Welcome to the Unfolding Podcast, a space where we explore what it really looks like to trust yourself, say no without guilt, and live your life like it actually belongs to you. I am Erica Voell and in my work as a Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust Guide, I help women in midlife trust their inner guidance, understand their unique strengths, and stop saying yes to what drains them. I help them dismantle conditioning so that they can regulate their nervous system and reclaim their authority, and then their no feels powerful and their yes is unmistakably true. On this show, we have honest conversations about self-trust, boundaries, energy and identity, especially for women in midlife who are done living by the "shoulds" and second guessing themselves. You'll hear stories, insights, and tools rooted in human design, coaching, and real life. Not to tell you what to do, but to help you really hear yourself so you can stop overthinking and start making decisions that feel clear, grounded, and true. And I talk a lot about decisions in this podcast. That is my focus, that is my specialty. Decisions are everything. When you feel confident in your decisions, you trust yourself more. You set better boundaries. You change the stories you tell yourself, and you start to shift the patterns that have kept you stuck because you stop saying yes to the things that you don't want to do. I've been putting together something new that I will be sharing about in my Decide by Design Masterclass that starts January 29th. And the more I work on it, the more convicted I feel about my message and my work. And that's what inspired this episode. This episode was recorded for the private podcast for the masterclass that I'm holding, but it was so good and so juicy. I didn't feel like I could keep it just for the private podcast. I felt like I needed to share it with you. So let's get to the episode. I. Do you know how many decisions you make in a day? Does it feel like 30 or maybe 3000? But what if I told you on the average day, you probably make 35,000 decisions? 35,000. Part of those 35,000 are. Do you get out of bed when your alarm goes off, or do you hit the snooze? What do you want for breakfast, lunch or dinner? Do you order in after a busy day at work or when your kids are having a rough day? Should you take a different way home due to the traffic? What podcasts do you listen to? And if you don't wanna listen to a podcast, what book or music do you listen to? Should you read your email right now? I mean, the list is almost endless of the decisions we make every day, and many times we're not even aware we're making a decision. The more decisions we feel we need to make, the more likely it is for us to have decision fatigue. So what is decision fatigue? Decision fatigue is a term that social psychologist Roy Baumeister described as the mental and the emotional strain resulting from the burden of making choices. There's a website called Decision Lab, which describes decision fatigue "as the cognitive shortcut that causes irrational trade-offs in decision making. It emerges from mental resources that are depleted after making numerous decisions, leading individuals to favor immediate gratification. Simplify complex decisions or default to familiar, less optimal options. The more decisions made throughout the day, the harder each decision becomes for us. Eventually, the brain looks for shortcuts to circumvent decision fatigue leading to poor choices. Decision fatigue can also lead people to avoid making decisions altogether. A phenomenon referred to as decision avoidance." End quote. Not only does decision fatigue make us feel depleted, but it also clutters our mind making even simple decisions feel overwhelming, which leads to chronic stress. And we've seen a rise in anxiety in the last 25 years because we're so cluttered and we also because of social media, worry about making the right choice. When you're exhausted, another decision can feel like too much. So what do we actually do when we're overloaded? When we're overloaded, our instinct is to outsource. We look for outside validation to feel certain, instead of internally trusting our instincts. So you get into the group chat and you ask your friends, what should I do? Should I go to this party? Should I wear this dress? Should I take this job? Should I apply for another job? Should I buy a new car? We ask our friends hoping that their input will give us certainty. I mean, we've all done it. We all do it. We're all going to continue to do it. But when you're burned out and when you're tired, or when your kid asks for one more thing, you're like, I don't know what to do. Which means our brains are checking out and do you know what? Retailers know this and they use it to their advantage. Social media also uses it to their advantage. There is even psychology about why there are so many choices in the grocery store when we are making choices about food. We make over 227 choices regarding food each day. I know that feels like a lot, but when you factor in, it's not just what to eat, but do you add spices? How do you cut the vegetables? It's no wonder we open the fridge and stare at it into like it's an abyss. We don't know what to eat. Especially if you're tired or your kids are melting down because they are hungry. I was curious about this. So I looked up our local grocery store chain, Hy-Vee. 'cause I wanted to see how many options there are for ketchup. I don't know why I picked ketchup. I mean, I randomly thought about what would have a lot of varieties. Do you know that there are 35 options for ketchup at the grocery store down the street? Do we really need 35 options for ketchup, spicy, pickle-flavored jalapeno, sugar free, real sugar, thick and rich, real tomato. This doesn't even factor in the ketchup, Mayo combos or the barbecue sauces, which there are a ton of considering that I'm in Kansas City. Now as someone with food allergies, I appreciate the options to an extent, like being able to get pesto without cheese in it. But with all these choices, it's no wonder that the average grocery store run now takes 40 minutes to get everything we need, and the more choices means it's harder to find exactly what you want in that sea of choices. Psychologically, we think we need less choice. One example of this is Aldi. They have one or two options of ketchup as opposed to the 35 options at the chain grocery store across the street from Aldi. It is no wonder that people have started to shop online, if our food choices are overwhelming, it adds to the decision fatigue and the grocery stores and the other retailers know that. Which is why the candy is always near the checkout. Decision fatigue means we make poorer choices, and how often do you come home with a few extra things from your grocery list or any other store with things that you don't need and that were not on your list. You also might have noticed that online retailers often have this "often bought with" or other customers bought near at the end of each item online. Or they suggestive sell at the end of the online transaction. So here's how I've seen this play out personally. My daughter says she wants more choices at the grocery store than are offered at our natural food store that we usually shop at. So we took her to the local grocery store, the chain store down the street, and what happened? Her eyes glazed over with all of the choices of frozen pizza options. She turned to me and she's like, "I don't know." And we wonder why so many women say they either don't trust their decisions or they feel like they make poor decisions, or they say that they're so indecisive that they wait until they are pressured to make a decision. And we all know that the best decisions are not made under pressure. I used to think that I was someone who did not make good decisions because I would say yes to something and then I would feel instantly sick. I would feel this sensation, this sinking sensation in my body when something was wrong or it was a no, and I would override my instincts anyway because I needed to do what I thought I should do. Or what someone else wanted me to do, or what I thought I was supposed to do, I could feel that it was off and I would talk myself into it, which is exactly the opposite of what I should have been doing My brain would run through all the logistics of why I needed to to do something, and if I didn't wanna do it, I would convince myself that I was just being too sensitive. And many times I would ignore that sinking feeling to avoid conflict if I said no. When many, many times they hoped, I would say yes, but here's the thing, I am not built for those fast yeses. I need to sleep on my big decisions to feel into it. And yes, I can decide. You know what I'm gonna have for dinner. I can make those easy decisions because I know what a hint of a yes or a no feels like. But if it's a bigger decision, I know I need to love it more over time. If it's a yes, and if I don't love it over time, well then it's a no. And I've learned to say, can I get back to you? That simple question asking, can I get back to you? Buys my body and my brain time, and if it's a no, then I'm not swirling trying to figure out how am I gonna tell them no. If I have too many choices. I have found myself so overwhelmed saying yes out of a feeling of obligation because I feel so exhausted. I had severe decision fatigue at work, especially when I was working with the public at the library, and I needed to make quick decisions in the moment all the time. And when I had a bigger decision at work, what would happen is, is I would say yes, because it was more palatable and it was easier, and then I would think, oh, I can figure things out later. So much of the time that Yes was expected from me, and I needed a justification as to why it was a no. It was an awful feeling. What I later learned was that this is not a personal failure. There is actual psychological science to back it up. What we know is that too many choices actually limits our freedom. More choices has not made us happier. According to Barry Schwartz, who's a psychologist, he calls it the paradox of choice, which suggests that the more options we have, the less satisfied we feel with our decision. Too many choices requires too much cognitive effort, which then leads to decision fatigue and regret over these decisions. And we know through human design that we do not make good decisions with our minds. That's what we are taught to make decisions with our minds, and it's what leads so many people to not trust themselves because our bodies actually know before our minds do. People say they want lots of options, but really prefer having more options in certain contexts. Schwartz found that a plethora of choices actually causes people to be less happy with their decisions. Having too many options made them less satisfied with the decision that they made, and there's a fine line between having the freedom to choose and being paralyzed by too many choices because it takes time to deliberate all these choices. How often have you spent your evening looking for something to watch on Netflix or whatever service you use, only for you to end up not watching anything because you don't know what you want? Or a lot of times you just run outta time and you're like, Ugh, I don't know. And it's, and it seems like it would be so much easier to have fewer choices. But what's fascinating is that we feel more strongly about an option when we have three choices versus just two. Which is why making small tweaks like narrowing your options can help you reduce some of that mental noise. I mean, we are so tired from so many decisions, and then you add on top of it perimenopause for women, and we wonder why some mornings we pour our coffee into our cereal without realizing it's too late. I'm guilty. It happened to me. I mean, it's funny until it's not. That brain fog and the forgetfulness along with the burnout that many women in perimenopause are feeling. It's all connected to decision overload. Because our minds are not designed to make all of our decisions. I know that that can seem completely counterintuitive to what we were taught as kids and adults. We actually have a more powerful and reliable way of making decisions. Our body. Our body knows our decisions before our mind ever gets involved. That's why my work with human design and the decision making authority is so important. It's what I spend so much of my time with clients. Your body's natural way of making aligned decisions. Some people need to wait. Some people need to talk it out. Some people need to sleep on it. For others, they know instantly, and that doesn't mean that we always trust what our body is telling us. Because we have been taught and conditioned to make decisions with our minds. But learning to trust your decision-making authority takes practice, and once you've learned it, you stop spinning an indecision. And you're able to tap into it when you have to make a decision, you feel more confident and you trust yourself more. Now, it might not change how you pick the ketchup. But when it comes to those big decisions that sometimes feel overwhelming and impossible, it can feel life changing. Nearly 70% of people have this simple yes or no response in their design, but that only works when you slow down enough to listen. When you know what a yes feels like, when you know, what a no feels like, and you know your body's response. We feel like our lives are more complicated than generations before us, and it may be because there are so many choices. There is so much information. We are bombarded with technology in our phones. With so much noise and so many choices, it's no wonder we are exhausted. But the funny thing is. Is this is not our fault. We are low overloaded with information, and the technology loves that. They know decision's fatigued, so they make the platforms easy. It's an easy decision. It's a dopamine hit. It makes you feel good. But then what do they do? Especially on social media, they add in ads, which is so why so often when you've talked to somebody about being cold, that you suddenly have ads for heated socks. Or you complain about the dog hair on your couch and suddenly you have nothing but ads for this dog hair, vacuum. I mean, they are giving you solutions so you don't have to think about it. They know you're overloaded with information and you're decision fatigued, and they know that what you are doing is that you are farming out your decisions. When you farm out your decisions, when you outsource it, the trust in your own decisions starts to erode. And it's not about whether or not you should buy that dog hair vacuum, but it's also about the bigger decisions you need to make. What will you do next year? Will you look for another job? Because when you don't trust those smaller decisions due to decision fatigue, those bigger decisions can feel overwhelming and insurmountable. Because then it's easier to ask others. It's easier to ask your family. It's easier to ask your friends. And honestly, so many people are asking ChatGPT, what they should do. I will admit, as women, we have received a lot of conditioning around our decisions, especially when we were kids. Even with the family members who had the best of intentions, they would ask us, are you sure? Don't you think you need to think about it? Because our decisions made them uncomfortable. Our decisions didn't feel safe for them. Maybe they were too bold. Maybe they were something that was the opposite direction that was acceptable for our family or our community, or even our workplace. So we all have this conditioning and we are burned out from all of our decisions and our options. And when we stop trusting ourselves, we stop making aligned decisions for ourselves. We do what we think we "should" do. We weigh other people's opinions over what we should do above our own instincts. It's not just the marketers who know this, it's not social media that knows this. Our government also knows it too. And toxic managers know this because they know when you don't trust yourself, you are more compliant. You are more likely to follow along and fit in instead of rocking the boat and doing what you absolutely, truly obsessively want to do. Because if we're all compliant, then we follow along. We follow what we're being told, we fall in line. So what are some things you can do to have less decision fatigue? Set as much as you can ahead of time, like limit the number of shirts you have so that it's easy to grab and go in the mornings so you're not spending a lot of time mulling over what to wear or pick it out the night before. This is especially helpful if you have kids who are elementary age or younger. It helps you not have to make that decision and giving them three options. That is so helpful because then they only have to pick one of the three. It might give, make them take 20 minutes, but let them decide. Barack Obama and Steve Jobs wore almost the same thing every day because they needed to limit the need to decide. You can also make a few meals for the week and always have the same items on hand for snacking. And when there are only a few options in your fridge, you spend a lot less time staring at that fridge wondering what should you eat now? Will it solve everything? No. Especially when you are overtaxed, tired and your mind will say, I'm not in the mood for that. Which means that you order takeout then. But when it comes to your week, set three priorities for the week, with tasks related to those priorities. Trying to limit yourself to three priorities a day, especially if you're working on a project they may repeat, you know, over day, days, and days and days. So I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to notice where are you feeling decision fatigue at home, at work, in your life, and when are you outsourcing your decisions to others? That is so key because then that tells you that you are not trusting yourself. And if you're listening and you're thinking, I can't keep living like this, Erica. I don't trust myself to choose something differently. And decisions, like I said earlier, are everything. And when you feel confident in your decisions and you begin to trust yourself more and more deeply, I. You set the stronger boundaries. You stop guessing yourself, you shift the patterns saying no to what drains you, and yes to what aligns. And in this transformative masterclass on January 29th, we're going to explore the hidden stories and identities that shape your decision making. How guilt, fear, and the shoulds keep you stuck. Where your energy is going and what's quietly draining it, and how your unique human design really reveals your most aligned way that you make decisions. You're going to want to get a spot. There is a new way to decide and it's rooted in your own unique human design. So I want to invite you to sign up. You can find the link in the show notes to sign up for the masterclass on January 29th. It's gonna be two amazing days, and I look forward to seeing you there.