#48: Why Your Body Knows How to Decide Before Your Mind Does [Decision Making Series]

Jan 27

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Today's episode is really exciting because I'm kicking off a new series that's all about decision making and how to make clear, confident decisions in your life. Not only that, but how to make these decisions in the ways that are most aligned to you.

Because actually, we all make decisions differently. Our mind-body connection operates differently. And by learning, understanding, and embracing your specific decision-making style, it's going to really change the game. It's crazy, but it's true. I have seen that firsthand for myself, for family members, for clients—it's a thing.

So I'm really happy to be taking you through this series. For today's episode, I want to share some background about decision making and some of the principles that will guide us through the next seven episodes, where I'll share a different decision-making style each week.

Why Decision Making Matters (Especially for Leaders)

If you're a leader—whether that's leading a team, running your own business, or just leading your own life—you're making decisions all day long. Big ones, small ones, and everything in between.

And a lot of the time, we make decisions the way we think we're "supposed to"—with our minds, with pros and cons lists, by thinking through every scenario. Or we feel pressured to decide quickly because that's what's expected in a fast-paced environment.

But here's what I've learned: the clearest, most aligned decisions come from your body, not your mind.

And most of us have never been taught how to do that.

Understanding Conditioning and Decision Making

Let's start with this concept of conditioning. Conditioning is something that has happened to us our whole lives, from when we're born.

The families we're born into, school, friends, teachers, other people we interact with along the way—they all condition us in different ways, and we may not be really aware of it at the time. Sometimes we can be, and other times not as much

Everyone's energies are interacting with each other. Everyone's values and beliefs impact how we communicate. That has an impact on the information you receive from the other person. It's all part of the process of life.

So it's not good or bad in a sense. It's not something you can avoid because it happens on the personal level all the way up through society and culture. We're conditioned on the macro level, all the way down into the micro.

I want you to be aware of this as we talk about decision making. Because what happens is, this type of conditioning—while we can't escape it—depending on how much we let it in, how much of it we take on within ourselves, it will change how we operate individually.

The Mind-Body Connection and Decision Making

All of my work is around the mind-body connection and supporting people to open and unlock their mind-body connection in different ways. This podcast is all about finding tools and different ways that work for you to lead your life.

I'm not here to do it for you, but I'm here to share and support you because I really believe that each and every one of us has a purpose here to support the collective. And the more that we can come into contact with that purpose by opening our mind-body connection, the better off we will all be.

So conditioning is something that happens to us. But when we embrace our mind-body connection and we get curious about that, we can peel back some of those layers to better understand ourselves. And that is where this piece of decision making comes in.

We each have our own decision-making style. But it can be hard to connect with it if we're not aware of the conditioning that happens and if we're not reflecting on how other people or situations are impacting us when we make those decisions.

Certainty in Decision Making quote from Mary

Your Body Knows Before Your Mind Does

Here's the other important principle: we typically make decisions from the mind, but decisions are actually meant to be made from the body.

This is a big thing, so I'll say it again: We as humans tend to make decisions from our mind, but our decisions are actually meant to be made from our bodies.

Our bodies know before our mind knows. Our mind is just communicating out what it thinks through and decides to express. But what's happening is our body is connecting with our inner knowing.

If you've ever in your life had a situation where you felt in your body something was off or something was wrong or it didn't seem correct in some way, even if you couldn't place why—that was your body signaling to you that it knows that something is off.

That's just one small example that I'm sure we can all relate to to some degree. And of course, it depends on how connected you are to your body at this point in time. No judgment if you're listening to your body already or if you don't usually, that's okay. We're going to talk through that through this series.

But the piece is, you have felt this. I'm sure you felt this to some degree in your life at some point. Whether it was a feeling about another person you interacted with, or a situation you got put in that felt uncomfortable.

It's those times where your body might be saying no, but you're saying yes because you feel bad or you feel an obligation of some type, or you're thinking about a larger impact and how it might play out with other people. Any of those things can all show up in that kind of case.

Really, at the end of the day, our bodies have always been a tool to keep us safe. They've always worked in this capacity of instinct and intuition to keep us safe throughout the evolution of the human journey.

So understanding that piece—understanding that you're meant to make decisions from your body instead of your mind—is really the first step in being able to embrace your decision-making style with more alignment.

However you make decisions now, that's okay. This is an invitation to allow you to explore in a different way. Maybe there's a different way you want to start making your decisions.

When Body-Based Decision Making Matters Most

This is especially true for big life decisions—things like:

A career change
Taking on a new role or moving to a different company
Starting a business
Any types of relationships you're entering into with a new person (business partnership or personal)
Moving—deciding to move across the country or to another country, something that will greatly impact your environment

All of these things are bigger decisions that truly change the game when you tune into your body.

If you're anything like me, you may have made a lot of pros and cons lists in the past. I will share about my decision-making style in one of the episodes as well. But now I may process with some of that to identify the different values and factors that I'm deciding against, but at the end of the day, I tune back into my body and the feeling from there to be able to make my decision.

So you can also use this in partnership with however you usually make decisions until you explore more to see what feels right and what feels true to you. I'm never going to tell you that you have to do it a certain way. Please keep that in mind.

But if you are curious and you're ready for something different—ready to look at this a little bit differently—maybe you're tired of making decisions or tired of being stuck in overthinking. Tired of worrying about making decisions or regretting a decision you might make before you even make it.

Let's just say decision fatigue is real. If you're feeling those things and you're tired because of it, that's okay. This is going to be a new way for you to look at it.

And actually, I believe you'll find a lot more peace with this process because you'll feel more clarity from it. You really will. It's a game changer.

The Seven Decision-Making Styles

So those are a couple of the principles I want you to keep in mind as we go through this series:

1. Understanding conditioning and how it impacts you

2. The mind-body connection and understanding that decisions aren't meant to be made from the mind—they're meant to be made from the body

In each of these weeks within the series, I will give examples of the different decision-making styles. I will give real-life examples so that you can get a flavor and idea of how it works. And keep in mind, it's all an exploration for you to see what feels right and what feels true to you.

How We Get to Seven Different Styles

So how do we get to these seven different decision-making styles? I'm so glad you asked!

These seven decision-making styles are all connected to a tool that I use called Human Design. If you haven't heard about it, I have some other episodes around Human Design. But what I want to do with this series is—yes, that is a tool I'm using, so it will be a way for you to find your decision-making style, and it's meant to be used as a tool to help you explore.

I'm not going to teach the nitty-gritty about Human Design. You can go down a whole rabbit hole about it, but at the end of the day, what it does is it provides a blueprint or a map about how your energy works.

There are a lot of different dynamics that go into it, but the place that I love to start is with how you make decisions, because this has a very practical component to it that you can use in everyday life all day long. That is implementing it with how you make decisions and using your mind-body connection for that, which is what I'm all about.

the seven decision making styles in human design

How to Get Your Chart and Find Your Decision Making Style

With that, I have a couple of instructions and a little homework for you for this week before we start getting into each of the weekly episodes.

How do you get your Human Design chart?

This is a chart that takes your birth time, date, and location, and it gives you back the energy blueprint—a map. On that chart it will have a section called "authority," which is the Human Design term for decision-making style. I like to use "decision-making style" because it's much more relatable.

I have software on my site where you can get a free chart. You just put your information in and it'll give you your specific chart back.

On there, it will say what your Authority is. You're looking for the description next to it. It might say emotional, it might say sacral or splenic. There are seven different styles, and once you see that, you'll be able to go to the episode for that decision-making authority.

I'm going to put the different authority types in parentheses at the end of each episode title so that you can easily reference it that way too.

Certainty in Decision Making key takeaways

How to Use This Series

Now you have a choice… you can go straight to your authority episode and look at that, or you could listen through all of them so you can start to hear how other people might be wired to make decisions.

This is especially interesting in teams and in family dynamics. For my own family, there are four of us in the house and we have four different decision-making styles, which can feel a little nutty at times, right?

Some decision-making styles, for example, are meant to make decisions in the moment. They're meant to listen to their body response in that moment and go with that energy in that decision.

For others, the clarity will come over time and they are meant to wait it out and go through their emotional waves before they decide on something.

So you can probably start to connect these dots. If you're meant to make decisions in the moment, but your spouse or even your business partner is actually meant to make decisions over time, those are two very different styles.

How do we make sure that we stay true to each of our decision-making styles while trying to come into agreement on something?

There's a lot to it. If you have access to the information, you could also pull charts for those in your life (loved ones or otherwise) that you're interested in learning about so that you can start to build those bridges.

But that's secondary to the part where I want you to look up your decision-making style and start with you. Because really, once we start to work in alignment with ourselves, then it's much easier to begin to work with others as well. That's a big part of it too.

So you can listen to the whole series. I encourage you to because, one, it's just fascinating information, and two, I do feel that it's beneficial along the way to really understand how other people are operating.

A Couple of Important Caveats with Decision Making

If you end up feeling like you don't resonate with your decision-making style that is shared on an episode, I'll say two things:

First: In certain cases you may be on the border between two different styles if your birth time is not correct. You need an exact birth time. If you feel that might be the case, please feel free to email me. We can talk through your information and I can check on my app to see if you are in fact right on the border of two different ones.

Second: Going back to the beginning where I talked about conditioning—it may not feel really correct for you right now because of the conditioning that you have, because of what you're used to and how you're used to operating.

Conditioning is something that has been happening to you all your life, so then the process of deconditioning also takes time.

Open mind and curiosity are always great ways to lead. Wherever you can find those threads of connection, wherever you feel called, please go with that.

Just keep in mind that you may or may not be surprised with which decision-making style you have. If it's really not fitting, please reach out. It's rare that that happens, but it can happen. I wouldn't want you to miss out on the goodness of this information because of that.

If it's interesting to you and you're curious, please feel free to reach out either on social or email me.

Reflection questions for Certainty in Decision Making

Your Decision Making Homework This Week

Now you know where to get your chart, so get your chart before we start the series next week.

In the meantime, I would also like to share an invitation to get curious about how you currently make decisions.

You don't need to do anything about it. Just start to observe it.

You can either think back to periods of time where you went through big decisions and how you handled those, or maybe something is present for you right now that you're navigating and thinking a lot about. Spend some time reflecting on that.

Just bring it into your awareness:

How do I usually make decisions?
Are there times where that has gone well and times when it hasn't gone well?

We'll dive deeper into each of them with each of the styles. I will share about the style and give you some reflection questions and prompts to work with it, because I want this to be very tangible for you, very practical for you—a way for you to support yourself and lead your life in the way that you want.

I really believe a big part of that is being able to make decisions for yourself that are in alignment.

A lot of the time, we take on a lot of things from other people and we are disconnected from that voice and that space. This is reclaiming that. It's getting back to—it may feel familiar, it may feel challenging. Any of the ways, it's okay. It's really about starting that process, or continuing that process if it's something that you've already been looking into.

Decision Making Conclusion

So let's leave it there for today in terms of the reflection, the homework, and giving you this base, this foundational level of understanding of where we're coming from for how you make decisions and how you can make them in a clearer, more grounded way.

Next week, we'll pick up with the first of the seven styles.

I'm really excited about this. I hope you are too. I'm so committed to supporting people with understanding more about how they're designed to make decisions and how that can support them with their lives.

Anything I can do to bring some guidance and some clarity around it is a win for me because it means it's a win for you. I'm really, really excited about that.

I'm so grateful for you to be here. If you have any questions, if you have any trouble getting your chart, if you have questions about how to find your authority, or if you don't know if you have the exact birth time—please, please, please don't hesitate to reach out.

This is here for you. I'm creating this for you as a resource, and I want to be that resource for you.

That's the invitation. So if you're open to it, if you'd like that, I am here.

Thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to share this with you and move through these seven decision-making styles with you. It's really such a game changer. I'm excited for it to be a game changer for you too.

All right, thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Have a great week, and I'll talk to you next week.

book a decision making accelerator session for Certainty in Decision Making

Thank you so much for being here, for listening, and for taking these steps on your own journey. Until next week!

Want to learn more about your unique Human Design blueprint?

Get your free chart here.
Want to stop overthinking and make start making decisions with clarity, confidence and alignment?

You’re invite to book a Decision Making with Human Design session here.

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