Making decisions is sometimes more difficult than other times. Because sometimes the decision is a little more important because it's about more than dinner. It's about the course of the rest of your life. It's about the work you do, it's about the relationship you have and how you can best help your children get the most out of life
What is making a decision?
But what does it mean to make a decision? When you make a decision, you are making a choice to do something.
For example, you are facing a choice moment in your life, such as whether or not to continue with your relationship or your job. You have all kinds of options, and they may be more than yes or no.
You can break up a relationship, move on or move on under certain conditions (such as couples therapy).
You can change jobs or continue to work or move on under certain conditions (such as a pay raise).
If you have then made that choice, it also means that you let all other options go and go fully for that choice.
Stages of making a decision
There are 4 stages you go through when you need to start making a decision[1], namely:
Stage 1: You are aware of a problem or are looking for a problem for which to choose.
Stage 2: You determine what options there are to choose from.
Stage 3: You determine the possible consequences of each option and whether or not they are desirable.
Stage 4: You make a choice and take the steps associated with that choice to see if the consequences have been correctly assessed.
Everyone goes through these stages at their own speed. Of course, this also depends on the type of decision you are making. Thinking about something for dinner, for example, is faster than making a decision about your studies.
The nice thing is that your brain can stay active with the process of making decisions while you are busy with totally different things[2]. So your subconscious mind stays busy with your decision even when you are busy cooking dinner.
Making difficult decisions
Making difficult decisions is so difficult in part because emotions are incredibly important to the decision-making process. The greater the impact of the decision, the more emotional and difficult it is to make[3].
Decisions are actually made based on 2 things:
- Avoiding Pain
- Getting positive feelings
When avoiding pain, for example, you make a decision to avoid regret or guilt.
In getting positive feelings, you make a decision to be happy. To be happier.
You don't even have to be aware of this.
If your decisions usually actually cause more pain and more unhappiness, this is often a sign that you may have a disorder mentally.
Once you have made the decision, taken the steps and experienced the consequences it also leads back to emotions. These can sometimes be different than you expected.
Emotions that influence your decisions
There are a number of emotions that influence your decisions positively or negatively.
Fear, for example, is an emotion that causes you to take less risk, while more risk makes for a more lucrative outcome.
Gratitude is an emotion that makes you give money faster, even if it has disadvantages for you.
Yet this does not mean that emotions are detrimental to your decisions. In fact, research shows that people who have brain damage that prevents them from feeling some emotions actually take too much risk. This could not be explained by reason, only by the lack of emotions. This makes it difficult for them to mistake real risks for real.
In addition, experiences from your past can also influence decisions you make now. Even if you make a decision that has nothing to do with that past experience.
Your mood and decision making
So emotions have an impact, but also your mood at the time you have to make a decision affects how you assess the consequences of your decision.
For example, are you in a good mood? If so, chances are you have a positive outlook on everything.
Are you in a bad mood? Then you see everything more negatively.
A fun observation is that even the weather affects your decisions. For example, results from financial markets have shown that on sunny days people trade more than on rainy days. People then estimated better the probability that a stock would do well. Even soccer results affected the stock market.
Hypnosis to remove negative unconscious influences on choices
As you can see, there are quite a few emotional factors that affect the decisions you make. In particular, you would rather not let a past event interfere with current decisions if it is not relevant.
Hypnosis can then help you see past events in a different way so they no longer block you from making a decision. Doing nothing is ultimately a decision too, just not as consciously.
The way hypnosis can do this is with regression. With regression, you go back to the moment that influenced important decisions in a negative way. For example, this moment has created unhealthy beliefs.
Then when you go back to that moment in hypnosis you do something with it. This is different for each person because no one lives the same life.
You then walk past the moments to the now that are also affected by that moment. This causes you to break the pattern that causes unwanted influence on your decisions.
Hypnosis against decision anxiety
If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, chances are you're also afraid of making decisions. The responsibility of making the choice falls on you, and you may fear that your decision will lead to failure. Something that anxiety of failure doesn't help either.
Research shows that hypnosis works to eliminate decision anxiety[4]. It is often performed in conjunction with cognitive behavioral therapy. The goal is to help you calm yourself, lower your anxiety, tap into your internal resources and have more hope for a better future.
Tricks to make decisions faster
Sometimes you just want to make decisions faster. There are a few tricks for moments like this.
Heads or Tails
This is actually my favorite way to make a decision if you're not quite sure what you want. You should then only have 2 options to choose from.
You couple those options with heads or tails. You flip the coin and put it on your hand. Then you have a result. Are you totally happy now? Then that's the right decision.
If you still think "Shit, I wanted the other one," you still choose the other one.
Then you will always make the right decision.
Maximum 30 seconds of thinking
Another way to train yourself to make faster decisions is to give yourself a 30-second deadline. This is ideal if you are in the supermarket not knowing what to bring or if you are in a restaurant and need to choose something from the menu. When you have seen everything give yourself 30 seconds and make your decision.
By doing this more often, you will notice that you become faster at making good decisions in other parts of your life, such as at work.
As you have seen, decision making is an emotional affair and a lot happens in the subconscious as well. Hypnosis can therefore very well help you improve decision making. This is because hypnosis can help you with your mood, remove limiting beliefs and make you see the future brighter, whatever the outcome of your decision.
Want to know exactly how hypnosis feels and works? Then come to a hypnosis playshop. There you will learn how to bring people under hypnosis directly and you will also experience what it is like to be under hypnosis.
Or enroll directly in one of our training courses. Then you will not only learn how to bring someone under hypnosis, but also important techniques you can use to help yourself and others once they are under hypnosis.
[1] https://www.coursehero.com/file/p1cjq10/Four-phases-of-decision-making-proposed-by-Herbert-Simon-1-Intelligence-find/
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03379735
[3] https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029157.2018.1458594
