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Modern market trends, as well as the pandemic, show us that leaders and brands acting with genuine empathy are winning right now. When companies have been there for the community, valued employees, even made tough decisions like layoffs or closures with respect – the market has paid attention.
Just look at the media attention lavished on Zoom for offering free K-12 access to schools, Salesforce offering extended paid family care leave, or Starbucks increasing employee mental health benefits.
Beyond that, Research shows that Millenials and Gen Z demand a new kind of work culture. 71% of them want their workplace to feel like a second family. Top talent will no longer accept workplaces that don’t see, hear, and value diverse viewpoints. They’re demaniding respect. Work life balance. Empathy.
Companies and leaders ignore this shift at their own financial peril.
But why? Is it simply because you are too caught up in the day to day fires and stress to strengthen that muscle?
Sometimes we avoid developing good habits because it’s easier to stick with the bad habits we know. Don’t let this happen with your leadership style. (TWEET THIS!)
Don’t wait for your CEO or “others” in your company to issue some decree. Start where you are. Be a new model of success in your own sphere of influence, wherever your sit. If you act with empathy through genuine curiosity, active listening, practicing presence – you’ll be able to get more done and be successful. You’ll reap all the rewards that research and experience shows empathetic leaders enjoy.
And when others see your path to success, you’ll start that ripple effect “Wow, look at how she operates. I can find success that way, too”
You redefine success for others when you show them a model. They now see it’s possible to be compassionate and competitive. Ambitious and empathetic, Representation matters.
We can bring influential leaders on board by showing them how empathy positively impacts the bottom line. And their behavior can have an exponential impact in redefining success.
Check out The Empathy Edge podcast to discover more real-world stories of leaders and brands that are redefining success through empathy.
More reading for you about empathy as a new model for success:
People often assume that sharing similar experiences with someone is empathy. Not quite. Empathy is more about listening and sitting with someone to see things from their point of view. Unless asked, it’s not about you hijacking the conversation and making it about you.
You know you’re doing this if you ever tell someone: “I know how you feel, when this happened to me, I…..”
I say this with love, because I think we all (myself included) do this in an effort to show people we understand them. It’s our way of active listening and our intention is to make others not feel so alone. So I get it.
During my long recovery from a ruptured brain aneurysm, and even today, as I struggle with life-long cognitive impairments as a result, well-intentioned people do this all the time:
“You have to write everything down? Oh my gosh, I forget things all the time, too. You’re just getting older like the rest of us!”
“Wow, now you know how I feel, not remembering dates and faces.”
“I have bad short-term memory too – it must just be mommy brain!”
All of these are well-intentioned attempts to connect. But all this does is diminish another person’s pain and experience. For me, when someone says this, it negates everything I went through, all the therapy, education, and struggle, as if it’s no big deal.
Somewhere along the line, we mistakenly learned that sharing your own similar experience was empathy. It’s not. (Tweet This!)
Empathy is about perspective taking, information gathering, and actively listening. It’s about acknowledging another person’s experience. Yes, where appropriate one can share lessons learned or how they got through something, but the initial sharing is not the time. Just be patient. Give the person room to process and share first before you dive in with wisdom or advice.
Your response is about you, not the other person. You want to feel more comfortable, or “fix” things for the other person. That is not what they need. They need to feel heard.
You can understand someone without hijacking the conversation.
Sharon also shared this gem in her LinkedIn course: “Patience means slowing down your response to judgement. Without patience, there is no empathy” (Tweet This!)
When someone is sharing their experiences, here are 4 things you can say instead:
Tell me more…
Wow, that must have been a lot to go through. How does it make you feel?
What I hear you saying is…..is that right or do you want to share more? I’d love to understand more.
How can I help?/What support do you think you might need?
What do you think of when you think of innovation?
Do you picture a think tank of experts, crammed into a meeting room with Post-it notes on the wall, formulas on a white board, leftover pizza boxes strewn about, and crazy ideas flying back and forth?
When we think of innovation in that way, it can seem daunting. What if I go into a room to innovate and come out with nothing? How long will this take? How do I spend time on this while running my business?
The reality is that many innovations occur when we borrow and build upon what’s already there. What has come before. And we make it better. We find new uses for it. We slightly tinker with it to make it fit a brand new customer, market, or purpose.
I’m a huge fan of not reinventing the wheel. Like, ever. Sure, inventing something completely unheard of is amazing (iPhone, Tesla, ride sharing, anyone?).
But not all of us are wired this way. While, I’m rapid-fire white-space thinking and can come up with new, crazy ideas with the best of them, I am also someone who excels at reacting to something first and then finding all the ways to make it better. I’m also good at seeing what’s there and connecting the dots that no one else sees.
Are you like this?
If you are, cool. Embrace it. Understand that this is a skill and it makes you more efficient at adapting and evolving.
When there is no need to reinvent the wheel, don’t. Simply improve it.(TWEET THIS!)
A past marketing VP of mine used to call this “Stealing with pride.” Not quite plagiarism, but if you see a company or team doing something great, learn from it. Adapt it to your own purpose, voice, data. Don’t “rip it off” but build upon it.
In my inbox, lives a little folder called “Good Marketing Funnels.” This is where I save any email campaigns that resonate with me. Maybe I loved the brevity. Maybe the call to action was irresistible. Maybe I liked the way they wove the story across multiple emails.
Often, I use these as inspiration instead of starting from scratch. But I make them mine. And I make them even better.
Use your resources. Learn from those who’ve mastered things. See what others in your industry are doing. Not to make yourself feel bad or get jealous. But analyze the ideas that work, make them your own and make them better.
With everything going on in our world – from a global pandemic to economic hardship to countless social justice and racial inequality issues, corporate brands might be tempting to adopt a “business as usual” approach and focus only on their products and services.
But you can’t. And here’s why.
Your business thrives on people. And your employees, customer, suppliers and partners are all people, being impacted at home by hardship or adversity. Whether they are juggling work demands with homeschooling their kids…or whether they are people of color who are fighting for their rights and their lives, they are all IN THIS. They are dealing with a lot.
Your brand cannot be tone deaf right now. Your company will simply look out of touch at best and callous and heartless at worst. (TWEET THIS!)
And the public is paying attention. Not only have people watched and made purchase decisions based on brands’ responses to the Covid crisis, new startling research shows that people are expecting brands to take a stand and speak out on social issues. Edelman reports: “Respondents believe that brands must act to create change and influence: 60% said brands must invest in addressing the root causes of racial inequality and 57% said brands must educate the public.”
Younger consumers are even more critical. According to ongoing research from DoSomething.org, Gen Z is demanding that brands provide useful content, community resources, and treat their employees with respect:
“65% wants brands to ensure equal representation in their leadership, including having people of color on their executive team and promoting people of color to management. And 64% want brands to promote diversity in their advertising, like having more BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) models. The biggest takeaway from what Gen Z wants from brands right now is aligned with what they’ve always wanted: show, don’t tell. Yes, use your platform. But go further. Those who will win among Gen Z are those who back it up, do the work, and show us the money.”
So optics aside, what can your brand say and do right now to make things better? What real change can you make to not just talk the talk but walk the walk? How can you pivot your message, customer focus, or even hiring, sales strategy, product and service delivery to keep pace with what your audience wants but also to show your company is using it’s influence for good, rather than evil?
Show up. Don’t shrink. Not when your customers and society need you to lead.
Need help thinking through the current disruption and coming up with a solid game plan, in an efficient strategic sprint? Please reach out and we’ll talk.
Whether you reach 5 people or five hundred thousand. Whether you are CEO of a global brand or an entry-level manager or a solopreneur whose office staff consists of you and a lazy Black Lab who lounges next to your desk all day. Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent, work for a big corporate giant or a small scrappy local business.
You have influence. You have a voice. Use your platform for good.(TWEET THIS!)
We are in a crazy time right now, where the lines blur between work and home (how can they not when you’re Zooming in on your boss in his guest bedroom/makeshift office as his 5-year-old wanders in, demanding a cupcake?). The façade is gone. We are vulnerable and real. There is no longer a “work you” and a “personal you” just YOU. A whole being, with all your complexity, obligations, life circumstances…and values, ethics, and opinions.
Now is the time to speak up. Now is the time to align your work with who you are and to use whatever influence you have.
If you have expertise, share your thought leadership generously. If you passionately support a social justice topic, be visible. Post. Tweet. Share articles. Donate money. Raise awareness. Get involved.
In my twenties, I used to believe in “Work Maria” and “Personal Maria.” Personally speaking, back then, it was probably a good thing to have those boundaries!
But we cannot continue to be one person in business and another at home. Not that we don’t have rules and etiquette for the workplace, but you need to be whole.
You can impact change by raising your voice and standing up for something. Regardless of the size of your sphere of influence.
No one is going to ask for credentials or limit you because you are not famous or have less than a million followers. Make the impact, one person at a time.
Has a leadership coach or self-help guru ever said to you, “You have all the answers inside of you; you just need to listen?”
Upon hearing this, I usually roll my eyes.
Please, I’m a smart cookie. If my intuition or whatever tried to speak to me during this crossroads, I would tell myself, I’d have heard it by now. But I’m still lost as to what to do. I’m still floundering. So she must not be speaking my language.
But at a retreat a few years ago seriously changed my tune. Here’s what went down:
I attended a women’s weekend retreat in Calistoga, California. Hosted by my lovely friend, speaker and author Shasta Nelson, this was about getting away, diving deep and learning how to listen to that quiet little voice that (seemingly) speaks a foreign language to me.
Fueled by prompts, deep questions and fun exercises, we did a lot of journaling. Some of it was led by out guts, some of it was more thoughtful. We used words and images to wake up our inner wisdom and get it talking. Some of the work didn’t make sense at first….until it did and the insights cracked open right in front of me.
While I’m not a “woo woo” kind of gal, I have to admit: it worked.
The topics I journaled about, the images I was unknowingly drawn to, the words that popped into my head–they all pointed me to the same conclusions for how to spend my year. True, some of these themes had been marinating for months, but I still craved clarity and direction. It dawned on me that I already had direction, but lacked the confidence and permission to do what my soul was crying out to be done. I was too wrapped up in other people’s expectations and self-invented pressures. Doing the work shed those layers and forced me to face the core truth, with flashing neon lights pointing me in the right direction.
I think I actually heard my soul huff in exhaustion, “Finally! She gets it!”
What I uncovered is less important than how it was revealed. Like a lightning bolt, I finally got it. When people say, “You have all the wisdom you need inside of you,” all they mean is that…
When you take the time to journal, or ponder, or use your gut to find images or words that speak to you (for whatever reason), themes will emerge. (TWEET THIS!)
And you have to parse out and pay attention to those themes. While I was guided by activities and prompts all weekend, in the end, no one led me to these conclusions but my own subconscious. There was no therapist, guru or teacher spoon-feeding me these ideas. No one else but me came to those conclusions in my own heart and mind.
This, my friends, THIS is what they mean by tapping into your inner wisdom.
So how can you as a leader or entrepreneur, do it, too? I’m clearly not an expert, but here’s what worked for me:
Write down your thoughts. Yes, not everyone likes to journal, but you can’t believe the power of getting the slush and mud out of your head and onto paper. Feeling angry for no reason? Write it down. Have a daydream or desire? Write it down? Want to feel a certain way, even though you’re not sure what action it takes to get you there? Write it down. A sentence, a paragraph, a word, Whatever. If writing is not your thing, perhaps use simple one-word descriptors or images. The important thing is to get the chaos out of your head so you can examine it and find the patterns. It’s amazing what your subconscious is trying to tell you, but like a toddler, it can’t always find the right words, so it needs your help.
Find some quiet: Your wisdom is struggling for to speak to you: you just can’t hear it above the constant noise in your life. Turn off the phone, shut down email and go for a walk, sit by the beach or just lie on your couch with a warm latte in your hand. We try so hard to numb our confusion with external distraction that we can never discover what our body and intuition yearns to reveal. Maybe we’re scared. Maybe we’re lonely. But finding the quiet is essential to hearing the small voice inside of you. I have a rule of never listening to music while I walk my dog by the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean. I spend that time listening, dreaming and pondering in silence. It is truly a delicious luxury.
Share your journey: This one can be especially scary. But sometimes the best insights can come from hashing it out verbally with someone. Open up about your fears, dreams, and dilemmas with a trusted friend and as you do, you’ll find your own truths will reveal themselves as you talk it out. Introverts may not love this idea, but as an extrovert, I can tell you that some of my best ideas have come from talking things out. Forcing yourself to verbalize your desires and challenges (especially if you hate writing, see #1 above) helps you to clearly focus on the real issues. This is why talk therapy works so well. Try connecting in person with a confidante and instead of dishing about our latest Netflix obsession, spend time sharing what’s coming up for you in terms of direction and desire. You may surprise yourself.
Want some help crafting a juicy and delicious brand story for your business, or finding just the right words to intrigue your audience? Take a look at what we can do together and let’s chat!
Time for something completely different! Ready to arrange your space to attract more clients, revenue, and success? Today’s guest post is from Linda Rubright, founder of happyhousefengshui.com. Linda has been practicing feng shui for over a decade. She puts a modern, easy to understand spin on an ancient practice to help people quickly and simply attract more love, wealth, health and happiness to their lives.
Royalty in the east determined many, many years ago that arranging their homes (i.e. palaces) in a particular way allowed them to attract more health, wealth, business, love and happiness. It took the western world and their royalty, including the likes of Harry and Meghan, a few millennia to catch onto this (feng shui), but when they did, they tweaked this practice a bit more to their liking (read: they dumbed it way down) and began seeing love, wealth, health and happiness flow their way.
The good news for us non-aristocratic types is we don’t have to be bothered by all the royal formalities and relentless paparazzi to make the same small tweaks to our homes to attract good things into our lives – including more and better business. Want more clients in your life and money in your bank account? Do as many of these as you can.
Get a Very Welcoming Welcome Mat for Your Front Door
The front door of the home, the door the architect of the home would call the front door, is considered the entryway to all the energy in your house. It is also the most important area related to your career according to feng shui. For this reason, make your front door feel very, very welcoming. Starting by tossing your old tattered welcome mat and get a fresh, new cheerful one.
Add Inviting Touches to Your Main Entrance
Good energy at the entry of your home invites good energy into your home. Consider adding a cheerful wreath, a pot of flowers and/or an outdoor statue near your front door. Definitely toss any gargoyles, lions or signage that feel negative or unwelcoming – we don’t want to scare the energy of your new clients and business away.
Make the Area Around Your Front Door Clean and 100% Clutter Free
As the front door is both the primary entrance for all energy that enters the home and, in feng shui, the most important area related to your career, it is extremely important this area is very clean. Get rid of any dust, dirt, clutter, messes, mail piles, stinky shoes, unused boots, piles of coats and general eyesores/disorganization inside, outside and around the front door.
Anytime someone tells me they are struggling with business and/or getting new clients, I always ask how their front door is looking. They typically tell me it is a dumping ground for all things that need to be taken care of – someday. I suggest they clean it up and days later they let me know about new business that fell, seemingly, out of the sky. The clients and business are out there – they just want a clean front door to walk through.
Actually Use Your Front Door
Whoever said “side door guests are best” clearly did not understand the ways of feng shui. If your front door is neglected and never used, the energy entering your home and around your career and business might feel the same way. To change this, have friends enter through your front door, use it as much as possible in your own comings and goings, have pizza delivered to it – just keep energy moving and not stagnant around your front door. Why? Because you do not want stagnant and stuck energy associated with your career and business.
Weed (Sorry)
If you live in a home and outside your front door are weeds – those things need to go – pronto. The only things we want growing around your literal and metaphorical career area are the good things. Start weedin’.
Get Rid of All Dead Plants IMMEDIATELY
Dead plants are dead energy, and you absolutely do not want “dead” energy entering your home or related to your career area. Toss those babies in the compost pile.
Put Symbols of What You are Trying to Achieve Near Your Front Door
Is there a particular client you want to have or grow? Is there a certain financial number you are trying to hit? Put symbols of what you are trying to achieve, the clients you are trying to attract or even a list of your goals near your front door. The good thing about feng shui is nothing has to be seen to work. Feel free to put these things in a drawer, behind a piece of furniture, behind art, etc. – just make sure it is near your front door!
Remove the Career Killers from Your Office, Cube and Desk
While there are things that help you attract what you want, there are also things that are roadblocks in getting what you want. To make sure you are not doing anything to inadvertently detract good things from entering your life, make sure to get rid of as many of these “career killers” as possible in and around your office, desk or cube.
Clutter
Dirt
Dust
Messes
Symbols or reminders of bad memories
Symbols or reminders of who you do not want to be
Things you no longer use
Anything broken, torn or no longer working
Files and papers you no longer need or use (this includes electronic files)
And Bonus Tip: Use all of the tips and tricks above regarding the front door of your home for the entryway to your office or cube.
Have Your Desk Chair Arranged So Your Back Is Against A Wall
You know how the boss always has her back against a wall and her underlings sit in cubes where people can sneak up behind them? There are big energetic consequences to this. As you may have guessed, it is best to have the boss’ position (for more reasons that one, right?). Arrange your desk or office so your back is against a wall, and you can see the door or the entrance where people would come up to you. If that is not possible, try putting a mirror up so you can see who is coming behind you.
Add a Change Bowl in the Upper Left Corner of Your Desk or Office
Stand either in the doorway of your office or if you don’t have an office, sit where you typically would at your desk. Point to the farthest upper left corner from you. This area is your money area in feng shui. To attract more money into your life, put a change bowl here and try as much as possible, not to take money out of it. Also try as much as possible to add that pocket change you have to it. You can put other items associated with money in your change bowl such as jewelry (when I lose an earring I always put the other one here), lottery tickets, gift cards with a few extra dollars on it, foreign currency or even Monopoly money. Extra credit for a change bowl that is purple, gold, green or red (the colors associated with wealth in feng shui).
Put Your Business Wishes in a Silver Box in the Lower Right Corner of Your Desk or Office
Yes, feng shui can make your wishes come true – especially if you make it known what they are. Write down a list of up to three things you want to happen, but write them as if they have already happened. For example, “I am elated I increased my revenue by 30% in 2019. I am so happy I signed XYZ new client in October of 2019.” Put these three wishes inside a silver box (I have made them out of tin foil before – they don’t have to be fancy). Then, go to your office or desk and either stand in the entrance of the office or sit down at your desk. Put your silver box near the lower right most corner of your desk or office.
Everyone applauds mavericks and innovators for breaking the rules when it comes to products or technology. It’s the classic Cinderella story. And we celebrate this image of the lone wolf, standing on a TED stage, sharing with the world how he or she refused to listen and followed their own heart to find success.
We tend to think of technology companies or big thinkers with huge global acclaim when we envision this inspirational story.
Some of you might believe you can’t be such sexy mavericks in your own industry. I mean, what can a wellness coach, website designer, or financial planner really do to break the rules and innovate?
I’d like to encourage you to think bigger about breaking the rules.
For too long, the myth of the maverick has been stuck on replay: Compete. Be fearless. Invent something new. Take no prisoners. Be relentless. Hustle. Move. Go. Go. GO!
But here’s the thing: you can be a maverick, a true innovator, by breaking the rules… of success and achievement. (TWEET THIS!)
You can show that vulnerability is sexy (thank you, Corey Blake!) and endear yourself to your clients or community.
You can patiently achieve your goals and still make space to rethink and reinvent without constant hustling, “crushing” anything, or grinding yourself into the ground.
You can use your success–at any level–to make the world a better place. You don’t have to wait until you have Oprah or Branson influence.
You can be scared, confused, lost, and unsure when tackling any challenge. And admit to the world that you are doing so. Calling fear out by name, publicly, can fuel your resolve and drain its most potent power: the power to make you turn back or never try at all.
We can have the best of intentions, but if we can’t make
healthy habits stick, the results will always be the same.
Apply this to any habit you might be trying to create: updating social media on a regular basis, finding time to focus on writing, sending invoices every week, working out 3x per week, drinking more water.
Flossing every night.
Yes, at 46 years old, I had still not been able to create a nightly habit of flossing. I make my preschooler do it every night, and so, feeling guilty at not being a proper role model, and being sick of every single 6 month dentist visit ending in a lecture, this stubborn girl finally made it happen.
How?
Well, what do stubborn people often need? To prove
their point.
After my last dentist visit six months ago, I issued myself
a data-driven challenge:
I will floss every
night until my next dental visit and see if she can tell the difference.
This was purely a scientific experiment, a competition in which I would know if I was right or wrong.
In order to not “skew the results,” I had to do it every
night. Even when I didn’t feel like it. Even when I was tired. Even when I
thought I could cheat.
“You can’t prove the theory right or wrong with biased
data,” I told myself. See, stubbornness
has it benefits.
And what happened? I stayed mum at my recent dentist visit.
After cleaning, the hygienist remarked, “Wow, your gums are in great shape. No
bleeding! Things look really healthy in there.”
So… I had proved that flossing does make a difference.
But more than: After doing something for approximately 182
days, for whatever reason, solidified this habit. I literally cannot go to
sleep now without flossing!
Habit accomplished.
When you look at a habit as a scientific experiment or a
challenge, this can awaken a more logical side of your brain (totally not a neuroscientist here, but this
is my theory). For me, I activated my curiosity and competitiveness. If I
could prove once and for all whether flossing every night really impacted my
dental health, then I could put this issue to bed forever.
Next time you want to create a habit in your life, think about it as a personal challenge. Approach it logically, gather the data and aim to prove someone WRONG. (Tweet this!)
And yet another great option to create good habits: Try out Sarah Von Bargen’s fabulous Make it Stick Habit School for an alternate and fun way to form lasting habits.
More articles you may like on forming healthy habits for your life and business:
We very rarely, if ever, get to make a major life decision
and live with it as reality – before it is undone. We often wish we could “try
decisions on” and then turn back the clock if we change our minds.
Why? Because it’s one
thing to talk about a choice and quite another to actually DO IT.
This is a rather personal story about what it’s like to feel
a real decision and then have it unmade.
In 2011, I found out I was pregnant. It was completely unexpected, as I just happened to go to the doctor for my annual physical and told him I was late. “Let’s run a pregnancy test to be sure.”
I half-listened to the doctor’s voicemail, knowing it would
be negative. “Your test came back
positive. You’re very early, about 5 weeks, I’d say, but congratulations. Let’s
talk about next steps.”
You must understand the current state of affairs. My husband and I had talked about kids but were not even close to a final decision. I’d had a major health crisis a few years prior and, in the aftermath, we leaned toward no kids. Still, I always wondered what it would be like. Sweet cuddles and fun adventures balanced with sleep-deprivation and no more freedom to take off at a moment’s notice.
But there was no way to predict how I would actually feel if/when it happened.
Until it was real.
I vividly remember driving to lunch to meet a friend that
day with a new found sense of safety to do the speed limit. And wondering, “How
do I do this? Who do I tell first?”
Mind you, I had left my husband a message that I had
something to talk to him about at home. But no way was I going to drop this
bomb over voicemail.
At lunch, it felt weird to tell my good friend, but good to
share it with someone. Me. A pregnant
woman?! Between our shock, we giggled.
As the excruciating hours passed before my husband got home, I settled into the idea. No more imagining. This was happening. How did I feel? I sat with my emotions in this new reality for about 8 hours before my husband knew anything. Panic. Excitement. Shock. But the overwhelming emotion? Joy. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Then later that afternoon…
Some light bleeding. Maybe this decision was being undone
right before my eyes? Fear. Dread.
My husband came home and I told him. But with a caveat that
“this might all be going south.” He reeled
from the shock but also expressed concern about me.
And then….it all unraveled.
Light bleeding turned to heavy turned to emergency doctor calls and then
finally, that last callback where a total stranger, the on-call doctor, said out
loud what I dreaded to hear.
Two days later, an exam at the doctor’s confirmed it. There had been a very early pregnancy but it was over now. No baby.
The decision had been undone.
But it gave me what I needed to be sure about my choice. And now we have a beautiful almost 5 year old boy.
This story is not just about the 48 hour pregnancy. It’s about how we make decisions.
And what we really want when we have to make especially tough ones is to understand how our final choice will make us feel.(TWEET THIS!)
We rarely get visceral certainty. We can only speculate with
what we know right now. We really wish we could marry that guy, start that
business or take that job and get a taste of it before we truly commit.
We often cannot.
We have to examine
both choices from two angles:
How will I feel if I do make that choice?
How will I feel if I don’t make that choice?
You don’t often get the luxury of emotionally and physically
stepping into that reality before you decide. So you have to do your best to
imagine. But even that can trick your brain, because I’m telling you, the
emotions I felt that day were not even close to what I imagined.
So what can we do? Short of being able to go back in time…
Gather the right information. Get enough data to make a balanced, informed choice… but then stop. There comes a point where you start simply seeking data that confirms what you already want to do!
Use pro and con lists wisely. Such lists are okay as inputs, but they’re not a useful decisioning tool, so say Chip and Dan Heath in their book Decisive. We often construct those lists with an existing bias. And sometimes that one pro is worth way more than all of those cons (or vice versa!)
Get a similar perspective. Talk to people who’ve been through it and probe about their before and after. Especially if they possess a similar worldview to yours. But remember, they are not you. You are not them.
Trust your gut on how you may react if it happens….and if it does not. When you tell yourself “This is happening” or “This is not happening” take note of your physiology and mood. Sometimes, you actually already know!
Ask others to notice for you: When you describe the dilemma, ask your friends to notice how you talk: voice pitch, facial expressions, body language They may tell you that you are already pointing out all the negatives of one option, or that your face lights up for the other.
Make all things equal. Great for deciding between two options. Ask yourself what you would do if most things were equal. For example, when faced with two different kindergartens for our son, one close to our house, one 20 minutes away. I asked myself, “Which would I choose if the commute were not a factor?” When put in those terms, I didn’t even hesitate, which told me what I needed to know. We made the decision to put up with the longer commute.
Take the leap. Or don’t. At a certain point, just decide. You only know what you know right now, so stop trying to predict the future. While it is true that we often regret more of the things we did not do, than those we did do, you just need to make a call. Often, we can adapt to whatever decisions we make.
P.S. While this post is about making decisions, if the topic brought up anything difficult for you around miscarriage, please find some resources right here:
