19. How to Make Any Decision Quickly and Easily
In my experience, the three most important skills in leadership are directing workflow, creating and nurturing relationships, and today’s topic: making decisions. If you nail these three skills, you are golden. I’ve struggled with all of these at some point or another in my career, and I’m guessing you have as well. So, today, I’m sharing my hack for making decisions quickly and easily.
When I became a leader, making decisions was pretty painful at first. I was overthinking every single decision, from deciding on the office Christmas party to deciding who to hire and how much to pay them. However, when I discovered the hack I’m sharing today, every decision became simpler.
Tune in this week to discover my hack for making decisions quickly and easily as a new leader. I’m sharing how to see where you aren’t approaching decisions with confidence, and showing you how to tap into your body using lessons from Human Design, so you can identify the problem you’re having when making decisions and step into your authority as a leader, giving yourself a clear-cut answer every time.
If you don’t have the time or budget for ongoing coaching but you’re ready to jumpstart your success in your new leadership role, you don’t want to miss my new offer, The Leadership Accelerator. It includes a 90-minute kick-start session, and at the end of this session, you’re going to get a report detailing your strengths and how you can best use them in your role. You’ll also have set a clear goal and some action-steps to take over the next 30 days, two follow-up 30-minute sessions with me, as well as unlimited support on Voxer throughout the month. Sign up before March 31st, 2023, for a 20% discount. Click here to get started!
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
Why we can’t make confident decisions when we aren’t confident in ourselves, and how to tell where you’re not trusting yourself.
My hack for making decisions quickly and easily.
The value of tapping into your body when making any decision.
Why we tend to ignore the signals our bodies are sending us.
How Human Design can bring a new level of understanding to your authority.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
Book a free one-on-one consultation to see if we’re a good fit for 1:1 coaching.
To thank you for being a listener and supporter of The Confident Female Leader, I am sharing a free guided meditation with you! Download your meditation here.
Full Episode Transcript:
This week I'm going to share my hack for making decisions quickly and easily.
Welcome to The Confident Female Leader podcast. A space for ambitious women stepping into leadership who are ready to take control of their circumstances and own their magic. If you're ready to start shedding your self-doubt, come into your new identity as a leader, and stop consistently undervaluing yourself so you can feel more confident in your role, this show’s for you. I'm Annie Framand, Psychologist, Certified Feminist Coach, and Master Trainer. And I'm on a mission to help women just like you stop overworking, overthinking, and overpleasing, so you can start creating success on your terms. Ready to create your dream life? Let's go.
Hola amigas, how are you? I am so good. I celebrated one year with my love this weekend. We actually went to an all-inclusive resort here in the area. It was kind of cool, not going to lie. Walking 20 minutes to the all-inclusive, spending all day there enjoying ourselves, laying by the pool, having a few drinks, reading, making some friends, and then walking back home in 20 minutes. So, it's really cool.
Alright. If you're new to the podcast, don't forget to follow the show on a Spotify or Apple Podcasts so that you don't miss an episode. I also have a brand-new offer that I'm launching today actually, called The Leadership Accelerator. This is designed for women who are ready to take action to develop their leadership skills and want some help to kickstart the process. More on this at the end of the episode.
In my opinion, with my experience, the three most important skills in leadership are directing workflow and getting shit done through others, creating and nurturing relationships. And the third one, that we're going to talk about today, is making decisions. Now, if you nail these three skills, you are golden. I've struggled with all of these at some point or another in my career, and so have my clients. And I'm guessing that you have, as well.
So, today we're going to be continuing the conversation on how to make decisions with confidence as a new leader. As a reminder, last week, we talked about why, as women, we sometimes think other people’s, especially men's, authority is more important than our own. How to stop listening to everyone around you and start listening to yourself more. And we also talked about how to start trusting yourself more and making confident decisions in your life right now.
This week, just to take it a bit further, I'm going to share my hack for making decisions quickly and easily. Now, this is coming from someone who used to struggle with the simplest decisions, like what to order at the restaurant and what to wear in the morning.
So, when I became a leader making decisions was pretty painful, not going to lie. I pretty much overthought every single one of them, from what to do for the office Christmas party, when we used to have them, to who to hire and how much to pay them, and how to allocate the training budget. All of these little things I struggled with.
Now, this podcast is called The Confident Female Leader, so what is confidence? True confidence is trusting ourselves. When we make decisions, if we are not confident, we're not trusting ourselves. We're looking outside of ourselves for permission, for validation, or for reassurance, right? We're looking for an authority outside of ourselves. We're waiting for other people's input.
And like we saw last week; women especially are conditioned that way. It's from the restaurant to what you're going to wear. Asking other people what you should wear, what you should eat, what they want you to eat, what they want you to wear. All the way up to major life decisions like which car to buy, whether or not to have kids, how many kids, where to live, etc. And, same thing at work.
Now, my hack to become a confident leader, I discovered it through a system that is called Human Design. It really helps to tap into your body and listen to its cues. So, if you're able to do this easily, without using this system, amazing. I am going to give you what's worked for me and what works for my clients. It's just an easy way to understand your body's cues, and to really, truly listen to the wisdom of your body.
My clients and myself tend to overthink, so we stay in our heads. I would say the number one cue that you're overthinking, the number one cue that you are not using the wisdom of your body, therefore not trusting yourself, therefore not confident in your decisions and in your leadership, is if you're noticing that you get stuck in your head.
So, if you take a moment, and you just sit down and close your eyes. You can just do that now, unless you're driving, of course, or walking. You can just take a moment and notice, where is the energy right now in your body? You can close your eyes and just notice, is it very much in your head? Because what I've noticed in myself and my clients, is when I get up in my head, I tend to disconnect from my body. And it really is like from the neck up that it happens.
That's also the way that we've been conditioned in our current society, and especially as women. So, just take a moment, without doing anything else, just kind of observing: Where is the energy landing right now in your body? Is it really busy up in your head? What kind of sensations are you feeling in your body?
And if you're like, “I don't even know what you're talking about,” then yeah, you're probably way up in your head. Because it's really difficult for most of us unless we've been trained to do it. Unless we're very aware of our body, like if we dance or if we work out, if we run, if we do yoga or meditation or any other practices that bring us in our body. Unless we do any of that, for the most part, we're not very aware of the signals that our body sends us.
This system called Human Design was invented by someone called Ra Uru Hu, which is the name he gave himself. He actually is from Montreal, like me. He was an advertising executive. He also published magazines and media. He got the inspiration for Human Design in 1989. So, that's something that he came up with. It is quite used today; you may or may not have heard about it.
The inspiration comes from a few things. So, from the I Ching, from astrology, from the chakra system. If you're into yoga, you've probably heard of that as well. And basically, the premise of this system is that we're all born with our unique, energetic blueprint. That most of us are conditioned out of that blueprint by our society, by family.
The purpose of this system is to realign us with our authentic self, and to trust our inner guidance. So, it's basically a system to help you trust yourself and therefore develop more confidence.
I use an app because it really helps me to kind of understand the system a little bit better, and how I work with it. It's called My Human Design app by Jenna Zoe. It's really good. It's super easy, super simple to understand. If you're interested in anything that I'm sharing today, you're more than welcome to check that app out. I believe it's like a few dollars. If you want something that's free, you can check it out on the web. Of course, there's free resources on human design. But I found this one to be the best one.
So, I'm just going to share because it's quite a complex system. But I'm just going to share what they call the “decision-making Authorities” in this system. I'm going to also share the four most common ones, that I have seen to be helpful for myself and for my clients.
The way that this system is based, in Human Design, we have one way that we best make decisions, okay? And that way is different from one person to another. I'm going to share those four different types, the ones that I see the most often; and there are more. If you start going down the Human Design rabbit hole, if you're interested in that, you'll see there's a few more.
But I'm going to share these four with some examples, so you can kind of resonate and see which one you resonate the most with. And if you want to actually discover your type, then you're more than welcome to check out the app.
Alright, let's go with the first one. The first one is what is called Sacral Authority. Once again, this is your decision-making Authority. So, this is a signal that you get from your body. Once again, the premise of this system is that we best make decisions with our bodies and not with our mind. Here, I'm going to guide you to use your body. And what you'll want to do, is maybe meditate or clear your mind. You can use the five-minute meditation that I have in the free resources.
You just want to tap into your body before you make a decision, to see where it lands for you. If you have Sacral Authority, that is my case, what happens when you make a decision is that your body will give you a clear-cut answer based on your excitement level. This is kind of a ‘yes or no’ answer. I call it my fuck yeah or my hell, yes.
For example, if you are wondering where to go out for dinner, what you'll want to be asking your body, if you have Sacral Authority like me, you'll want to be asking your body a ‘yes or no’ question. If you give it too many options, it has no idea what to do. This was my problem for many years, because I would be like, “Hmm, what do I feel like eating today for dinner?” And then I would kind of never find an answer. I would ask everyone else, and I would debate, and I would never be sure.
What I do now, because I know that I have Sacral Authority, is I just ask, “Okay, do I want to go for sushi? Do I want to go for a pizza?” And notice your body giving you the response. If you feel excited about either one of those two options, that is your decision, end of story. Okay?
We're conditioned by our mind to look at the pros and the cons. I'm not saying that that is wrong. And, I'm not saying it never has value. But I'm saying that our bodies also have wisdom that we often don't listen to. Really, this is my hack. Honestly, it makes decision-making so much easier when you listen to your body.
So, this is your ‘yes or no’. Two options: Do I want pizza? Or do I want sushi? And if I listen to my body, I'm going to get a clear-cut answer. My body's excitement level will be higher for sushi or pizza. And then I can ask it: Do you want to go to this pizza restaurant? Or do you want to go to this pizza restaurant? If my body chose pizza, for example. You keep asking ‘yes or no’ questions.
I do the same when I get dressed in the morning. As look in my closet, I look at the options in front of me, and I take them two by two. This shirt or that shirt? and then, very clearly, my body is going to decide, “The pink one, that's it. Not the black one, the pink one. Going with the pink one.” It’s so easy for me to make decisions in that way. You'll really want to have only two options.
Now, at work, it could be, for example, you are shopping for a new software, and you have two vendors that you could potentially work with. They've both presented their software to you, you know the prices of each, you know all of the features. And then you can ask yourself, “Okay, this one or that one? Software A or Software B?” You will feel more compelled towards one more than the other. Okay? Just feel your body and listen to your body.
It's going to be very difficult to go back to your boss and say, “Well, my body just told me it was B. So, we're going with that one, of course.” We're in a very much a numbers, fact-based, society, especially in business, right? Your boss can ask you for the ROI. Point being here, you'll want to investigate both options, knowing that your body's telling you something about, maybe option two. That there might be something you want to investigate there. There might be some bells and whistles in that software. Or maybe you could negotiate a lower price.
Your body's giving you some cues here that you're going to want to listen to and your fact-finding mission to make your decision. So, that is if you have Sacral Authority. Listen to your clear cut ‘yes or no’.
Same thing, for me, when I'm about to make a purchase. I ask myself, “Is this a fuck yeah?” Anything, for me, that is not a fuck yeah, is a no. That's it. If it's a soggy yes, like, if I'm trying to convince myself into making a decision, it's a no.
If you're like, “Well, this software has all these bells and whistles and I think I should probably go with that one. But I kind of preferred option A because it was a lot simpler. And it would be a lot easier to train my employees on it. But option B has more bells and whistles for the price. So, I guess I should probably go with option B.” That's where you're going to find yourself trying to convince yourself; go with option A and make a case for it, a business case for it. That is sacral.
Second authority is Splenic Authority. Now, this is your spleen. It's basically intuitive hits. Our spleen, in our body is located on kind of the right-hand side. And basically, it's a little bit different than the Sacral Authority. It's these hits that you're going to get, in which case, it's kind of like a little voice that speaks to you. And we're not talking about if you have mental health issues, and there's actual voices speaking to you. It's not that.
It's your body just speaks to you and goes, intuitively, “This is the answer.” Okay? If you have Splenic Authority, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you have no idea. So, in this case, you can ask multiple choice questions. You don't have to ask ‘A or B, yes or no’ questions like we saw for Sacral Authority. You can say, “Which restaurant do I want to go to tonight?” And then you can look at different options. You can even look at a Google Map, for example.
You start looking at all of the options of the restaurants in your area, and then you're going to get this hit of, “It's this one. That's the one I'm going to.” Versus Sacral Authority, if you're opening up a Google map of all the options, they get confused and overwhelmed, they shut down the map, and they decide that they don't want to eat anymore, or they have popcorn. True story, it's happened multiple times to me.
Alright, with splenic, you can look at many options, and you're just going to know. Splenic Authority knows, doesn't know why, but it just knows. For example, you are looking at your wardrobe in the morning, you're not sure what to wear, then you kind of look at the options. You take them all in, and just one by one you look at them. Eventually, you're going to say, “Ah, the yellow one.” Okay?
Sacral Authority, like we just saw, would just get overwhelmed with that. Which is why I'm telling you, if you have Sacral, it's one by one and/or two by two. And if you've got Splenic Authority, you can look at all of them at the same time. So, it's a little bit different.
And again, if you are disconnected from your body, and you're so used to listening to your head, you may not even notice the signals that your body is sending you. So, what you're going to want to do this week is conduct an experiment and go with easy stuff that doesn't have many consequences. Alright? Don't start with big business decisions that you know are going to cost you, potentially, a lot of money if you don't make the “right” one. Although, there's never a right one; there's a better one.
Maybe go with the easy things like, what do you want to eat for dinner? Or where you want to go to the restaurant? Or what do you want to wear? And then just tune into your body and see how it responds.
So, same thing let's say, with the software example. In this case, you're just going to intuitively know which one to use. As you're listening even to their presentations, you're probably going to queue in on something that one of the presenters is going to say about their software, and you're going to go, “Ah, this one,” or “Not that one.” What you want to maybe do as you're listening, is you might want to highlight, circle, whatever, as you listen to their presentation, what you want to be asking more questions about.
If you have Splenic Authority, often you're probably going to be really good at asking questions that bring the discussion further, and that help you sort of confirm your hits, or inform your hits, because we don't want to go into confirmation bias. Just listen to what your body is telling you. And then, you get to decide what you do with it, basically.
Okay, so let's look at number three now. Number three is Emotional Authority. Now, this is basically, are you feeling an expansion or are you feeling a contraction in your body as you are making the decision? Emotions are sensations in our body that send a signal.
If you have Emotional Authority, and you're feeling neutral about something, just don't decide, okay? You need to either feel a positive emotion, like some sort of expansion, some sort of excitement around it, which means go for it. Or if you're feeling a contraction, if you're feeling sad, if you're feeling low, when you're thinking about that option, then it's a no for you.
The emotions can come, sometimes subtly or sometimes it's a buildup or sometimes it's like a spontaneous high or low. But what you want to do is listen to your emotion. In this case, you're just going to want to really be queued in if you're feeling anger when you're about to make a decision between the two options. If you're feeling anger, then, again, you want to step away and listen to, what are the cues that my body is sending me in regards to this decision?
If you're feeling sadness, if you're feeling joy or expansion? This is kind of the easiest way, once again, to decide if you have Emotional Authority: Do I feel expansive when I think about this? Or is my body contracting? If I'm feeling expensive, chances are that's a yes for you. If you're feeling contracted, chances are that's a no for you.
And then the last one is what's called the G Center Authority. Not sure what that stands for. Jenna Zoe calls it in the app, the “Sounding Board Intuition”. And basically, this one is a little bit, maybe, easier to understand. Clarity comes when you share your thoughts with others. What happens is, in our mind, our thoughts are tangled, and they're hard to follow. But when we speak them out loud, they start to unwind.
Someone with this decision-making authority, when they speak out the options to someone they're comfortable with and they trust, or if they journal it because you can speak it out to yourself, then your thoughts become a lot more clear. And then, what you want to do is you want to notice which option you're becoming more animated about.
If your inner self knows that it's right for you, you will start to feel animated about it as you talk about it. These are the people that you'll notice, they're about to make a decision, let's say option A or B about the software, and then they're talking to their colleague about it, or even their partner at night. And they're talking very enthusiastically about option B. But option A, they're kind of flat about, well, you know that it's option B that they're really going for here. So, again, your tone will reveal the truth to you.
These are four ways that you can use your body to make your decisions. Listening to your own authority, which is different from one person to another. We saw the Sacral, we saw the Splenic, we saw the G Center, and we saw the Emotional Authority. Just this week, experiment with feeling into your body and kind of noticing the signals that it sends. You start with the small decisions. And notice, if you're in alignment, what happens is your body will reveal the truth to you.
But often what happens is we know deep down what the right decision is for us, but we try to override it. Because that's just the way we've been conditioned. We've been conditioned for our minds to take over and make the decisions for you. So, just notice, once your body has made the decision, once you've started gathering facts, before you make kind of final decision, is your mind in agreement with your body or not?
When you override your body, what is the outcome of that decision? So, for this week, just start experimenting with it and let me know how it goes.
If you are loving the podcast, I would love for you to share it with women you know, who are new leaders as well. So please, please, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts so more women like you can benefit from the podcast. Have a great week, everyone and see you next week.
Hey ladies, I have a new offer for you that I am super excited about. It's called The Leadership Accelerator. I created this offer for new leaders and not-so-new leaders who tried navigating the transition from expert to leader on their own, but who just can't seem to figure it out. So, if you've been overthinking your every move and your every email, and if you're still hustling every day to prove yourself in the job that you already have, which is keeping you in a cycle of overworking and people pleasing, this is for you.
Now, The Leadership Accelerator includes a 90-minute kickstart session. At the end of this session, you get a report detailing your strengths and how you can best use them in your new role. You also set a clear goal, only one, and some action steps to take over the next 30 days to help you reach your goal.
And to help you achieve your goal drama-free you get two 30-minute follow up sessions; one halfway through the month, and one at the end. In these sessions, I help you stay on track and remove any blocks that stand in the way of you reaching your goal. The best part of this offer is that you get unlimited support for 30 days.
For example, let's say that you've been working on a presentation for your boss, and you've been really agonizing over that presentation that you have to make; overthinking every single word because you're afraid of how other people are going to react. Now, what you could do is you can send me the presentation and I'm going to give you feedback on it the same day.
So, no more wasting time procrastinating, looking at your screen or chasing the words in your head, you have access to me for a month. Whenever you're feeling stuck in the moment, whenever you need to write an email, whenever you need a sounding board for a decision at any time, it's like having a coach in your pocket.
Seriously, I wish I had that when I became a leader. It really would have saved me so much time and energy. Now, if you want to find out more and grab your spot. You can visit my website at AnnieFramand.com/leadership-accelerator, and if you book before March 31, you get 20% off. See you there.
Thanks for listening to The Confident Female Leader podcast. Ready to dismantle the patriarchy with me? Come say “Hi” at AnnieFramand.com to learn more about how you can take this work deeper and apply what you're learning.
Welcome to The Confident Female Leader podcast. A space for ambitious women stepping into leadership who are ready to take control of their circumstances and own their magic. If you're ready to start shedding your self-doubt, come into your new identity as a leader, and stop consistently undervaluing yourself so you can feel more confident in your role, this show’s for you. I'm Annie Framand, Psychologist, Certified Feminist Coach, and Master Trainer. And I'm on a mission to help women just like you stop overworking, overthinking, and overpleasing, so you can start creating success on your terms. Ready to create your dream life? Let's go.
Hola amigas, how are you? I am so good. I celebrated one year with my love this weekend. We actually went to an all-inclusive resort here in the area. It was kind of cool, not going to lie. Walking 20 minutes to the all-inclusive, spending all day there enjoying ourselves, laying by the pool, having a few drinks, reading, making some friends, and then walking back home in 20 minutes. So, it's really cool.
Alright. If you're new to the podcast, don't forget to follow the show on a Spotify or Apple Podcasts so that you don't miss an episode. I also have a brand-new offer that I'm launching today actually, called The Leadership Accelerator. This is designed for women who are ready to take action to develop their leadership skills and want some help to kickstart the process. More on this at the end of the episode.
In my opinion, with my experience, the three most important skills in leadership are directing workflow and getting shit done through others, creating and nurturing relationships. And the third one, that we're going to talk about today, is making decisions. Now, if you nail these three skills, you are golden. I've struggled with all of these at some point or another in my career, and so have my clients. And I'm guessing that you have, as well.
So, today we're going to be continuing the conversation on how to make decisions with confidence as a new leader. As a reminder, last week, we talked about why, as women, we sometimes think other people’s, especially men's, authority is more important than our own. How to stop listening to everyone around you and start listening to yourself more. And we also talked about how to start trusting yourself more and making confident decisions in your life right now.
This week, just to take it a bit further, I'm going to share my hack for making decisions quickly and easily. Now, this is coming from someone who used to struggle with the simplest decisions, like what to order at the restaurant and what to wear in the morning.
So, when I became a leader making decisions was pretty painful, not going to lie. I pretty much overthought every single one of them, from what to do for the office Christmas party, when we used to have them, to who to hire and how much to pay them, and how to allocate the training budget. All of these little things I struggled with.
Now, this podcast is called The Confident Female Leader, so what is confidence? True confidence is trusting ourselves. When we make decisions, if we are not confident, we're not trusting ourselves. We're looking outside of ourselves for permission, for validation, or for reassurance, right? We're looking for an authority outside of ourselves. We're waiting for other people's input.
And like we saw last week; women especially are conditioned that way. It's from the restaurant to what you're going to wear. Asking other people what you should wear, what you should eat, what they want you to eat, what they want you to wear. All the way up to major life decisions like which car to buy, whether or not to have kids, how many kids, where to live, etc. And, same thing at work.
Now, my hack to become a confident leader, I discovered it through a system that is called Human Design. It really helps to tap into your body and listen to its cues. So, if you're able to do this easily, without using this system, amazing. I am going to give you what's worked for me and what works for my clients. It's just an easy way to understand your body's cues, and to really, truly listen to the wisdom of your body.
My clients and myself tend to overthink, so we stay in our heads. I would say the number one cue that you're overthinking, the number one cue that you are not using the wisdom of your body, therefore not trusting yourself, therefore not confident in your decisions and in your leadership, is if you're noticing that you get stuck in your head.
So, if you take a moment, and you just sit down and close your eyes. You can just do that now, unless you're driving, of course, or walking. You can just take a moment and notice, where is the energy right now in your body? You can close your eyes and just notice, is it very much in your head? Because what I've noticed in myself and my clients, is when I get up in my head, I tend to disconnect from my body. And it really is like from the neck up that it happens.
That's also the way that we've been conditioned in our current society, and especially as women. So, just take a moment, without doing anything else, just kind of observing: Where is the energy landing right now in your body? Is it really busy up in your head? What kind of sensations are you feeling in your body?
And if you're like, “I don't even know what you're talking about,” then yeah, you're probably way up in your head. Because it's really difficult for most of us unless we've been trained to do it. Unless we're very aware of our body, like if we dance or if we work out, if we run, if we do yoga or meditation or any other practices that bring us in our body. Unless we do any of that, for the most part, we're not very aware of the signals that our body sends us.
This system called Human Design was invented by someone called Ra Uru Hu, which is the name he gave himself. He actually is from Montreal, like me. He was an advertising executive. He also published magazines and media. He got the inspiration for Human Design in 1989. So, that's something that he came up with. It is quite used today; you may or may not have heard about it.
The inspiration comes from a few things. So, from the I Ching, from astrology, from the chakra system. If you're into yoga, you've probably heard of that as well. And basically, the premise of this system is that we're all born with our unique, energetic blueprint. That most of us are conditioned out of that blueprint by our society, by family.
The purpose of this system is to realign us with our authentic self, and to trust our inner guidance. So, it's basically a system to help you trust yourself and therefore develop more confidence.
I use an app because it really helps me to kind of understand the system a little bit better, and how I work with it. It's called My Human Design app by Jenna Zoe. It's really good. It's super easy, super simple to understand. If you're interested in anything that I'm sharing today, you're more than welcome to check that app out. I believe it's like a few dollars. If you want something that's free, you can check it out on the web. Of course, there's free resources on human design. But I found this one to be the best one.
So, I'm just going to share because it's quite a complex system. But I'm just going to share what they call the “decision-making Authorities” in this system. I'm going to also share the four most common ones, that I have seen to be helpful for myself and for my clients.
The way that this system is based, in Human Design, we have one way that we best make decisions, okay? And that way is different from one person to another. I'm going to share those four different types, the ones that I see the most often; and there are more. If you start going down the Human Design rabbit hole, if you're interested in that, you'll see there's a few more.
But I'm going to share these four with some examples, so you can kind of resonate and see which one you resonate the most with. And if you want to actually discover your type, then you're more than welcome to check out the app.
Alright, let's go with the first one. The first one is what is called Sacral Authority. Once again, this is your decision-making Authority. So, this is a signal that you get from your body. Once again, the premise of this system is that we best make decisions with our bodies and not with our mind. Here, I'm going to guide you to use your body. And what you'll want to do, is maybe meditate or clear your mind. You can use the five-minute meditation that I have in the free resources.
You just want to tap into your body before you make a decision, to see where it lands for you. If you have Sacral Authority, that is my case, what happens when you make a decision is that your body will give you a clear-cut answer based on your excitement level. This is kind of a ‘yes or no’ answer. I call it my fuck yeah or my hell, yes.
For example, if you are wondering where to go out for dinner, what you'll want to be asking your body, if you have Sacral Authority like me, you'll want to be asking your body a ‘yes or no’ question. If you give it too many options, it has no idea what to do. This was my problem for many years, because I would be like, “Hmm, what do I feel like eating today for dinner?” And then I would kind of never find an answer. I would ask everyone else, and I would debate, and I would never be sure.
What I do now, because I know that I have Sacral Authority, is I just ask, “Okay, do I want to go for sushi? Do I want to go for a pizza?” And notice your body giving you the response. If you feel excited about either one of those two options, that is your decision, end of story. Okay?
We're conditioned by our mind to look at the pros and the cons. I'm not saying that that is wrong. And, I'm not saying it never has value. But I'm saying that our bodies also have wisdom that we often don't listen to. Really, this is my hack. Honestly, it makes decision-making so much easier when you listen to your body.
So, this is your ‘yes or no’. Two options: Do I want pizza? Or do I want sushi? And if I listen to my body, I'm going to get a clear-cut answer. My body's excitement level will be higher for sushi or pizza. And then I can ask it: Do you want to go to this pizza restaurant? Or do you want to go to this pizza restaurant? If my body chose pizza, for example. You keep asking ‘yes or no’ questions.
I do the same when I get dressed in the morning. As look in my closet, I look at the options in front of me, and I take them two by two. This shirt or that shirt? and then, very clearly, my body is going to decide, “The pink one, that's it. Not the black one, the pink one. Going with the pink one.” It’s so easy for me to make decisions in that way. You'll really want to have only two options.
Now, at work, it could be, for example, you are shopping for a new software, and you have two vendors that you could potentially work with. They've both presented their software to you, you know the prices of each, you know all of the features. And then you can ask yourself, “Okay, this one or that one? Software A or Software B?” You will feel more compelled towards one more than the other. Okay? Just feel your body and listen to your body.
It's going to be very difficult to go back to your boss and say, “Well, my body just told me it was B. So, we're going with that one, of course.” We're in a very much a numbers, fact-based, society, especially in business, right? Your boss can ask you for the ROI. Point being here, you'll want to investigate both options, knowing that your body's telling you something about, maybe option two. That there might be something you want to investigate there. There might be some bells and whistles in that software. Or maybe you could negotiate a lower price.
Your body's giving you some cues here that you're going to want to listen to and your fact-finding mission to make your decision. So, that is if you have Sacral Authority. Listen to your clear cut ‘yes or no’.
Same thing, for me, when I'm about to make a purchase. I ask myself, “Is this a fuck yeah?” Anything, for me, that is not a fuck yeah, is a no. That's it. If it's a soggy yes, like, if I'm trying to convince myself into making a decision, it's a no.
If you're like, “Well, this software has all these bells and whistles and I think I should probably go with that one. But I kind of preferred option A because it was a lot simpler. And it would be a lot easier to train my employees on it. But option B has more bells and whistles for the price. So, I guess I should probably go with option B.” That's where you're going to find yourself trying to convince yourself; go with option A and make a case for it, a business case for it. That is sacral.
Second authority is Splenic Authority. Now, this is your spleen. It's basically intuitive hits. Our spleen, in our body is located on kind of the right-hand side. And basically, it's a little bit different than the Sacral Authority. It's these hits that you're going to get, in which case, it's kind of like a little voice that speaks to you. And we're not talking about if you have mental health issues, and there's actual voices speaking to you. It's not that.
It's your body just speaks to you and goes, intuitively, “This is the answer.” Okay? If you have Splenic Authority, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you have no idea. So, in this case, you can ask multiple choice questions. You don't have to ask ‘A or B, yes or no’ questions like we saw for Sacral Authority. You can say, “Which restaurant do I want to go to tonight?” And then you can look at different options. You can even look at a Google Map, for example.
You start looking at all of the options of the restaurants in your area, and then you're going to get this hit of, “It's this one. That's the one I'm going to.” Versus Sacral Authority, if you're opening up a Google map of all the options, they get confused and overwhelmed, they shut down the map, and they decide that they don't want to eat anymore, or they have popcorn. True story, it's happened multiple times to me.
Alright, with splenic, you can look at many options, and you're just going to know. Splenic Authority knows, doesn't know why, but it just knows. For example, you are looking at your wardrobe in the morning, you're not sure what to wear, then you kind of look at the options. You take them all in, and just one by one you look at them. Eventually, you're going to say, “Ah, the yellow one.” Okay?
Sacral Authority, like we just saw, would just get overwhelmed with that. Which is why I'm telling you, if you have Sacral, it's one by one and/or two by two. And if you've got Splenic Authority, you can look at all of them at the same time. So, it's a little bit different.
And again, if you are disconnected from your body, and you're so used to listening to your head, you may not even notice the signals that your body is sending you. So, what you're going to want to do this week is conduct an experiment and go with easy stuff that doesn't have many consequences. Alright? Don't start with big business decisions that you know are going to cost you, potentially, a lot of money if you don't make the “right” one. Although, there's never a right one; there's a better one.
Maybe go with the easy things like, what do you want to eat for dinner? Or where you want to go to the restaurant? Or what do you want to wear? And then just tune into your body and see how it responds.
So, same thing let's say, with the software example. In this case, you're just going to intuitively know which one to use. As you're listening even to their presentations, you're probably going to queue in on something that one of the presenters is going to say about their software, and you're going to go, “Ah, this one,” or “Not that one.” What you want to maybe do as you're listening, is you might want to highlight, circle, whatever, as you listen to their presentation, what you want to be asking more questions about.
If you have Splenic Authority, often you're probably going to be really good at asking questions that bring the discussion further, and that help you sort of confirm your hits, or inform your hits, because we don't want to go into confirmation bias. Just listen to what your body is telling you. And then, you get to decide what you do with it, basically.
Okay, so let's look at number three now. Number three is Emotional Authority. Now, this is basically, are you feeling an expansion or are you feeling a contraction in your body as you are making the decision? Emotions are sensations in our body that send a signal.
If you have Emotional Authority, and you're feeling neutral about something, just don't decide, okay? You need to either feel a positive emotion, like some sort of expansion, some sort of excitement around it, which means go for it. Or if you're feeling a contraction, if you're feeling sad, if you're feeling low, when you're thinking about that option, then it's a no for you.
The emotions can come, sometimes subtly or sometimes it's a buildup or sometimes it's like a spontaneous high or low. But what you want to do is listen to your emotion. In this case, you're just going to want to really be queued in if you're feeling anger when you're about to make a decision between the two options. If you're feeling anger, then, again, you want to step away and listen to, what are the cues that my body is sending me in regards to this decision?
If you're feeling sadness, if you're feeling joy or expansion? This is kind of the easiest way, once again, to decide if you have Emotional Authority: Do I feel expansive when I think about this? Or is my body contracting? If I'm feeling expensive, chances are that's a yes for you. If you're feeling contracted, chances are that's a no for you.
And then the last one is what's called the G Center Authority. Not sure what that stands for. Jenna Zoe calls it in the app, the “Sounding Board Intuition”. And basically, this one is a little bit, maybe, easier to understand. Clarity comes when you share your thoughts with others. What happens is, in our mind, our thoughts are tangled, and they're hard to follow. But when we speak them out loud, they start to unwind.
Someone with this decision-making authority, when they speak out the options to someone they're comfortable with and they trust, or if they journal it because you can speak it out to yourself, then your thoughts become a lot more clear. And then, what you want to do is you want to notice which option you're becoming more animated about.
If your inner self knows that it's right for you, you will start to feel animated about it as you talk about it. These are the people that you'll notice, they're about to make a decision, let's say option A or B about the software, and then they're talking to their colleague about it, or even their partner at night. And they're talking very enthusiastically about option B. But option A, they're kind of flat about, well, you know that it's option B that they're really going for here. So, again, your tone will reveal the truth to you.
These are four ways that you can use your body to make your decisions. Listening to your own authority, which is different from one person to another. We saw the Sacral, we saw the Splenic, we saw the G Center, and we saw the Emotional Authority. Just this week, experiment with feeling into your body and kind of noticing the signals that it sends. You start with the small decisions. And notice, if you're in alignment, what happens is your body will reveal the truth to you.
But often what happens is we know deep down what the right decision is for us, but we try to override it. Because that's just the way we've been conditioned. We've been conditioned for our minds to take over and make the decisions for you. So, just notice, once your body has made the decision, once you've started gathering facts, before you make kind of final decision, is your mind in agreement with your body or not?
When you override your body, what is the outcome of that decision? So, for this week, just start experimenting with it and let me know how it goes.
If you are loving the podcast, I would love for you to share it with women you know, who are new leaders as well. So please, please, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts so more women like you can benefit from the podcast. Have a great week, everyone and see you next week.
Hey ladies, I have a new offer for you that I am super excited about. It's called The Leadership Accelerator. I created this offer for new leaders and not-so-new leaders who tried navigating the transition from expert to leader on their own, but who just can't seem to figure it out. So, if you've been overthinking your every move and your every email, and if you're still hustling every day to prove yourself in the job that you already have, which is keeping you in a cycle of overworking and people pleasing, this is for you.
Now, The Leadership Accelerator includes a 90-minute kickstart session. At the end of this session, you get a report detailing your strengths and how you can best use them in your new role. You also set a clear goal, only one, and some action steps to take over the next 30 days to help you reach your goal.
And to help you achieve your goal drama-free you get two 30-minute follow up sessions; one halfway through the month, and one at the end. In these sessions, I help you stay on track and remove any blocks that stand in the way of you reaching your goal. The best part of this offer is that you get unlimited support for 30 days.
For example, let's say that you've been working on a presentation for your boss, and you've been really agonizing over that presentation that you have to make; overthinking every single word because you're afraid of how other people are going to react. Now, what you could do is you can send me the presentation and I'm going to give you feedback on it the same day.
So, no more wasting time procrastinating, looking at your screen or chasing the words in your head, you have access to me for a month. Whenever you're feeling stuck in the moment, whenever you need to write an email, whenever you need a sounding board for a decision at any time, it's like having a coach in your pocket.
Seriously, I wish I had that when I became a leader. It really would have saved me so much time and energy. Now, if you want to find out more and grab your spot. You can visit my website at AnnieFramand.com/leadership-accelerator, and if you book before March 31, you get 20% off. See you there.
Thanks for listening to The Confident Female Leader podcast. Ready to dismantle the patriarchy with me? Come say “Hi” at AnnieFramand.com to learn more about how you can take this work deeper and apply what you're learning.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts.
