One of the most empowering moments of your life will be when you firmly make up your mind and decide to do something.

Or make up your mind to NOT do something.

You’ll find that you’re typically brought to that tipping point by either inspiration. Or desperation.

But either way, it’s a very definite inner feeling of impending change:

Sometimes it’s a small shift in a daily habit, like deciding to exercise before breakfast or balancing your checkbook on a weekly basis.

Other times it might be a massive sea-change, like packing up your belongings and moving cross country, buying a home, getting married, or deciding to be supportive of someone who’s tremendously challenging to support.

Whichever it is, you’ll find that there is an almost palpable surge of personal power when you FIRMLY make up your mind about something. When you make a firm decision and affirm that you are NOT going back on your word.

What’s fascinating is that you’ll discover others will pick up on your determined frame of mind, whether it’s family members, co-workers or business clients, and they will begin to understand that you have made up your mind to do something differently. Then they TOO will have to change their behavior as a result. It may not always be pretty, at first, and your made-up mind might be tested, but if YOU stay strong, others will accept your new MADE-UP MIND.

A tipping point in one person, always creates tipping points in those around them.

And the beauty of making up your mind and making a firm decision, is that it literally creates an inner shift in your intention.

An intention that will almost instantly make the creative and resourceful parts of your brain more accessible.

When you make up your mind to do something, you may even hear yourself saying out loud:

“Yes! I AM going to do this!”

“Yes! I CAN do this!”

“Yes! This is the right thing to do!”

“Yes! This is going to be a great success.”

“That’s IT! I’m changing my life for the better and I’m doing it NOW. I am not going back to the way things have been!”

It’s those moments in life when you draw a line in the sand and say, “This is it!”

In addition to increasing your sense of personal power, another benefit of making up your mind about something is that it becomes much easier to determine your priorities – for that hour, day, week, month or even year.

Your “choice” that you’ve made up your mind about, and decided firmly upon, now becomes the PRIME TARGET of your priorities. You’ll now shift your priorities, naturally, to bring to fruition what you’ve decided upon!

Making firm decisions literally frees up a lot of your mental bandwidth. There’s much less you need to pay attention to, because you’ve made up your mind. So all those other choices you’ve been vacillating about can just fall off your “to-do” list. All those worries and conundrums that you had previously, are no longer an option because YOU’VE MADE UP YOUR MIND.

So let’s deconstruct the concept of making up your mind and being decisive.

First of all, the tendency to “not make up your mind” or to be indecisive is just a habit!

You can compare it to how a muscle gets flabby when not in use: If you practice the paralysis of analysis too often or put off making firm decisions because they feel unpleasant, you’ve just become out-of-practice and your decision-making muscle is flabby. It’s literally a mental and physical weakness.

Which means that the converse is also true!

When you start making it a habit to decide quickly and firmly on various different things, you get accustomed to making decisions, making up your mind, and it gets easier and easier.

Another benefit of being firmly decisive is that OTHERS will see you as firmly decisive, and will stop trying to sway you in other directions. When you say “No.” They will know you mean “No.” And not “Maybe.”

Whether it’s deciding what clothes to put on in the morning, what to make for dinner, which car to purchase, or how you’re going to allow family members or clients to treat you, cultivating the habit of making quick, firm decisions will serve you well in every area of your life.

Next, let’s look at some more reasons why you have difficulty making up your mind:

You have too many choices. You’re simply weighing too many options so your mind won’t make a decision.

Fear of making the wrong decision and fear of change. “What will happen if I do that or say that?”

Avoidance behavior and lack of discipline. You’d rather go play golf or watch YouTube videos than buckle down and research a new web designer or make an important family decision.

Negative self-talk that becomes self-fulfilling. For example, “I’m an indecisive person and I always have been!” Or, “It always takes me forever to make up my mind.” The words you repeatedly say will become your outward experience.

Okay, so now that you’re clearer on why you may be having difficulty making up your mind (and feeling far more powerful as a result!), here are some ideas to get you in a more empowered mindset and get you to make up your mind and start making decisions!

Start “practicing” by making small decisions quickly and firmly. Whether it’s what to eat for breakfast, what route to drive to work, what flight to book for a trip or what social engagement to attend, start to drastically reduce your decision-making time and just DECIDE.

Other examples: Decide quickly to reply to an email, pay a bill immediately when it arrives in the mail, throw away unneeded paper work. Acting quickly on small decisions will develop your “muscle” of acting quickly on bigger ones.

Minimize your choices. If you have to decide between three website designs, chose one to eliminate from your list of choices – the LEAST desirable choice. You are then left with only two choices to decide between, which makes it much easier to make up your mind.

Avoid getting too much feedback. If you’re making a big decision, yes, it’s a good idea to research your choices and learn from others who’ve had to make the same choice. But having TOO much input from others can be confusing and paralyzing. If you’re faced with a big decision, enlist the help of not more than two or three other people, all of whom you know, like, trust and respect, and who are familiar with your situation. Keep your “advisory board” very small and very elite.

Trust and follow your intuition. When making important decisions, you’ll discover that you will have an almost immediate “feeling” when faced with the decision. It can be described as a “gut” feeling and include excitement, dread, inspiration, hesitation or a feeling of “Hell Yes!!”

Be willing to listen to your gut feelings of “Yes, I love that idea!” even if you don’t know exactly how you’re going to pull it off just yet. Take time to tune in to your intuition when making big decisions.

Don’t make big decisions or make up your mind about something when your anxious, tired, or under pressure. If you’re being pressured into making a decision or feel strong anxiety when trying to decide, it’s a good indication NOT to make a decision right then. Make important decisions when you’re feeling positive and are feeling calm and rational. If you’re stressed and under pressure, your emotions will be fueling your decisions.

I recommend making important decisions from your intellect and intuition, not your emotions, or the emotions of those around you.

Examine your alternatives, BRIEFLY. I’m sure you know the phrase, “The Paralysis of Analysis.” It means the longer you ruminate over something, the more complicated it will become and the more difficult it will be to make a decision.

Be willing to examine your alternative briefly and make a decision to the best of your ability, based on what you know now. You can eventually course-correct if you need to. Be brave, assess the situation quickly, and DECIDE. Make up your mind. Set a time limit for yourself if you need to. For example: “By 1:00pm tomorrow, I will have decided on a new business logo.”

And then stick to that decision. Follow through and make it happen.

The more you practice making up your mind firmly, the better you’ll get at making decisions and the more productive you’ll be.