Episode 198 - Make Decisions By Finding Your Why
Have you ever stayed in a job, relationship, or commitment where the joy was gone, but fear of change held you back? In this episode, I introduce a powerful approach to help you bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Whether you’re facing a big decision or seeking alignment with your deeper values, this episode offers tools to embrace change with empathy and clarity, at a pace that makes sense to you.
Topics
Making Decisions By Finding Your Why
Problems with making pros and cons lists
Introduction to the Method of Motivational Interviewing
Collaboration between competing desires: Change vs. Status Quo
Steps of Motivational Interviewing
Avoiding binary thinking about right or wrong decisions
Encouragement to find clarity on one's "why" for decision-making
Links
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Upcoming Event:
Rétrospective 2024: Soirée de journaling
We are having a journaling evening to wrap up this crazy year with intention (and a little side of mulled wine or holiday tea!)
The date is December 12th at the Café Lili & Ollie in Montreal, and it's only $20!
Space is limited so make sure to reserve your spot HERE
Transcript
[AUTO-GENERATED]
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the self growth nerds podcast. I'm your host Marie, a courage coach, creative soul, and adventure seeker. Since through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019, I'm on a mission to help you embrace your most confident self so you can achieve your dreams too. If you're eager for deep conversations, big questions and meaningful connections, join me on the quest to discovering how we can create a more magical and memorable life. Hello nerds. How are you? I'm doing really good. This is episode a 198, so we're 3 episodes away from celebrating 200 episodes. You might have missed me announcing that after 200 episodes, I'm going to take a break.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:59]:
I don't know if it's going to be the ending or just a break to realign. I oscillate between moving on to something else or doing seasons of the podcast, which is what I think I probably should have done from the start in order to keep it more sustainable. I'm going to need periods of rest and inspiration in periods of creation, but this is still percolating in my mind, so I will let you know. By the way, last week I told you I was organizing an event in Montreal, my first ever event in French, it's going to be a journaling evening at my local cafe. It is now live, you can buy your tickets, Just go to my Instagram self girl nerds, the link is in the bio, and if you're interested reserve your spot now because it's a small cafe, there's a limited amount of space. It's gonna be amazing, and I'm gonna make sure it's cozy, I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions about the year that just went by, about what you're proud of, what you struggled with, what you learned, what you want to let go of, what what you want to take with you into 2025. We're gonna share together, we're gonna drink mulled wine or holiday tea if you prefer, we're gonna listen to calm music and reflect together. I cannot wait, this is happening on December 12th at the Cafe Lily and Ollie in Montreal, and it's only $20, so I hope to see you there.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:40]:
Okay. Today is a follow-up to last week's episode where I was telling you about why it's not a good idea to make a list of pros and cons when you're making a decision, and I promised that this week I would tell you what to do instead. So I was having a conversation with my mentor, who has a lot of experience as a coach, and I was telling her about my clients who have big decisions to make, but feel confused and are going in circles. She said, you know what Marie, when people are ambivalent, most of the time they have already unconsciously decided that they want to change, but they're just really scared to lose their security. In other words, if you've been wondering what you should do, whether you should stay in your job or leave, whether you should stay with your partner or leave, you're hesitating between the status quo, keep doing what I've been doing, or doing something different. What my mentor was saying and what I've also experienced personally and with my clients is that you're not confused, you're just scared. Deep down you know what you want to do, but there's lots of fears getting in the way of clarity and courageous action. So to help with that, she taught me a fascinating method that was developed by William r Miller and Stefan Rolnick.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:16]:
It's called motivational interviewing. It's supposed to happen between 2 people, but I believe you can do it with yourself using a journal. I'll share the the basic concept the way I understand it, but please look into it if you want more information. So the idea is that it's a collaboration between the part of you who wants to stick to the status quo and the part of you who wants to change. The the part of you who's more of a dreamer and who believes that more is possible. Okay. So there's 3 steps to do. 1st, you want to reduce your resistance to change, to doing something bold, something that you perceive as risky, by showing empathy to the part of you who is attached to the status quo.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:11]:
The part of you that tells you all the reasons why it's a bad idea to leave your job, to leave your partner, to move country, to start a business. This part's job is to preserve your security. It's an important job and it shouldn't be judged as boring, or inconvenient, or less than because it's cautious. So you wanna make that part of you feel seen and understood and appreciated. It doesn't mean you agree with its level of caution and fear, but it means that you acknowledge how that part of you feels instead of ignoring it or trying to shut it down. This sounds like, it's really important for you, isn't it, to provide a secure and comfortable environment for you and for your whole family? Or I can tell that you really care about being helpful for your colleagues and making sure that they have a positive opinion of you. You want that part of you to go like, yes, exactly. And not feel like it's stupid for doing so.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:06:28]:
Then in step 2, you want to explore the gap between those two parts that I described. Essentially it's the gap between your current behaviour and your broader goals or values. So I have two examples for you. Example number 1, imagine you have a job that pays you well, that's stable, but that's not fulfilling you anymore and you've been thinking about maybe changing. One part of you might really care about providing for your family and that's honorable, while another part of you might really care about pursuing a meaningful life and making a real impact which is not possible in your current job. Example number 2, you've been in a relationship for a very long time and you no longer feel aligned with your partner. One part of you might strongly believe in long term commitment and care about making things work with your partner, while another part of you feels like you have core incompatibilities that are undeniable and that part of you is curious about what it would be like to have a deeper emotional connection with someone. By focusing on the inconsistency between where you are and where you want to be, this method encourages you to consider the costs and the benefits of making the change.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:04]:
This non judgmental awareness of discrepancy can be what motivates you to take action. The third step is to go deeper and ask open questions to help build a bridge between the two parts, to brainstorm how to honor the needs of both. Let's think back to example number 1, you're in a job that's no longer fulfilling. You can ask yourself, well, if I was to change career, what needs would need to be taken care of? How could we do that? How could we prepare this transition in a way that feels good? What would I need to ensure or what would I need to verify in order to be able to do that in a way that still makes me feel secure? The answer might be something along the lines of well, I would need to put some money aside so I can go back to school without being too stressed, maybe I could have a meeting with my financial advisor to figure this out, to figure out a timeline, and I could also look into getting a scholarship, and on and on and on. You will see when you open yourself up to solutions, lots of them will rise to the surface. You wanna be mindful to create a space where all the ideas have a right to exist. So, you know, when we did brainstorms in school, they would tell us, don't shut down other people's ideas. It's the same with yourself.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:09:46]:
If you shut down your ideas, your intuition, learns that it's not safe to speak up, so it's going to silence itself moving forward. So you wanna welcome all the ideas and remain curious, remain open and eventually you will figure out what makes the most sense for you. So if I summarize, the first step is to show empathy to the part of you that is scared to change, that's scared to take a risk or step onto a new path. And step 2 is to explore the gap between the two parts of you and what they represent. What, need or value or desire do they each defend? And lastly, step 3, ask questions to build a bridge between the 2. Brainstorm how to honor the needs of both. This is gonna allow you to think of potential solutions instead of being stuck in a spiral of all the reasons why it's not possible. Notice how this meta doesn't argue which part of you is right or wrong.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:11:02]:
It believes that both part of you have needs and desires that deserve to be taken into consideration, and it creates a nonjudgmental space to collaborate. So why not give it a try next time you have a decision to make instead of making a list of pros and cons. Now, I want to end on a few thoughts about how I've made certain of my decisions in recent years. Looking back, I realize it's really important to choose what is going to fuel your decisions. What lens are you going to look at the situation through in order to decide what's best for you moving forward? Let me give you a small example. When you shop for clothes, what do you base your decisions on? When I was looking for gear for the Pacific Crest Trail, sure I wanted the gear to be high quality, but one of my main concerns, one of my most important factors was do the colors represent my soul? And it might seem silly to some, but it matters to me. So I'm not asking anyone to make their decisions the same way that I do. You have to know the way that works for you.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:27]:
Another example, I recently decided to stop going to the spinning gym. I'd been going twice a week for 2 years now, and I decided to quit because there was no more joy. Joy is important to me because physical activity is hard. I'm not a natural athlete. I don't love to move my body. I'd rather lie on the sofa and read. So if I'm going to get out and sweat, it's got to bring me joy. So for a long time, spinning would bring me joy, but at the end it was not the case anymore.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:02]:
So it was okay for me for a long time to have to push myself because there was also joy in the mix, but I decided to stop going when that was no longer the case. One of my biggest decisions in the last few years was leaving my 7 year relationship. It was almost 2 years ago now. When I think about what influenced this decision, it's the, the presence of desire. There was no longer a genuine desire to be there, and I'm not talking about sexual desire at all. I'm talking about wanting to be there and to do the work. There was still a lot of love, and yet my soul didn't want to be there anymore. I knew that I was capable of making it work, but I didn't want to anymore.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:56]:
I'd been feeling pulled in a different direction for a long time, and to me this is really important in my decision making, to tune into my intuition and to listen to my inner calling. For some people this might seem completely ridiculous, and they might choose to prioritize duty over all else. They will live with the consequences of that the same way I will live with the consequences of the way I make my decisions. I was listening to Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel, the amazing therapist, and she was, in a session with a Muslim man who comes from a very religious family for whom it's unacceptable to be gay. Well, turns out he's gay, and realizing he might prefer to comply with his family's beliefs than to live authentically. So he might choose to marry a wife and abandon the part of himself in order to align with his family's faith. Now to me, that's really heartbreaking and sad, But I was trying to see things from his perspective. Maybe it's worse for him to lose all he's ever known, his support network, his family, than to have to live in the closet for the rest of his life.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:15:28]:
That's what I mean when I say you live with the consequences of the way you make your decisions. The way I've made my decision to leave my partner came with loss and grief. And that's what I chose to endure so that I could go after what was meant for me. I just don't think it's helpful to think about these decisions in a binary way. What's right versus wrong? What's a good decision versus the bad decision? It's so different from one person to the other, and it's all about being clear about what you value, what's most important to you. What is your why? What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of life do you want to lead? What kind of feelings do you wanna experience? We could even ask what kind of legacy do you want to leave? These to me are much more helpful questions to consider when you're trying to make a decision. Alright, that's it for this week. I hope this episode was insightful for you.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:39]:
Don't forget if you live in Montreal to, find me on Instagram and sign up to my journaling evening in person. It's going to be super cozy and fun. We're going to do some introspection around the last year, 2024, and consider how we want to step into 2025. Also, if you've been curious about my 8 week course, The Courage to Start New, I'm going to host the 3rd cohort this coming January, and there's a reduced price for anyone who signs up before the new year. So go check it out, selfgoatnerds.com/courage if you wanna join us. It's a small, intimate, group coaching experience for anyone who feels lost, like they're going in circles and they're no longer excited about their day to day life, and they want to reawaken their inner fire and have a a direction that makes them feel alive. I don't have the exact dates of when it's going to start, I just know it's gonna be towards the end of January 2025. So I hope to see you there, and otherwise I will talk to you next week.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:17:58]:
I'm sending you all lots of love. Bye. Hey. If you love what you're hearing on the South Girl Nerds podcast and you want individual help finding a new direction for your life and developing the courage to make your dreams a reality, you have to check out how we can work together on self growth nerds.com or message me on Instagram at self growth nerds. My clients say they would have needed that support years ago. So if you're tired of feeling like you're wasting your life, don't wait. Get in touch now, and I cannot wait to meet you.