come from trying? And again, write down all your ideas without filtering. And page three is the cost of inaction. If you avoid this action or decision and those like it, and you don't do anything, what might your life look like in six months, one year, and three years? And at each step or once you've completed all three pages, you can then go through and give each potential outcome a rating on a scale 1-10, to measure the significance of its impact. How devastating or permanent would the worst-case scenario B, how significant or less thing with the potential benefit be? How important is this to you, and how significant is the cost of inaction? Do this for each page, each step of the process to help you weigh the potential risks and rewards and the cost of inaction, and ultimately to guide you in making your decision. I left this exercise for last because I know firsthand how common and frustrating it is to set goals and plan the steps and color-code your calendar to make it happen, only to hit a wall created by fear and doubt and insecurity. It happens to everyone, and the only way out is through the way you free yourself from these fears and doubts is by facing them, by shining a light on the shadow and doing so regularly through inquiry and exploration. Even though it's uncomfortable. A final word from Tim Ferriss, a person success in life can be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is, or they are willing to have with others and also with yourself. And of course, success is not one-dimensional. It's not measured by wealth or status. It is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, and that is yours to define and pursue as you choose. So before we wrap up in the next video, Let's recap this exercise. In version one, you have a list of seven questions to explore, and here they are. In the second version, there are three distinct steps. Step one or page one, identify the choice or action you're considering but are putting off, and then define your fears or the potential disasters that might arise. Next, identify the steps you could take to prevent or decrease the likelihood of each one happening. And then what you would do to repair the damage in the case that each potential disaster occurred. Page too, brainstorm all the potential benefits of an attempt or partial success. And page three, what is the cost of inaction? If you avoid taking action or making a decision, what might things look like in six months, 12 months, and three years? And then go through each step and add your ratings on a scale of one to ten to measure the permanence and significance of the impact each outcome would have. All of this helps you put your fears and perspective and ultimately make a decision that will serve you in the long term. And it gives you the clarity, confidence, and courage to pursue it. Tim Ferriss has mentioned he does this specific fear setting exercise every quarter to cultivate the practice of regularly checking in with himself, what he's doing and where he wants to go, whatever your timeline, I recommend making and keeping your notes, which helps a lot during the practice and is also a great reflection practice. If this is something you do regularly, you can see what progress you've made, the fears you've overcome, and the actions that you've taken. You'll also shed light on any persistent or deep-seated fears, remain present and can use more unpacking as with any and all of these exercises. Allow yourself plenty of time to explore what comes up. Maybe you even integrate pieces from previous exercises or other questions that you find effective and relevant to your goals and circumstances. This is your process and your decision to make. So be sure to use the tools, questions, and practices that work best for you. Now, we have one more step before wrapping up, and that is of course, your short and simple project for this class. More on that in the next video. 9. Project: This short video is your project for this class. Now that you've done each of the six exercises in this class, I want you to choose one that you want to carry forward. Maybe it's the one that most resonated with you, intrigued you, or it felt like a practice you'd want to revisit once a year or however often you choose, you can always try out one exercise, play with it, and then decide it's not for you and choose something else. The key is to start and simplest to start with one, choose one exercise and then posted in the project section below. You can post the name or the number of the exercise. Or if you'd like to share what your exercise looked like when going through the process in this class. Once you've made your choice and posted it in the project section, I'll meet you in our next and final video, where we'll recap the steps that you've taken throughout this class and talk about some resources and next steps for making effective decisions with clarity and consonants. 10. Recap and resources: Congratulations on reaching the final lesson for this class. If you've gone through each of the videos and tried out the six different exercises. Or if you've committed to starting one of the six exercises, you've already done so much for yourself, your fears, and your future. You've taken some valuable steps towards clarifying what you want and moving closer towards it. To recap, you began by unpacking the fear of choosing the wrong thing, which can sometimes look like overwhelm, overwork, comparison, micro-managing, or perfectionism. And which can create a feeling of decision paralysis. Feeling unable to make any decision at all. You learned about why you might avoid making difficult decisions, as well as how to use the 90-second rule brought to you by a Harvard brain scientists to frame emotions as energy in motion and allow yourself to check in with how you're feeling and also allow these feelings to pass. Next, you equip yourself with six ways to identify your fears. Engage with your emotions, Start or practice making decisions that align with your values and move you closer to your vision for your work, your relationships, your interests and curiosities and yourself. And lastly, you chose one exercise to carry forward a commitment to yourself to keep practicing. Because overcoming your fears, making decisions, and feeling confident all require consistent practice. It's far more practice than a destination you reach one day. So feel free to come back to this class as you practice, experiment, and play with these exercises and adjust them to find what works for you. Nothing is written in stone. And the important thing is to let yourself get started. Chances are you probably have more answers than you think or feel you do before you sign off. If you haven't already, make sure you post your one exercise in the project section. And once you've submitted your project, I'd love to hear your feedback, so please take a minute or two to leave your review for this class. If you enjoyed it, found value or benefited in some way, please let me and other students now or let me know what you would have liked to see. I'm always learning as much as I'm teaching and I do read and value your feedback. If you want to dive deeper, check out the resources section for a list of all the books I've mentioned in this class. And a few I didn't, including one that I wrote called Everyday Mindfulness. This offers over 100 different exercises for intentional living, including ways to address your fears and worries. Focus on what's important to you. Identified distractions, observe your self-talk, and many, many more, or for a really deep dive checkout, our five-week program where we unpack and go through the steps to make your vision a reality. Otherwise, it has been my pleasure to share this class with you. Thank you for joining me and investing some of your time and attention into these exercises for observing and managing your fear, Clarifying your vision and making decisions with clarity and confidence. I appreciate your investment here and I look forward to meeting with you again soon.