EP 16 | Making Decisions and Trusting Yourself

This week is all about making decisions - not based off of fear or running out of time, but of trusting yourself and loving the reasons behind they why of your decision. 

I share some things I'm facing in my business, life, and in athletics. 

Cheers to processing emotions, and living your life the way you want to live it!

Website: https://merittrollinsbrown.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/merittrollinsbrown/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@merittrollinsbrown?_t=8hC2ICTEGIY&_r=1

Transcript

0:00

Hey cuties, what is up? I actually didn't think I was going to put out a podcast this week just because. Of things. But I wanted to. Talk about. Making decisions today because. We always have a choice. To do something or to not do something. Do we do this thing? Do I want to order. A burger and fries, or do I want to order a salad? I don't want to move to another continent or do I want to stay put where you am? I want to get out of my comfort zone and try to change to reach a goal, or do I want to stay in my comfort zone? And not change. I have been reeling with different. Things. That. When, when I am trying to decide on something. I get. Really into my thoughts. And then that kind of just my thoughts. And my emotions from those thoughts kind of take over. And, what helps me with making decisions is not only understanding the why. And liking the Y. Behind making a decision, but also uncovering the fear that is going to stop me from making a decision. And I don't necessarily believe. There is a right or wrong. Decision. Um, Now, of course, I'm not talking about like a, somebody. Did something bad or harmful to somebody else? Like. That's not a good decision, obviously. Um, this is more for just like your everyday decision making process. Um, Although I will just side note on that. People do an a. Hurting or harming themselves in various ways in varying degrees. So another question on top of that is why are you hurting yourself? And. I'll use me as an example of that. Um, so when I'm caught up in my thoughts, Then that usually leads to self-doubt. Which then. Stops basically all progress that I. Have made and stops all momentum that I made towards a goal. And this shows up. In various aspects of. My life. Um, and then I have a pity party. And then I kind of revert back to like old habits. So I. I don't eat as much. I. Either. Stop working out or I work out too much. Then I shut myself off from everything and everyone. This has. Pretty much been me for the past week. I haven't completely shut myself off from everything. I went out and practiced. Hurling for a few minutes. I went to jujitsu twice, even though I went back and forth, like, do I want to go, do I not want to go? Why don't I want to go when I feel better. If I went. But I feel better if I didn't go. But I know me and I always feel so much better. Taking that action and doing that thing. Because it helps get me out of my head. Thankfully, there have been people who have helped me through. This thing I'm going through this week, that I am able to show up today to your record, this podcast. Because I didn't record one last week. Because of other things that were amazing, but the me yesterday and the day before and the day before, and the day before that. I was thinking like, ah, I have to record. A podcast this week, especially since I didn't record one last week, but I'm so confused on what I should talk about. I don't know. What I'm doing. Um, I don't know what my audience wants to hear. And. The reality is so. Like I have a ton of topics picked out. That I can choose from and provide value for my audience. But what kind of tripped me up was because I pivot a lot. Like if you know me, I pivot a lot. If you've been following me for awhile, you know, I'm doing it a lot in my business. Um, And it's. There are a couple of factors with that. Part of it is. Me trying to, or me finding my voice in my coaching voice and learning how to be the best. Coach and teacher. For the people. Aye. Want to help or am hoping. And. I had to go through a period of stepping back and not consuming anything. Um, Because I felt like I was. Trying to be. How other coaches are. And. It wasn't feeling. Authentic to me or aligning with. All right, who I am and my personality. And. Ever since, Really ever since. August and September, um, I kind of went down in the. In the whole again, after. A Kamogi tournament. And it took a while for me to. Get out of that. But it taught me a lot about myself and who I am and who I want to be. And with that came. This. Confidence of me just accepting who I am. And showing my personality more. And. Leaning into. Loving myself. Through all the things. Which is what I've been trying to work on for the last like six years. And I, I can. I feel myself being more. Authentically me. And. Similar feelings came up this past week and in the back of my mind, Because I've kind of let my emotion steer what I did or did not do this week. In the back of my mind. I know what. What I could do to get out of this rut. Because I've been in these routes. So many times before. But I actively chose not to do any of those things, because again, I will say this over and over again, the more you do something, the more you do something. So the more. I sit on my phone and not do anything. The more I'm going to sit on my phone and not do anything. The more, I. I don't know, watch a show, the more I'm going to want to watch that show and watch that show and not use my time. Wisely. And that perpetuates the cycle of judging myself and hurting my body and having. Even their relationship with my husband and kids be weird and be off. Because I'm not. I'm present, but mentally I'm not present. Part of that is because I'm scared of what could be if I did. The thing or like if the same. Becomes. A success. And the thing, um, that's been getting me down lately is just my business. So I decided to pause my life. Essentially and allowed myself to get emotional this week. And thinking about it. I don't believe this is a bad decision. And I know a lot of people are like, you have to be consistent. You have to consistently show up. And consistently do this. But a lot of times consistency isn't being a hundred percent. Ready to go fully present. This is going to be the best. Ever. Consistency is doing things. Even when you're showing up 20%, even when you're showing up at 50%, even when you're showing up at 80%. I mean, it's like being an athlete. You're. You're going to have the best practice every time you aren't gonna play. Your best and every single game. No matter how much you visualize, no matter how much you practice now, maybe with the top. Percents of athletes. I'm not in that category. So I wouldn't know. But maybe just with all the muscle memories and practices, then yes, you can. Play incredible in every game. But for the majority of us, Life as in flows and. A lot of times I get stuck in. Decision paralysis. Somebody mentioned to me, um, I forget. I forget the saying. It's like, Analysis paralysis. Like you think about things too much, and then your mind gets all cluttered. With. All of. These different things. And then you're like, I don't know which direction to go in. I don't know what to do or. What I could think. So you just sit there and you spin. And then it causes like negative thought loops and. He spiral and that's. That's definitely me. But sometimes I need to just. Sit with these. Emotions. In order to clear all that shit out of my head. But the difference between this week and what I've previously done when I felt this way is I reached out to people. And I actually had a coaching call scheduled for this week that I scheduled, I think like two weeks ago. And I almost canceled it because I was, well, I got a panic attack and I was crying before our meeting and I was like, I can't. I can go on to this meeting like this when I'm feeling this way. But I sent her a message. Um, a couple of minutes before we were supposed to meet. And I was like, listen, I am like all over the place today. I'm so emotional. And just wanting to give you a heads up. And then she replied with me and that sounds tough. Are you still. Willing to meet. And of course, part of me was thinking, no, I don't want to meet with you because I'm over here crying and joining this pity party. And I don't want to see anyone right now or talk to anyone right now. And the other part of me. Just like with going to jujitsu or going to the gym when I don't feel like it. I know how I'm going to feel afterwards. And I knew that speaking to someone else, getting another perspective around something and knowing someone. It's just there to listen. To me is beneficial.'cause I know a lot of things, but I don't know everything. That's what I love about being a coach is showing up as myself. And holding a space for the client to just be themselves. And I. Loved that meeting because when I got on that call, The other coach. Held that space beautifully for me. And that. Coaching session was so impactful. And she just let me be me and I cried. But I also gain clarity on what I can do Mo moving forward. And it wasn't. She didn't come at me like, oh, you need to do this and this. Or you can do this and this. She asked really deliberate questions to help. Stop. The thought cycles that I was having. And. So with answering those questions, it helped my brain pause to take a breath, to really look at. What. Core belief is that I am still holding on to that. Not allowing me to move past this yet. A lot of times, for me, especially it's fear. And. He was talking to somebody else. Um, about this. That. I have a fear of just being seen. Because. When I was younger. Aye. Kind of switch modes like an elementary school. I was friends with everybody. I was talkative and outgoing. We had a great group of friends and then middle school started and that shifted and then high school started and then that shifted and then college and. I didn't know how to emotionally grow. Um, I did that. The hard way. Um, and I mean, there's always improvements to be made obviously, but. It's not like emotional maturity is not something that. There's an end goal to. Kind of like with confidence. There's not an angle with confidence either. Or self-belief because if you are changing, then you are evolving and therefore your beliefs are going to evolve with you. And. You're going to shift some things around for. Your life to align with who you want to be and where you want to go. So. I had to really think about what. Is a core belief of. I mean not wanting to. Push forward with. This business. And. Well, it comes with success is being seen in I'm so bad at. Accepting compliments when somebody compliments me. It's a habit to just think of. 18 negative things that. I can say as a response other than just, oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. And that shows up in athletics. And I've talked about this before that. People are like, oh, That was such a good game. We played till I was like, no, I didn't. I miss. That and I should have done this and it's just that mind game. Part of that is perfectionism. I think I relied on athletics. Because, you know, um, grew up thinking I'm not the smartest person. I'm not. The prettiest person. I'm not the most outgoing person. And so I was, I am good. People say I'm good at athletics. So I'm just gonna roll with that. But then it put, I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect in that way, because that was like something. I wanted to control, Jesse again, because. I lacked the emotional. Maturity and growth and. I needed to disperse that energy in. That trauma and my feelings out somehow. Um, and a lot of times it. I put that on myself and punish myself for feeling the way I felt. Because I just didn't know what else to do. And making this decision this week about my business. Um, Was. Not fun. But it was necessary to go through that and. You know, if you have to make a decision on whether or not you. Like your job enough to want to stay with it, or you've lost that passion and you went to find another job in another passion. Like, what is stopping you from. Quitting. That job. I know. For me when. I'm like, oh, I'm going to quit this. That means I failed at that. I was actually talking to. Not not really talking. I. Expressed. Or I shared. No, I think I, I was talking to them, not with them. To them. And there is a difference. And so if you are listening to this. And you know who you are. Uh, I apologize for talking to you. But they were saying how they. Felt like a failure. And then that brought up. In my mind. Tan France's book. And tan France's own queer eye. And then he did like, I'm thinking on this project runway or something like that. And a fashion design show. I love tan. Although queer eye. And, um, but he was saying when he was younger, he had so many jobs. He was like, this job does not align with who I am or what I want to do. And so I'm going to quit. And then I'm going to go do this job. And then I quit that job because. It wasn't my vibe. And then. He went on to get another job and then another job. And then another job. But if you. Look at. His quit list and where he is now, like he needed to go through all of those quits. In order to. Be as successful as he is. Because. That taught him. What he. Wanted. In life, what he didn't want in life. Tauna to set boundaries. Taught them how. To deal with customers and with people in, with teams and managers and bosses and all that stuff. Every. Successful thing. Has failures in it. You can't be successful without failures. I mean, look at Michael Jordan, didn't he not make his high school basketball team? And then it was one of the greatest basketball players of all time. And it's that decision too. To not do the thing that you want to do. Because you're scared of. The uncertainty of. Whatever it is that you're scared of. For me, a lot of that is just being seen a light to. B, I mean, um, Kind of an introvert, um, becoming more of. And, um, oh my gosh. Not introvert. Um, I know. So ultra revert. Oh my gosh. What is that word? Extrovert. Oh my gosh. And it's easier for me to. Talk to new people and to meet people and. Things like that because that's what. I've also worked on and so that my social anxiety, it still comes up, but it's not as often or as bad as it was in the past. What came up for me this week is just. The fear. Of being seen. The fear of being perceived in a certain way. Then I was talking to the other coach, like. I know I'm confident I can help people because I've already helped. A lot of people. But there's something there. That still. Holding me back. And I think it's just a past identity of me not liking. A certain version of myself. And I need to remind myself that. I am capable. I am worthy. And I am enough. And, you know, it's funny though. I tried to write, so I was going to post. A picture. My friend gave me. It's called the, your bad-ass calendar and. It has little snippets of, of things in there, so I. Posted that. When I wasn't feeling like my best. And, 10 minutes later, I was like, no, I'm going to take that down. Nobody's going to want to read that I'm going to take that down. I'm making that about me and not for somebody else, but I shared, I shared a couple of. Pages on the calendar. And then I was going to put up a picture. To remind myself that. I am a bad ass, but I couldn't even write that because I didn't believe it. And I didn't want to put it out there because of. Felt very inauthentic to me. Because at that time, I did not feel like a bad ass. And a lot of people actually liked the post of the calendar. Pages that I did. Which I thought was cool, I think it's funny. I, I woke up this morning to a message from. Uh, teammate. Asking. If I would be interested in playing with a mixed team. Of Kimo, you. Players. To play. At a senior level. In New York and in San Diego. You know, at first. I was like, no. This makes me very uncomfortable. And. I don't know what I'm going to decide. And so all morning, even through my workout, I was thinking about this. Then I looked on my. Whiteboard and I, and I sent this, well, I reached out to somebody and I was like, This happened. What, what is your opinion about it? And then. I looked on. On my whiteboard and all, and they simply asked, is it possible? I would get along with. Some of the people that would be on the team. Because. I got wrapped up in. In the past, playing against them. Not. My kind of people, to be honest. So it's like, could I. Put myself in a situation where I then am on the team. With them. And that came up with, what am I scared of? If I decide. No, I don't want to. But what is the core belief of if I decide yes. Why am I deciding that? And it came down to there's a thing on my whiteboard. Call the past. I think I talked about this in another podcast, but. You have two perspectives into outcomes. In two different paths. You could take two. Hope you make a decision. And so that's, I sent, I sent him this and, and, and that's what. And so I went through that. In. My head and, but the, the path is you have the event and then you go one way, it's kind of like a flow chart. You go one way and it's your reaction? Which is your primal thinking? So what you automatically think about in this event? So it's your current thought? And what you do. When you think this on and what the outcome of that would be, and you can work backwards to, so the outcome. I mean not to go. What do I do? And what I think about that? You know, like what I regret. Not taking this opportunity, Would I be, would I be mad at myself for selling myself short? Because. I'm scared of. Getting into a group of people that I don't know, they don't know me. We've only seen each other in the field and it hasn't been. Good times on the field. And then the other side is, so you have the event, then you have your response. So your executive thinking your emotional maturity. So you have your future thought. And then you have your feature actions, what you do. And then you have your outcome. And at the bottom. I put, which one do you want? And then I said, I can go into this two ways. This is how I decided this. I can go in it as with the current presumption that. These. People are. Indeed. Not my vibe. Or. Go into it with more of an open mind while still setting a personal boundary. And just go with the flow, see what this opportunity brings me. If anything. And I said the worst that can happen. The worst thing that I'm scared of happening. Is that people don't like me. And I'm okay with that. That's the entire premise of. The. Peach logo for. My workshop. Because Diane Von Furstenberg. I'm pretty Oh, shit. I need to double check that. Said. You know, there could be. The prettiest, juiciest peach on the table. Yet somebody is still not going to like that peach so not everybody's going to like you. Just like you, aren't going to like everybody. And so the question is, am I okay with that? Am I strong enough to. Stand my ground. And trust myself in a situation where if they don't like me, how can I still show up? How can I respond? Because I don't want to. React and have that. Emotional immaturity. Mindset going into it. And that's how I made that decision. Like the fear. Uh, playing and not playing. It. That made the decision, the decision for us to move it. I. I think is kind of freaking me out because we talk about it more and more. So when you plan on moving to Spain, And the more I think about holy shit, we're going to move in like five months. The more, it freaks me out because it's like, I D. You know, we are uncertain of how life is going to be. I can imagine our life there. But it's also uncomfortable here. Like Knoxville's a one place, both my husband and I. Have thrived in and. We love the people and we love the things that we do, and our kids have a lot of friends and it's like, why are we. Going to uproot all of this to start something new. And a new country with a new language, new culture. And like, we have our reasons and we stand by our reasons and I love our reasons. And I mean, there is a fear behind making that decision. For me, that is. Like am I. Going to fuck up our lives by doing this. So I can look at it that way, or I can say this is a great opportunity for us to. Pick up and move to this beautiful place. Meet new people, eat new foods. Immerse ourselves in different cultures. So our kids can experience that and see that. So they aren't stuck in like their own little bubble and their own little world doing the same thing over and over and over again, seeing the same people over and over and over again. So I want to go down that responsiveness responsive path. With the future thought. Of the event. So the event would be moving. And that future outcome. Trumps. The. Fear of. I don't know if this is the right decision. What's going to happen. All of those. Confusing. Negative things. That are going on when you're trying to make a decision. As big as that. When you're deciding something, what. Are you basing your decision off of. When you are in your comfort zone, it's usually based off of a fear. And it's like, if you can uncover that fear and uncover that belief. That core belief. And look at it in a different way. And look at it in a different perspective. What is guiding you to make that decision? It could be people pleasing. It could be just being stuck in this victim basement reality. It could be. You. Or just so comfortable with. Being where you are. And if you decide to stay where you are, And you decide to let that fear take over. Then you have to love your reasons why. And if you don't like your reasons, why. Then. You need a start figuring out. What to do instead. Because I decided to let my fear. Stop me from being creative from producing work from. Helping others. Or I can look at it as. I decided to take the time. To feel all of these feelings in order to get all the shit out of my head and out of my body. Because then I'm going to show up even better than before. And so you can decide. Even with emotions. Do I want to feel this emotion right now or, or am I going to let it roll off my back? Where am I going to push it under the rug? Because it makes me uncomfortable to feel. This way. You have to, you have to like your reasons why tan loved his reasons, why he quit something I liked my reasons why. I didn't do any work this week. But it's because I trust myself in an. I know myself. And I know where I want to go. And I'm going to actively decide that. This fear. Especially this fear of being seen. Is. Something that I need to work on and push through. And. That's what. Going to show up and do. Because I don't want to be the same person. I am six months from now. And the more times you do something, the more times you, what. You do something. So the more times I'm practice. Pushing through this fear, like doing something. Even when. I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack or I get nervous. Um, The more times that I'm going to practice getting out of that fear and deciding not to have that fear stop. My progress in my momentum. And again, they're saying they responsiveness path because. You're responding with, this is how I'm going to show up. And set of reacting to it. So I just want you to be aware. I gave you. If you have a goal that you want to, I don't know. I feel passionate about. What you do. Yeah, you're stuck in a job that you don't feel passionate about. What are you going to do to get out of that? You're going to keep doing the same job. Or are you going to trust yourself enough? To figure out something else to do. Our friends are buying. A house and they're like, We have no idea where to. Look, which neighborhoods to look in, like we like this area, but we also like this area. To me choosing this area is. Is not right or wrong. And choosing the other area is not right or wrong. Do you love your reasons why you chose this area? And do you love your reasons why you chose the other area? Do the pros, Trump, the con con isn't con the pro and con list cons almost at comps. but it has to, and it has to come from you. It can't be. Again, People pleasing, like I'm doing. I'm buying this house because. So-and-so. Said that I should, because I'd be closer to them or whatever. Making decisions is based on. Trusting yourself. And a good way to. Learn how to trust yourself is. Asking yourself, what you're afraid of. When making a decision. So you aren't stuck in, I don't know, and confused, and then you never make a decision and then you it's like a deadline comes up and you're like, oh shit, I got to. Decide, and then you decide something. Because you ran out of time and. Then I think that's when you go back one, oh, this wasn't the right decision. I should've done this. I could've done that. Whatever. So the next time you have a decision to make. Ask yourself what you want. What outcome do you want? And it may not always that outcome may not always work out. Either. But. Are you still going to like your decision for. Trying to reach that outcome. And that's only something that you can figure out and you can experience so this was a much longer. Podcast episode. Dan I anticipated. I honestly thought I was going to. Talk about this for like 10 minutes and be done. Um, so I'm going to wrap this up. I will be here next week. To chat with y'all some more. And as always, you can find me on Tik TOK and Instagram. At Merritt Rollins brown. Okay. I'll talk to him. All right. Okay. My.