I must admit I am pretty toxic when it comes to deciding what’s best for me. Part of it is because I’m a Libra, so decision-making isn’t something that comes naturally to me, but it’s also because I have a hard time centering myself when making decisions.
Now there are a few reasons as to why that statement is kind of funny. The first is because when I advise other people, I always tell them to focus on themselves and tune out other people, which I clearly do not. And second is because I thought that I had gotten out of that habit of caring about what others think, but in reality, I just switched what group of people my focus is on.
I want to start with that advice issue first because I think most of us can relate to this. I consider myself a pretty decent advice-giver, but I can count on my fingers the amount of time that I have taken my own advice.
Why is that the case?
According to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, it’s because of a pretty apparent reason. When dealing with our problems, we are too emotional to think rationally and listen to the advice we have given to others.
When it comes to helping other people, we don’t have the emotional connection to their problems the way we have to our own, so we can be more rational and help them out. That makes a lot of sense, right? I think we all realize that deep down.
But isn’t it the worst feeling when you are consciously aware of yourself not taking your own advice? Just imagine it, you just helped your friend Kim with the same problem last week, but you’ll perhaps think, ‘Her situation was so different, what I told her won’t work for me.’ That’s the excuse I give myself all the time, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
It feels like this is especially exaggerated when making school-related decisions. When my friends tell me about their workload or new things they want to start doing, I always try to help them realize that spreading themselves too thin should never be the goal, that they should consider their mental health. Then when it comes time for me to make decisions, I think, ‘I can handle it, it’s not that much.’
I speak from deep experience with over-committing myself, and even after writing this article, I’m probably not going to do anything differently. If I think I can handle adding a new club or internship, then I’m going to do it, even when I clearly can’t.
This problem speaks to my second issue with not centering myself in decision-making. I always say and believe that I don’t take other people into account when making decisions for my school life or career life, but I do — it’s just not who I thought I was thinking about.
My decision-making focus has turned away from thinking about what random people on the street will think about me. Instead, I base everything on what someone who looks at my resume will think about me. Since high school, it’s been an issue, joining tons of clubs and interning and volunteering to make sure my resume is nice and padded. Still, I’m never thinking about whether or not my mental health needs another activity or if I even get joy out of the activity.
For instance, I recently decided to reject a position based on whether it would help my future law school application. That’s ridiculous. None of the thoughts that ran through my head were about if I wanted to take on the position. It was all about what future law school recruiters would think.
How can I put myself back into the focus of my decision-making? What do I need to do to make myself the most important person in my life? When will I finally take my own advice?
Well, almost every article I’ve looked at states that this journey starts with a need to be aware that I’m not taking my own advice.
I agree that that’s a great first step, but I am already aware of those things. So what’s next?
Matt Essam in his Medium column, “Weekly Wisdom,” says centering yourself in decision-making involves challenging assumptions and getting in touch with your authentic self. That’s fantastic advice, but that seems like too much work. At 19 years old, I am far from having any understanding of who my authentic self is.
Perhaps the answer is that I’ll be able to properly tackle these issues when I’ve had more life experiences, and for now, I should just focus on collecting these experiences.
I already got the first step down, so why not take some time to reach that pivotal second step, and gain some new experiences along the way?
I don’t have the answers to how to solve this problem. But becoming aware of it and channeling that awareness by taking each task and decision day by day could be a start.
Learning to recenter myself as the most important factor in my decision making is going to be hard and will definitely not be a smooth ride, but shedding my toxic decision-making habits will be so worth it.
For those of you reading, let this article be that advice you’ve been waiting for to start working towards changing your mindset. It’ll change your life, probably.
