How to Think Better: making decisions

This is about making decisions. In particular, decision-making when you’re unhappy about some circumstance or situation in your life.

Here’s what I’ve been noticing. Often we make a decision when a situation gets really bad. When the pain is great enough, we decide to leave, to quit, to stop, to give up, to go in a different direction.

We don’t usually leave a job we are passionate about. We don’t leave a marriage we love and appreciate. We usually don’t quit an endeavor we feel excited and enthusiastic about.

Now let me be clear: This is not about whether you should quit the job or leave the relationship.

I’m not advocating any particular decision. Stay or go. Quit or keep on.

What I am advocating is making any and all decisions only when you’re feeling emotions at the high end of the emotional scale. So that means emotions like passion and enthusiasm, love and appreciation, positive expectation and belief, hopefulness and contentment.

Why am I recommending you make decisions from high-end emotions?

Here’s why: When you make decisions from negative emotions, you will recreate the essence of the same situation. Every single time.

When I say negative emotion, I mean the entire range of negative emotions, from pessimism all the way down to powerlessness.

  • I’m talking about the decision you make when you feel frustrated, irritated, or overwhelmed.
  • Or when you make a decision from a place of disappointment, worry, discouragement, or blame.
  • I’m talking about the decisions you make when you are angry or jealous.
  • And decisions made from a place of fear, guilt, or insecurity.

Whatever the negative emotion, making a decision from that negative-feeling place is just not a good idea.

Do you make decisions from the high end of the emotional scale?

Because often we make big decisions from a very different feeling place. We make big decisions about quitting jobs and leaving relationships from emotions in the middle and at the low end of the emotional scale.

  • We feel frustrated and angry, so we leave.
  • We feel disappointed and discouraged, so we quit.
  • We feel insecure and fearful, so we don’t try.
  • We feel overwhelmed and worried, so we give up.

Let me give you an example of how this often plays out.

Let’s say Sara doesn’t like her job. Maybe it’s the company or her boss, maybe it’s the commute or the work itself. Whatever it is, Sara is feeling fed up. She’s says, I’m sick and tired of my job. She wants to change jobs or careers or companies.

From this fed up, frustrated, upset, friction-filled place, Sara makes the decision to quit. And she does.

Time passes and Sara finds a new job at a new company with a new boss. But before long, she’s feeling very much like she did at her previous job.

She’s frustrated and on her way to fed up. Once again, Sara is not happy where she is.

Here’s why: Sara has essentially recreated the essence of the same situation. The facts and details of her new job may be different, but the essence, the feeling, the vibration is the same.

Because that’s what happens when you make decisions and take action from negative emotion. You create more of the same.

Again, the packaging may look different, but the emotions—the gunky feelings—are inevitably the same. Which means the situation you create from those negative emotions will be largely the same. Like attracts like.

You cannot create an amazing, wonderful, satisfying situation from a place of negative emotion.

I just described unintentionally recreating the same in reference to a job situation, but this can also occur when someone leaves a relationship they are unhappy being in or moves from a city they are unhappy living in. Even though it’s a supposedly new scenario, you end up recreating the same unhappiness.

There’s the expression, Wherever you go, there you are.

You may intuitively know that expression is true, but have you really thought about what it means?

You might think it simply means you are the common denominator. You were in the old situation and now you’re in the new situation. But there’s more going on.

Wherever you go, there you are is true because like thoughts attract each other. Like feelings attract each other.

When you are feeling upset and taken advantage of, when you blame your boss for not appreciating you, when you complain about your company… a new job, new boss, and new company are not going to magically make everything better. Because the only job, boss, and company you can attract from that negative-feeling, blaming, complaining place is more of the same.

Because wherever you go, there you are. Wherever you go, there are the circumstances you’ve created with your thoughts and feelings.

We want to think if we can just find a different circumstance, we will feel differently.

But it’s only by feeling differently that we can attract and create a different circumstance.

The bottom line is this: Whatever the scenario, when you’re thinking of making a big change or leaving something or quitting, I encourage you to make that decision from the energy of high-end emotions.

Now, you might think, But I can’t feel good about this situation I’m in that is causing me to feel bad. But I’ll feel better when I change jobs, find a new relationship, live somewhere else.

Hold on a minute! That thinking, while so normal for many of us, is not serving you. It’s not allowing you to leverage Law of Attraction to your advantage.

You don’t go searching for better circumstances to feel good.

No, you feel good to attract better circumstances.

Abraham says it so well: “If you leave a place because you don’t like it, the next place won’t be any better.”

  • Should you change jobs?
  • Should you end your relationship?
  • Should you give up on that business idea?
  • Should you downsize and move?

I don’t know. I don’t know the answer that’s right for you.

But I do know this: The decision you make from the good-feeling place of high-end emotions, will serve you. It will be the best kind of decision—the kind that attracts more of what you want into your life.

“The reason you want every single thing that you want, is because you think you will feel really good when you get there. But, if you don’t feel really good on your way to there, you can’t get there. You have to be satisfied with what-is while you’re reaching for more.” —Abraham

Satisfied with what-is while reaching for more.

That’s what is possible when you decide from a high-vibe place instead of a low-vibe place.

Now, there are certainly times in your life when something has served its purpose and it is time to move on. You may be experiencing contrast that ultimately will take you to a new place.

But to avoid recreating the same situation in your life, I want you to pay attention to your vibration as you make your decision.

Think about it: There’s a big difference between I’m going to leave this situation because I can’t stand it anymore versus This new place is calling to me.

Do you feel the difference? It’s the distinction between feeling inspired and called to something new or different versus feeling a situation sucks and you can’t stand it anymore.

Abraham encourages you to never leave from a vibrational stance that won’t yield anything better.

In other words, don’t make a decision from the low vibration of negative emotion because, by Law of Attraction, nothing you want can come of that.

Simply put, making a decision from a low vibration yields another situation of a low vibration. Making a decision from negative emotion only attracts more of the same.

“What you are living is the evidence of what you are thinking and feeling, every single time.” —Abraham

If you think a new job will feel empowering, then feel that way in your current job before you leave. If you think you’ll feel loved and appreciated in a new relationship, find a way to feel that way in your current relationship before you leave.

You have to align what what you want before you make the decision and take action.

Otherwise, you just keep recreating the same low-vibe circumstances over and over in your life.

I want you to make decisions in your life—the big ones and the small ones—from a good-feeling place.

I can imagine what you might be thinking right now: Sure, Jennifer, it’s easy to make small decisions from a good-feeling place. And it’s easy to make decisions I’m excited about from a good-feeling place. But what about the situation that’s got me all upset, the circumstance that’s causing me to feel lousy, the person who’s made me angry? How am I supposed to make a feel-good decision when I feel bad?

Ah, yes, that’s the essential question, isn’t it? How do you get in a good-feeling place about a situation that’s “causing” you to feel bad?

Well, let’s go back to Law of Attraction 101. It’s not the situation causing you to feel bad. It’s really not. It is your thoughts about the situation.

Which means, of course, your thoughts are where you have an opportunity.

Your thoughts are what can move you from feeling bad to feeling good. Or at least from feeling bad to feeling relief.

If you have a decision to make about a situation where you’ve been feeling a lot of negative emotion, I invite you to use these 10 questions to move the needle.

Some of these questions will resonate more than others—that’s fine. You don’t have to use all the questions, but try each one and notice whether it creates an opening for you to see your situation differently, to feel some relief, and to have more ease about your decision.

  • How do I want to feel about my situation? How can I feel that way now?
  • What would I need to think in order to feel better about this?
  • What can I appreciate about my current situation?
  • If I were to look at this circumstance with love, what would be possible?
  • What thought would offer relief about what’s going on?
  • If I were to make a decision from love, what would I decide?
  • What thought would create positive expectation about what’s happening?
  • What is the most optimistic way to see what’s going on?
  • What thought would help me feel empowered about this situation?
  • What thoughts would help me get in a better-feeling place?

Here’s what’s amazing. I’ve witnessed clients do this work and then make decisions that absolutely astounded them. In other words, the decision they made from a good-feeling place was a very different decision than the one they were contemplating from negative emotion.

Here are a couple examples of making decisions from high-end emotions.

A woman who was convinced that divorce was the only decision she could make transformed her relationship with her husband. She went from contemplating divorce to renewing her vows.

Another client who used to wake up every day thinking, I hate my job; I dread going to the office, now can’t believe how satisfying she finds her work.

She made the decision to fall in love with the job she hated—as crazy as that sounds—knowing this would allow her to leave and attract a job that was a better fit. Instead, what happened? She ended up creating that better-fitting job right where she was.

The point I’m making is not to stay in a relationship or stay in a job.

Again, only YOU have the answer that is right for you.

But I am encouraging you to be intentional about how you make decisions. And commit to only making decisions from a good-feeling place.

“Create the feeling first, then the having will come!” —Abraham

Want to go further?

Schedule a coaching session and work with me one-on-one.