How to overcome indecisiveness

Sal Jefferies: 00:00:03

Welcome to Mindset, mood and Movement, a systemic approach to human

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behavior, performance, and wellbeing.

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How psychological, emotional, and

physical health are all connected.

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In this episode, I'll be sharing

my knowledge and experience to help

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you overcome a challenge that you

might be facing in life health.

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All work.

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Sal: If you're stuck with a decision

in life or business, there's a good

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chance that you're being indecisive.

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We all can and indecision has

its place and yet indecision is

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not a place we want to stick with

because of course we get stuck.

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So today I'm going to talk about

this whole process of indecision,

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stuckness, and it's such a hot topic.

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It's invariably one of the key points

people come to my coaching practice

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to, to resolve, to work on, to, to

figure out because something is stuck

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and they're simply not moving forward.

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Being indecisive.

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Well, I want to, I want to

name a couple of things here.

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There is a really big

distinction between indecision.

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And patience.

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Now, patience is power.

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Patience is this place of giving something

time, allowing things to flourish,

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maybe data to come in, understanding

and learnings so that you can make

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a quality decision going forward.

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That's great.

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Indecision.

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It's a little like ping pong.

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You kind of bounce in between two

things and you're not getting anywhere.

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One is based on fear.

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One is based on confidence.

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and I think you can

guess which one is which.

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So indecision, and I would also

say indecision in a way as a

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form of a maladaptive decision.

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So let's get into this.

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What is a decision?

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Now I've done a lot of work around

decision science and linguistics and

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behavioral science and all sorts of

cool stuff, which is how I do what I do.

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And I love to work with this, I

love looking at the etymology of

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words because they tell us a lot.

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So the word decision.

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Decide has the same roots as homicide,

which means to kill off, and when we

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make a real decision, we are killing

off an option, or, for some of us,

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it's killing off multiple options.

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Now, if you've got two choices, three

choices, four choices on the table

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of what you can do, or what you might

try, you've got to kill off those

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other decisions to take the one.

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And for many of us,

that feels frightening.

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It feels frightening because

we might miss out on something.

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It could be because we make the wrong

decision, which for some of us, that's

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laden with meaning about who we are.

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And there are other very tangible factors.

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We might lose money.

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We might waste a lot of time.

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We might become judged by others.

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All of this stuff needs

understanding and disseminating.

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So when you're looking at getting

out of a stuck position, getting out

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of indecision firstly is to realize

you have to make a clear choice.

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And normally it's a singular choice.

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I need to Set up my business,

or I need to go freelance, or I

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need to lead this relationship.

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Whatever.

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In the space that you are,

you are, you're stuck in.

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We need clarity.

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Looking around, the fear

is really important.

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So let's start with this.

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Whatever your in decision point is.

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Write down or name in your mind.

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What are your fears?

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So in business, I come across this so much

and a lot of the time they are the same.

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I'm going to lose money.

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I'm going to lose time.

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I'm going to lose face.

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So once you name those things, we

can start to talk to those problems.

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Because if you've done something

in your life, which I guess you

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have, you'll probably be able to

find an answer to those problems.

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Like, how can we mitigate

the risk of financial loss?

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How can we budget the

right amount of time in?

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or check that that's not some arbitrary

idea you have in your mind and the loss of

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face or, you know, judgment from others.

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then how can we help your mindset shift

so you don't outsource your worth and

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your, um, validity to another person?

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And by the way, most people

aren't probably judging you.

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So looking at those three and

renaming them can be so, so helpful.

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If it's personal, again, the core

things boil down to this is fear.

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It's normally fear, fear

of loss of something.

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Uh, I knew a client that had a, um, who

was struggling in a relationship, uh,

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and they felt it had come to an end.

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And as sad as that is, that was the truth.

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So they choose to speak to their,

their partner at the time and be really

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honest about where they felt they were.

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And interestingly, what happened was

it didn't actually come to an end.

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It came to a change.

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But because they've been sitting on this

indecision, should I stay or should I go?

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They were having a whole host

of problems and suffering.

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And actually by name of the decision.

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It triggered a shift

in their relationship.

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And I remember another client,

it also was right for them to

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move on from that relationship.

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And that's okay too.

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Now, another issue that can really,

really affect us is analysis paralysis.

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And by goodness me, if you are a analytic

person, you're smart, you'll probably

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spend a lot of your time figuring

stuff out, thinking, cognizing, using

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that, um, that logical brain of yours.

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We all do, and I do.

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I spend a lot of time in thinking.

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However, Analysis Paralysis,

as it says, is overthinking.

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What I would say is if you are loop

thinking on something and you're not

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solving your answers, it's because

it's not a thought based problem.

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It's likely to be a...

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Subconscious based problem or

an emotional problem and we

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want to get to that substrate.

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So for example, if you're going

to let's say set up a business.

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I had a client Tara She was going

to the well being sector that worked

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in different spaces for a while,

but wanted to set up her own company

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and Tara was literally just stuck.

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You know, do I do this?

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Do I do that?

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Do I consult?

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And we worked through it.

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It's like, okay, you need to decide.

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You need to kill off those

other options and choose one.

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Which ones are going to be?

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So we did the right processes to help

her mind get clear, to name her fears

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and to take that courageous step

of like, yeah, okay, I'm going to

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put X amount of money towards this.

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I'm going to give it two years.

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And I'm going to be okay if it fails.

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Oh my goodness.

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The pressure relieved and suddenly

we've got someone in a creative,

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enthused and powerful state.

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So getting rid of the fear

based shackles are vital.

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to get unstuck and to flourish.

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And actually Tara now is flying.

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Her business is going really well

and it's such a great thing to see.

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But it all started from that awkward

place of what if, what if, what if.

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So when we get out of that,

then you can start to see.

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Also, we want to check that you're

not using the perfectionism pattern.

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as a kind of a sneaky excuse for not

doing something or getting somewhere.

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Uh, this has shown up in, I know a

couple of clients I coached in the

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last couple of years, busy building

the website, looking at brands, brand

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identity, all this kind of stuff.

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And there's a place for him.

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But what they weren't doing

was what we call in business an

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MVP, a minimum viable product.

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What's the smallest amount

of something they could do to

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figure out whether this Company.

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This, this venture they were

interested in was worthwhile spending

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their time, money, and energy in.

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So , if you're stuck in perfectionism,

like, wait, it's gotta be right,

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it's gonna be this amazing thing.

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As opposed to, what if I tried, what if I

threw a couple of thousand quid at them?

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What if I gave it six months and

I, you know, set up one product

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or one service and road tested it?

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And see what the market said,

nothing beats that real feedback.

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Nothing beats experience because it also

comes out of analysis paralysis and comes

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into experiential live feedback worthy

experience, which we can work with,

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you know, business wise or personally.

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So coming out of one's head out

of the thought zone into the real

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zone, start to get to an experience

will really give you the truth.

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of this choice and it doesn't

mean it's going to be right.

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So I'm not going to say that you're

going to make the right decision, but I

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would say generally most people's wrong

decisions are when they make no decision.

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Because even if you make a decision

doesn't work, let's say you've

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set up that business and your MVP

tells you it's not a great idea.

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Now, you know, you don't have

to waste any more time on it.

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You don't have to waste your energy

thinking, Oh, I wish I'd have tried that.

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You tried it.

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It didn't work.

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Go do something else.

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You know, life is fluid.

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Life is moving all the time.

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It's not a stagnant place.

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And as we see, markets change,

the world changes, you know, with

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the pandemic change, the culture,

there's these huge amounts of change.

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Be at one with the flow.

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That also is a state of movement.

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That's a state of making

choices going forward.

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So I hope those principles are triggering,

kind of getting you thinking a little bit.

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So if you are stuck, you're being

indecisive, look at your fears, name them.

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And then once you've named them,

figure out what can I do about them.

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Look at things like, am

I doubting my confidence?

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Yeah, that's just a trick of the mind.

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Most of us, we all feel unconfident

at something, but actually

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what we really need is courage.

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We need courage.

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And courage doesn't mean you

feel good, it normally means you

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feel scared but you do it anyway.

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So if you're going to apply that...

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And be open.

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Like, okay, I'm going to try this out.

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I'm going to give it this

amount of time and energy.

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And at the end point of that trial

period, I'll assess and that's okay too.

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Because if you don't move

forward, you're going nowhere

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and going nowhere is a bad idea.

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So if you are stuck, I trust some

of those points there will start

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to loosen your thinking, help

your behavior and start to shift.

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you into something new.

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And as always, if you want to

reach out, let me know, uh, the

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results of any of these points

and maybe there's a success story.

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Do let me know.

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I always love to hear.

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So until the next one, take care.

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Thank you so much for listening.

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If you enjoyed the

episode, please subscribe.

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And if a friend would benefit from hearing

this, do send it on to them as well.

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If you would like to get in touch

yourself, then you can go to my website.

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Which is Sal Jeffries dot com,

spelt S A L J E F F E R I E S.

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Sal Jeffries dot com.

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Hit the get in touch link and there

you can send me a direct message.

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If you'd like to go one step further

and learn whether coaching can help

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you overcome a challenge or a block

in your life, then do reach out and

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I offer a call where we can discuss

how this may be able to help you.

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Until the next time, take care.