Welcome to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I'm your host, Blakely Ramsey, and the goal of this podcast is to discuss all things personal development, wellness, and the art of editing your life in an elevated way.

From mastering morning routines to mastering your mindset, we're going to sift through the noise and empower you to take elevated action.

Make sure you catch the show notes for all the details.

Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I actually just got off of one of my own personal coaching calls with my coaches, and they always leave me super fired up.

We not only talk about super specific business things and life things, but we also just talk about issues in general and things we're reading in general, things we're listening to, just like thoughts that we're having.

And I am working on a really fun product coming out soon.

I'm going to talk about it here in just a little bit, but we talked about it today on our coaching call, and I just loved everyone's thoughts around it and we're all, you know, kind of on the same page when it comes to this, and it was just such an inspiring episode.

So I'm going to bring a couple of those nuggets into today's podcast episode, and I think it's really going to pack a punch for you.

And so it was so funny because so many of us just a couple of years ago were all in the same position where we felt like we were stuck.

Like, we were stuck in a loop of like, should I, shouldn't I?

How should I?

What should I do?

Like, it was very, like, question oriented, very confused, felt very stagnant.

And I know you might be feeling the same way.

Like, there might be some decisions in your life that you're like, well, should I do that?

Shouldn't I do that?

Like, do I have all the information?

I'm really unsure.

I've made decisions before and they haven't turned out well.

Like, what if I mess up?

What if I look like a fool?

But what we talked about in our call today is that successful women, they move fast and they never look back.

And it's not because they're fearless.

Certainly not.

It's because they have a different mindset, a different thought.

Thought process, and a different system when it comes to making decisions.

Because the truth is, overthinking is not intelligence.

We sometimes, like, lead ourselves on and let ourselves think that.

Or like, oh, I'm.

I'm just really thinking through all my options and I'm gathering all the information and I'm Learning all the facts, and I'm going to do all the things, and then I'm going to make the wisest decision possible.

But really, overthinking isn't intelligence.

It's actually just fear disguised as logic.

And high level women, they don't entertain fear.

They make decisions.

They trust themselves, and they move.

They move through that fear.

So inside of my confident decisions challenge, that is coming out soon, we're actually diving into this.

But in today's episode, I'm going to take y'all.

I'm gonna open the curtains a little bit.

I'm gonna give you a sneak peek because you deserve a sneak peek because you show up for me every single week, and I love you for that.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to be talking about in this challenge.

So let's.

Let's set the stage and talk about why overthinkers stay stuck while action takers win.

And I know you know what I'm talking about when I say this.

There used to be people that I would look at on either social media or in my real life, and I would just look at them and I would be like, how are they getting all this done?

How are they chasing their own dreams?

And I would, I'm guilty.

I'm gonna raise my hand and be super transparent for a second.

I would look at them and be like, I know I'm more qualified than they are.

I know I've read more books about this than they have.

I know I've taken more courses than they have.

Like, how are they so much further ahead of this than I am when I am putting in the work?

And what I realized was I was tricking myself.

I thought that overthinking was progress.

Like.

Like, I was like, oh, I'm a planner.

I think through all the options, I really, like, put my heart into this.

And I just think and think and think.

But what I was really doing is I was avoiding it.

Okay?

I was telling myself that I was being thorough, but really, I was afraid of making the wrong choice.

I was afraid of looking stupid.

I was afraid of looking like a fool.

And the sad truth is, is that indecision actually creates stress and steals your energy.

So every time you have a decision in your.

That's running around in your cute little brain, it's creating an open loop.

And that open loop is a dream.

And so even if you're not consciously thinking about it, like, if there is a decision you need to make or a choice you need to make, even if you're not consciously like thinking like, okay, I need to do this for this decision or this, for this choice.

Subconsciously, that loop is still open.

And so your brain is just constantly worn out because that loop never got closed.

And the longer you wait, the harder it gets to actually make that choice because that loop has just been constantly running and running and running.

And this is why we often have that stuck feeling, that stagnant feeling of like, what am I supposed to do?

You know, and it just gets worse the longer that you wait.

The longer you procrastinate, the more painful it becomes to actually make that decision.

And this is why you don't want to waste energy over explaining or justifying.

Whether you're over explaining and justifying to other people or more importantly and sometimes even harder over explaining and justifying things to ourselves.

I feel like that is the hole that I fall in is like when it comes to other people, I can quickly stand my ground, but when it's just little old me sitting in my room by myself and like ready to take action, I sometimes find myself like justifying with myself why I can't do something or why I should wait or why I should, you know, overthink or over complicate.

But what I'm learning is that in order to make high level decisions, I need to just move.

Now.

I still want to make educated decisions, absolutely.

I want to make decisions that match with my future vision.

But at the end of the day, I need to just get moving because I'm never going to learn, I'm never going to move forward if I set an overthinking land.

Okay.

So I'm also about to, aside from the challenge, I'm going to pull, pull the curtain back even more.

And I'm going to give you a little glimpse of what some of the women in my current coaching program, the Systems Academy, what they're actually going through right now.

So cohort one is going super strong.

These women are a couple of weeks in and they are having some massive breakthroughs.

You can literally see the lights turning on.

We already have new products added to their product line.

We have like, they're interacting with their family in different ways.

They're interacting with their husband and their children in different ways.

They're making massive impact in their business.

But they're also like super present and showing up for their kids and their husband and their families on the weekends.

And we're only a couple of weeks in.

Like, it is mind blowing.

One of my clients last week, she said, blakely, this should be Like a required, like you have to have this before you graduate.

Like, this should be a requirement for just living.

And I was like, thank you.

I've been thinking that.

But like to hear it from other people, it's just so exciting to like see their eyes light up.

So one of the things that I teach them first week is this high level filter.

So this is how successful women decide fast.

They focus on priorities and not perfection.

I tell people this all the time.

I am not a heart surgeon.

I am not a neurosurgeon.

Most of the decisions that I make in my day to day are not life or death.

And you're probably nodding your head right now.

You're like, yeah, me too.

Like, I'm not making a ton of life or death decisions now.

I actually do have some doctors that listen to this podcast and so y'all just ignore that part because you are making a life or death decision.

So I don't want you, I don't want you to lax on your really important decisions that you make.

But the majority of us and the majority of our decisions are not life, death.

And so how do you, you know, how do you gauge what is important and how do you gauge how to make choices?

The really cool thing that you can do is you can choose what aligns with your big picture and you can go for it.

And so within the coaching program, we actually go through setting up your future vision.

And it looks like a one year vision, three year vision, and a five year vision.

And I don't love to say the word plan because plan, plan is very rigid.

Things can change, life can happen.

But just having like a visual of like, what do I, what do I want my life to look like?

What do I want my life to feel like?

Like, that is huge.

And so in the coaching program, I help them kind of align their future vision with their current goals, their current actions and their current choices, their current decisions.

And it's just really amazing to see like the light bulb come on of them going, oh, this is why I was so overwhelmed.

Oh, this is why I couldn't make a decision is because I didn't have clarity on what my future vision was.

And we also go through like removing the emotion from decisions.

So I actually had a situation this week and I was thinking about it this morning on my walk where someone questioned my leadership style in a team setting.

So.

So wasn't work related.

It had something to do with an extracurricular group that I'm a part of and I was a leader of a certain portion of this group.

And I made a leadership decision that several people did not agree with.

And one of them very openly.

We actually were close, and we had a very transparent and honest conversation about it.

But, you know, sometimes the more you think about things here, we go back to overthinking.

You're never going to be perfect.

I was thinking about it on my walk this morning, and I was like, because for some reason, it still bothered me.

Like, I was like, why did that conversation bother me?

Why that conversation bother me?

And I realized that it bothered me because I.

She knew.

She knows me from six years ago, and I've changed so much in six years.

And so I.

She assumed I was going to make a decision from six years ago, Blakely.

And I made.

Honestly, I made a decision from five years in the future, Blakely.

And so we had a massive gap between what she expected from me and what I.

What I put forward.

And so anyway, I made a leadership decision that, you know, she did not agree with, and she said something that honestly really hurt my feelings.

And I.

My gut reaction was to make a social media post about it.

I was like, oh, I'm going to take this and I'm going to flip it, and I'm going to make this post about leadership and how leadership isn't about hand holding and blah, blah, blah, blah.

But on my walk this morning, I was like, blakely, is that social media post actually going to provide value to the woman that you're speaking to?

Is that social media post going to provide value to anyone, or is it just you throwing a tantrum?

And what I realized was it was me throwing a tantrum.

It was me making a decision with my feelings instead of from my future.

And so just a reminder, feelings are super valid.

It's super important that we set in our feelings, that we process our feelings.

But they don't always have to drive the car.

Your vision can.

And just for me, at least becoming aware of this and going, like, okay, I can have emotions.

I can get my feelings hurt.

I can be mad.

Certain things can happen to me.

But I can still make decisions from my future vision instead of just making decisions based on how I feel right now.

It is so powerful.

And a lot of the women in my program are kind of having that breakthrough, too.

Like, it's kind of wild because you, like, when you start coaching, you think that you're going to, like, help all these other women and truly, like, they're helping me so much, too.

Like, it's kind of like a mirror, and I'm seeing certain things to myself and I need to work on as well.

And it's just been, it's been so phenomenal.

Like I, I can't even explain how excited I am every single week to get on these coaching calls with them.

Something else that is part of the high level filter is minimizing decision fatigue.

More decisions equals more stress.

High level women simplify, delegate, and automate where possible.

I've talked about Steve Jobs before and I'm probably going to talk about it again because not that I necessarily love Steve Jobs himself, but I do love the idea of like simplifying things as much as possible.

So when it comes to fashion, I am definitely not going to wear the same thing every day.

But I have been eating the same breakfast for the last two months.

I've been eating the same lunch for the last two months.

And just, it, it'll literally eliminates so much stress because I just reorder my Walmart pickup every week.

I just make the same breakfast at the same time.

When I come back from my walk, I make the same breakfast.

When I like take my break, I make the same lunch.

Like I have like a system and I can just, I can literally be listening to a training or listening to a podcast and just kind of like moving and grieving and it's almost become like muscle memory now.

Whereas breakfast and lunch used to be a decision that I had to make every day and it was stressful and I was like, what am I going to eat today?

What am I going to do today?

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, it was always something and now I have eliminated a lot of those decisions and it has lowered my stress during the day so much.

It is wild how much simplifying my life has removed a lot of stress.

I've also, of course, I automate.

I could go off on a tangent about systems and automation and all the things, because that's my jam.

But I have.

One thing I have gotten better about is delegating, especially within my work, because I am learning, even though I am semi good at some things, there's somebody out there that's really good at it.

And as a business owner, it's a lot better for me to, you know, pay someone else to live in their zone of genius rather than me trying to do all the things at once and me doing things at like 40 to 50%, give it to someone else and like really let them knock it out of the park.

So that's been really powerful for me.

And then one other thing, under this high level filter and this one is so good.

Like when I, like, because I read this book when I, I was like, oh my gosh, that's so good.

High level women, successful women, through their high level filter, they make the decision right instead of waiting for the right decision.

Because the truth is there's never going to be a perfect choice.

There's never going to be a perfect time.

There's never going to be something that makes everyone happy, makes complete sense, makes the most money, it checks off all the boxes.

The only decision is going to be the one that you commit to.

And that was just so powerful for me when I like finally realized that as I'm like, oh, there's never going to be a perfect choice.

There's never going to be a way to make everybody happy.

You just need to make a quick, educated decision and commit to it.

And this is what we're about to go over next is something that I've been practicing for actually a couple of years now.

And I personally feel like it helps me just execute, especially on those smaller things that honestly at the end of the day are important, but they don't really matter.

And it is a two minute decision rule.

If it won't matter in a year, decide on it in under two minutes, no matter what it is.

I'll even go through my, because I keep an action list on my desk, a little mini legal pad, and I'll go through it a couple times a day.

And if it will either take me under two minutes to decide or won't matter in a year, I'm like, okay, under two minutes, I need to make a decision.

I either need to order the thing or send the email or send the text or set up the meeting or set up the call or whatever it is.

But I, I used to, several years ago I would live in a place of like, I would see something and I would be like, oh my gosh, there's so many different choices and so many different decisions I need to make.

I need to leave that on my list and I'm going to think about that just a little bit longer.

And then my list would just get longer and longer and longer and longer and longer.

And finally I'd be like, oh my gosh, I've got like 20 things that I need to do on my list.

And most of them, once I actually took action on them, really didn't take that long.

Most of them were someone else's responsibility.

And so that is why that two minute decision rule is so powerful.

Because if it won't matter In a year, decide on it in under two minutes.

Because most of the things that we agonize over, we overthink, that we stress, we stay up at night over, are really not that deep.

And most of them really don't matter all that much.

And so if the only reason that you're hesitating is out of fear or out of whatever, like, just make a decision and move forward with it, even if it is the quote unquote wrong decision, you can either learn a lesson or you'll know, okay, that wasn't the best decision.

Now I know how to adjust.

But you've at least like, gotten some momentum and taken steps, some action to moving forward.

Because you can always course correct later.

You can always pivot, you can always learn, you can always adjust, but nothing changes until you move.

You got to get some movement in there.

Don't let your mind stay stagnant.

And that's what happens.

If you just keep putting off decisions or keep being afraid to do things or keep being afraid to decide, your mind will get stagnant.

Just like a, a pond, you know, a river or like a stream always has, like, really pretty water and, well, a river, not actually, but I'm picturing like a beautiful bubbly stream like on a hillside in Colorado.

And it's just fresh water and it's cold.

It's just the best.

And then you picture like a pond that you like, stumble on out in the woods and the water hasn't moved in a while and it's called this algae.

And it's just kind of like, like, you definitely don't want to drink anything from that.

That's like what your mind is like when you are not making decisions quickly versus that stream that, you know, you're like, oh, wow, I'm thinking clearly, thinking fast, I'm thinking effectively.

And then, okay, say you make a wrong decision.

There's a rock in the way.

That's okay.

You can just follow that stream, you can go around it, you can course correct, you can adjust versus literally no movement, stagnation, algae forming.

Things get worse.

It gets harder to make decisions, it get hard, it gets harder to move forward if you're just in that, like, stagnant pond and all of this and more.

I'm going to cover in my confident decisions challenge.

It is going to be so good.

It is action packed.

It is five days, one hour every day, and we are going deep.

I mean, I am putting in the work.

I'm probably going to clock in over 100 hours working on this program.

But it is so stinking good.

It is a full breakdown of how to trust yourself, how to decide faster, and how to take action like the high level woman that you are.

It's gonna be so good.

And I cannot wait to put it out.

Y'all know that I love to pack a punch.

And so I am.

I very quickly made an initial outline, I very quickly made a slide deck, and now I am going back in.

I'm course correcting, I'm adding in some really high level analogies and metaphors and painting high level pictures.

And I'm doing additional research.

I'm reading a couple different books so I can really pack a punch.

I have a couple of experts like, giving their opinion on a couple of different things.

And so it's just going to be so good.

It's going to be so valuable.

I cannot wait for it to come out.

It's going to be so good.

So a couple of reminders to leave you with before you head off into the rest of your day.

You are either making decisions or you're making excuses.

There's no in between.

High level women are not special.

They're just decisive.

And you can be too.

And the version of you that moves fast and trusts herself, she is already inside of you.

So it's time to let her take the lead.

I hope you got a ton of value out of today's episode.

At the very least, I hope it got you fired up to go make a decision.

There might be one thing that you're like, man, I have really been like, tossing that back and forth.

I've been really, like stressing out about that for a couple of weeks now.

I want you to go make a decision today and then if you want, I want you to send me a voice memo on Instagram and tell me about it at the Blakely Ramsey.

I love hearing Yalls little breakthroughs and big breakthroughs after these podcast episodes.

Sometimes, even if it's something you've heard before, just like hearing it that one more time, hearing that one reminder, hearing that one little, like even hearing something in a different way, it'll make something in your brain clear.

Click.

And like, literally years of lessons and years of learning can all shift into place in like an instant.

And so I love hearing that happen for y'all.

And I'm so thankful that you continue to show up every week.

And if you have not, please leave a review for the podcast.

It helps the podcast reach other women just like you.

And with that, I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I hope you found today's episode inspiring and full of actionable tips.

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Until next time, keep growing, glowing and elevating your life.

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