[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 265 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
Welcome to the Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind you need to be the best mom you were created by God to be. If you want to bring more balance, more joy, and more peace to your motherhood, this is the place for you. I'm your host, Certified Life Coach at Catholic Mom, Danielle Thienel.
In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let's get started. Hello, my fellow mamas out there. I'm so grateful you're here. Thanks for joining me today because I know you have lots of options on what to listen to, what to watch, and how to spend your time. And I'm glad you've chosen this podcast and the message that I have to share with you today.
I hope you feel like it's perfect timing and exactly what you [00:01:00] needed or maybe one day you'll remember it when you find yourself in a situation making a tough or challenging decision or just an everyday decision that we have to make and you might have this as a guide for you. Making decisions, it can feel really overwhelming.
We definitely give a meaning to them that they're like huge or big or they, they matter or it's life changing or it'll be life pivotal decision. And these decisions come up and we're still having to juggle the needs of our family and work and everything else that's on our plate. So today. I want to share a powerful framework that will help you make decisions more peacefully.
I mean, whether it's about your child's education, maybe it's a career change, even what it is like to make dinner or what you're going to do that day. [00:02:00] We want to be able to make decisions very quickly, and we want to be able to be strong and confident about it. And the reason why is because when we don't, this is when we find that we keep ourselves stuck.
Right? I have done several, several podcasts on decision making, and it is just such an imperative skill to have. If you are a mom who wants to stay in control of your life, to be in charge of it, to have things run smoothly, to be able to navigate when something tries to throw you off balance. If you are someone who has a skill of being able to make really strong, quick decisions it'll come in handy.
It really will. . This is how we can know how we can move forward making decisions and again, I feel like it will bring you a lot of peace if you follow this framework. So there are four key [00:03:00] elements to peaceful decision making and I want to show you how you, what, first of all, tell you what they are and then to tell you how you can apply them to your busy mom life.
So the first element. To make peace with decision making is desire. This is what getting crystal clear on what you truly want, not what you think you should want or what others want or what others expect from you. But this is to really when you are making a decision to stop and say, what is my deep desire about these choices that I have?
Right? Which one do I desire? So imagine this common scenario. Okay? It's time to plan for summer activities for your children. The options seem endless, right? There's those sports camps. There's some academic enrichment type activities. Might even be like [00:04:00] vacation Bible school or a family trip. Friends, they're sharing their packed summer schedules.
Maybe you're seeing it on social media, what everybody's doing. And you, you feel the pressure to create like a perfect summer. Maybe you think that there should be certain things that you do. Or how it goes, or maybe you're imagining that you have the, the kids, maybe you have them more of the time and you're already kind of thinking maybe doom and gloom thoughts that it'll be overwhelming and you won't have any break time.
But when you pause and you identify what your true desire is about this summer, like what your main focus and priority is, you will realize that maybe you would choose that you wanted an actual slower pace then the busy school year and maybe and you didn't want it all planned. Maybe you wanted some more unstructured [00:05:00] time together, right?
This is just I'm giving you an example on if you got clear on what your personal genuine desire is other people may desire it to be packed full of adventure Right. They may desire for it to look similar to the school. Maybe you work outside the home and they still have the same kind of structure where they are doing some type of activity or school like, you know, things, and you have somebody else helping you run that schedule.
But the whole point is to say rather than following somebody else's, this is what you should do during the summer, your planning will have more immediate peace if you really get on your own personal desires, right? So here's how this particular concept, this element plays out in other kind of real life mom [00:06:00] moments.
You would use finding and honing in and getting clear on your desire when you're deciding on the particular extracurricular activities for your children. You want to get crystal clear on your desires when you're choosing between career opportunities, when you're making decisions about your family schedule, when you're setting boundaries with extended family.
This is so important. To find out what your true desires, not what the traditions have been for your family, or what you think they will expect or want from you, but your true deep desire that will help you focus and make decisions on how to move forward in that scenario. And really just determining your own household priorities.
I really push my clients to keep their eyes on what matters to themselves at whatever stage of motherhood they're in and with their, what they know about their own [00:07:00] family, their own family goals and things like that. This is where you would want to keep crystal clear on your own desires. So. And the key here is to pause and ask yourself, what do I really, really want in this situation?
Not what looks good on paper, what your neighbor's doing, but what aligns with your family's values and needs at the time. This will for sure help you make decisions about how to move forward more peacefully.
Okay, the second element that I want to bring up in this formula to be able to make decision making more peaceful for you is faith. And I don't present it just in the religious faith, though that's certainly a part of it, but it's about trusting that you have the capacity to make good decisions and to handle whatever the outcomes are. Okay, so when we are making decisions, you want to have faith. I will, of course, I want you to go [00:08:00] to the religious part and go to God and what he tells us about trusting him, but I want you to see this element, the second element is trust yourself.
The answer is inside on what to try first or what to choose first, what to pick first in the decision, right? None of us know if it's going to be a right decision or a wrong decision or the best decision until After we take action and a lot of times we, we go and we, we question a whole bunch of people and we go find out, you know, we Google and we say, Oh, what do you, what do you think is best?
And I want you to have faith in yourself, that you have the capacity to make the right decision for yourself or to make a good one. And. Even if it ends [00:09:00] up not being the one you thought was going to work out the way it was, just also having faith in yourself that you will be able to handle that outcome and then make another decision and pivot.
So here's a situation that I want you to think about that you might relate to or to plug in your own sort of family Situations that might correlate to this one, and so let's say your, your eldest child, your oldest child is struggling in school, and you are weighing whether you should switch schools or not, get tutoring, or try a whole different approach together, all together this decision It feels like it is like so huge, so big, so overwhelming, right, because of all that your brain tells you that it impacts, right, with their future.
So this is where that element, that second element of faith, where I want it to [00:10:00] come in. This is where it becomes crucial. So you, yes, you want to have faith in God's guidance. You want to go to him in prayer. You want to ask him to guide your decision and steps or to light up, you know, the path or to speak to you in what he thinks is the next steps, but you want to have faith also in your ability that once you've asked that your prayers will be answered and then you now You need to make a decision and take action and you have an ability to make a a sound choice for your child.
And so when you approach this decision from faith rather than fear, you can evaluate your options more clearly instead of being paralyzed by the what ifs. Okay, if you have a whole bunch of what ifs, yeah, well, what if this happens? And what if that happens? And what if this happens? You're, you're [00:11:00] definitely not making decisions peacefully.
And this is how faith also shows up, right? It faith, it shows up when you trust your instincts about your child's needs. No one knows better than you, mom, trust your instincts about your child's needs, having faith in your parenting choices. Despite others questioning them, okay, this is definitely when faith shows up and maybe I'm talking about an in law that's questioning your parenting choices.
Can you make a more peaceful decision for yourself if you call on this element of faith in that situation? Just believe in your ability. to figure out how to balance it all, right? You have the ability, it takes evaluating, it takes questioning, but I just want you to, again, the faith element is you [00:12:00] believing in your ability.
That's what I want to just really emphasize there. And trust that saying no to good things, it does make room for better things. Okay, we're not just saying no to things that are bad for us. Sometimes we end up making decisions that has us saying no to even a good thing. But again, if you can look at it, it'll bring you peace to say, even though I'm letting go of this good thing, I am making room for something better.
Okay, and then having faith that's imperfect decisions can still lead to positive outcomes. I want this for you. I really want, let me say that again. So I want you to use the element of faith knowing that all of your decisions won't be great. All of them won't yield results that you were hoping for. All of them will require, maybe not all of them will require you to have like, you know, hit it on the nail right at [00:13:00] the first time.
And maybe like it's, you know, you sort of stumble your way through it once you make it. It's just not like an easy path. I just want you to know that making an imperfect decision still can lead to positive outcomes. So remember. He didn't give us a spirit of fear, God didn't, but he gave us one of power and love and sound mind.
And when we approach decisions from this place of faith, everything really does shift, shifts for the better. Okay, so the first element. The second element is faith. Now, the third element is persistent effort. And this is where I see many, many, many of us get stuck or even stop altogether. And that's like we make a decision, but then we second guess ourselves over and over [00:14:00] and over instead of following through.
On any action that we think is a next step, right? We second guess ourselves. Instead of following through with consistent action. Okay, so picture this. You've decided to implement a new evening routine because you are determined to create more peace in your home. First of all, good for you mama, right? The first few nights, let's say they go pretty well.
But then resistance sets in, right? The kids start to protest or they just say, Hey, you know, they may, maybe themselves revert back to a different way. Maybe they're having a bad day that day, they're, they're now they're starting to protest and you're tired and you're tempted to skip the routine. And I love how I want to point out here that I know this is how brains work.
They'll say, we're just going to skip it just this once. And this [00:15:00] is where persistent effort makes all the difference because Each time you follow through, despite your brain telling you, Oh, don't worry about it. It'll be okay. You can skip it this one time. You did so well the last three days, right? Then you, if you, if you follow through despite not feeling 100 percent like wanting to, you will then build momentum and build a confidence and then there will be more.
ease, that part of your brain will lighten up and it won't be so, it won't be so persistent so that you can have move towards lasting change. Right? So, Another word for persistent effort is is perseverance. It is maybe more, maybe consistency. I don't know if that word [00:16:00] if it lights you up, whichever word for you, perseverance, persistent effort consistency, but there, there becomes an ease when we build a habit of doing something each time.
And if you become where you make decisions, despite it feeling all rosy and great ahead of time, if you feel, if you feel a little like, I don't know, off or this is hard, but you decide anyway. Right. This is where you'll realize that you'll become somebody with this persistent effort. You'll see that the relief is found in just making the decision.
And then you'll, you'll, again, you're trusting yourself. You're seeing that you like this way of life better where you are somebody who peacefully just makes a decision and then takes action on it. And through this persistent effort, it, You, you become someone who where decisions are not a challenge.
They're just this task that you [00:17:00] do easily, right? Okay. So include, I still want to underscore some examples. If that one about the evening routine didn't quite, isn't where you are in your motherhood or didn't quite hit, I want to just offer some other persistent efforts. It would be sticking with a new morning routine, even when it feels challenging.
It would be maintaining boundaries you've set, even when it's uncomfortable, right? Even when it means you have to say something uncomfortable to somebody else or, I mean, say something to somebody else that, where you feel uncomfortable. Having persistent effort includes following through on family commitments, despite any kind of resistance that comes up.
It might mean staying consistent with your disciplinary choices, right? And persistent effort could be continuing to prioritize, I love this one, to prioritize your self care, [00:18:00] even when life gets busy, even when it's a quote busy season for you. Again, it doesn't mean persistence and perseverance does not mean perfection.
It just means showing up for the decision you've made. And following through and just trusting the process. Okay, the fourth ability after desire, faith, persistent effort, and is ability. This is the, this is the last one. There's four of them, right? Is your ability. The fourth element is ability. This is about recognizing and trusting in your God given capabilities to make and carry out decisions.
I mean, you already. This is the ironic thing about it as I'm just, you know, contemplating as I'm talking into the microphone is we already make a ton of decisions every day [00:19:00] and the way you do them most likely follows what I'm offering you today. Right? You just don't even think about it or give a lot of conscious focus to it because it's just something that comes so naturally to you.
And I'm breaking this down today so you can see that if you, it is no different when you're making a big decision to be able to keep it as peaceful as you do or are already doing right now with some decisions. Okay, so you're. The element of ability is recognizing and trusting, right, in God's given capabilities.
And so think about this scenario, maybe an unexpected illness hits your household. And suddenly you're juggling work commitments, you're caring for sick children, you're keeping the household running, right? In these moments, you will discover how capable you really are. [00:20:00] Like sometimes there's things us moms do where we would think there was no way I could have gotten through that.
And at the end of the day, you're like, wow, I pulled that extra gas from the tank. Like it was just there. Look at me like you. So many of us. We don't give ourselves as credit for how smart we are, how creative we are, how adjustable we are, right? I mean, somehow we're making it all work, right? And this is your God given ability to take action.
And so here's some other ways that ability shines through for you. The way you manage those households. Like there's so much logistics to do and you handle it. Like a boss, like a CEO. You use your ability when you've got multiple schedules going on, [00:21:00] right? We've got our spouse's schedule, we have all our children's schedule, our schedule.
Maybe like right now, I'm helping my mom go to physical therapy, and we're juggling her schedule into the mix. Yeah, you're finding creative solutions to family challenges, you're dipping into this element of ability. And I want you to see that you have an ability to make quick decisions in, in crisis moments, in what I call a cyclone moments, right?
And be flexible and adaptable in this ability helps you when, when plans and circumstances change, this will help you with decision making. Okay. All right. So those are the four elements that will help you make. more peaceful decision making. It's, it's how you actually make peace with decision making. If right now you're someone that's always [00:22:00] struggling with this well, needed life skill, then you want to, you really want to take these four key elements and apply them to your life.
Your desire, faith, persistent effort, So let's talk about a couple practical steps that you can implement this the next time a decision comes through. The first one I'm going to offer you is what's called the 10 10 10 rule when you're facing a decision. This is where you ask yourself, if I make this decision, how will I feel about this in 10 minutes?
In 10 months and in 10 years, that might be a little practical way to put it into practice to make a decision really really strong, strongly, I guess I should say. [00:23:00] Set decision times. I love this. I love to tell my clients and my mamas when they want to have a decision I understand that they might want to you know, have a conversation with their spouse There might be want to do a little bit of research, but I say designate a specific time Right that you will then make your decision by and this will this will help you beyond yourself If you're tapping into your faith and your ability, right and if you're making any kind of efforts because if you Because as soon as you put that quote deadline or decision time, that is where your brain will want to, you know, do a little bit of its, you know, its resistance to you.
And I think it's helpful to set, I'll make my decision by times so that you can tap into these four elements that I've offered you today. Sometimes I like to have like a decision free [00:24:00] zone where it's like, look, I'm not making any major decisions. Past six o'clock, right? I'm better in the morning, or something like that.
You have to know yourself and know when, because decision making requires some focus and some mental energy, and we want to prevent mental fatigue, so knowing what these kind of decision free zones are may be helpful. And then the last one I'm going to offer you to be able to put this a little bit into effect is to use the if then method.
So this is where we want to create automatic responses to like common situations so that we can reduce that decision fatigue that I just mentioned. So it's like some examples. If it's raining, then we do indoor play activities. If homework isn't done by seven Right, then we're going to postpone screen time.
If we're feeling overwhelmed, this is when we're going to take a five minute prayer break. Right, [00:25:00] like you can, you can kind of set some, if these scenarios happen, then I am going to choose, and then you pick from X, Y, or Z. So those are a few little, the 10 10 10 rule, setting decision times creating a decision free zone, that if then method, but really.
If you can. Stop and pause and find what your true desire is. That's going to help you make decisions. If you go to the faith element, if you trust in God and trust in yourself, you're going to make decisions more peacefully. If you are someone who doesn't stay stuck, but you do persistent effort, you're going to become a peaceful decision maker.
And if you tap into the notion that you have an ability, it's already been demonstrated. Thousands and thousands of times before in your life and you want to tap into the [00:26:00] ability that you can do hard things and God has given you capabilities and you can and you can tap into that. All right. In closing of today's episode, I want you to remember that the goal isn't ever to make perfect decisions.
I just want you to make peaceful ones. And so when you combine this clear desire. And your faith in the process and you make persistent effort and you trust in your abilities, you then create a foundation for confident decision making. Okay? And if you're feeling any overwhelmed with any decisions in your life right now and that's something you want to bring to me and we can talk it through, then I invite you to schedule a free call with me and you will find the links to do that in the show notes and together we'll identify right now And help you process through this, this decision making process and you'll see that we will use what I called on today.
So until next week, [00:27:00] may you find peace in your decisions and become a more confident decision maker, more peaceful decision maker. And as always, I look forward to speaking with you again next week. May peace be with you. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Peaceful Mind Podcast. If you found value in today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you could subscribe and leave a review.
It not only supports the podcast, but ensures you don't miss out on future episodes packed with insights and tools. to create peace of mind in your busy mom life. And if you're of the Catholic faith like me, or any Christian mom seeking to feel better in any area of your life, and to show up more calm, connected, and confident, I can help.
Become an empowered mom who knows how to bring about the changes you desire, no matter the circumstances. Whether you need one on one guidance to get there, prefer a group coaching program with like minded women, We're a self study [00:28:00] course. I've got you covered. Explore my private one on one packages. Join my Busy to Balanced group life coaching program or delve into my signature course, Divine Time to find out which path is right for you.
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Dive into the digital and bonus audio version when you go to book.daniellethienel.com/new-book. You'll find all the details in the show notes too. Until next time peace be with you [00:29:00] always.
