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Mistakes & Values

Transcript

Me again. It's Friday already. You up too much this weekend? I've got a right busy one. I've got a works Christmas party tonight, and I'm catching up with some great mates tomorrow to celebrate my birthday, which is Sunday. And then I'm out again that night with my wife, just the two of us. Now it sounds tiring, but it's just what happens when your birthday's in December, I guess.

You've got to take these opportunities, haven't you? Otherwise you might regret missing out. And I do try to live a life with no regrets, or at least as few as possible. But one of the things that I think is important to bear in mind is the unavoidable truth that you will, at some point, make a mistake.

And that's okay. Making a decision, and then finding out afterwards that it wasn't a good choice after all, is actually just a part of everybody's life. But for perfectionists, that's a pretty tricky fact of life to accept. But accept it we all must. Otherwise we get paralysed by indecision. We end up doing nothing.

Gaining experience in life, that ultimately leads to wisdom, has to involve uncertainty. There's a reason why people with anxiety, though, will often re watch the same TV shows and films over and over again. Because it's predictable. It's safe. There are no surprises when you already know how something ends. But a safe life isn't always a happy and fulfilling life.

Uncertainty can be exciting, but to some people, it's terrifying. Maybe that's where we need to start. Recognising that anxiety and excitement both come from the same place. Now that's not easy. Takes a bit of mental challenging. But when we get good at that it allows us to not just be excited about our future, but joyful when we experience it.

Because life comes with surprises that way. Now a lot of people say they don't like surprises because they feel that They've got to get their head around things in advance, they need to be prepared for everything. And it's unrealistic to try and live that way, believe me. Far better to learn how to trust yourself if things don't go according to plan.

That's why I so often say, deal with it then. We don't need to plan for every possible eventuality, just know that if things go wrong, you can deal with it then. It doesn't need to be dealt with in advance just in case things go wrong. That's what could lead to being unable to make any decision at all. The possibility that the decisions we make are, with hindsight, the wrong one, is a small price to pay for experiencing the joy that can come from living in that sweet spot.

Between worrying too little and worrying too much. I think a lot of stress about making decisions comes from making them out of avoidance of fear, rather than embracing our needs. And we can't avoid fear. All emotions, especially the primitive, ancient, prehistoric ones, are part of being human. So rather than making decisions based on which situation is likely to give us the least anxiety, I think we should make decisions on the one that supports our values, because they are usually unshakable.

What we think we want in the moment, our needs, our desires, might not always be trustworthy. Our needs might be too emotional and that's going to affect what we think of as our gut instinct. It'll give us a feeling that something isn't right. Now, of course, there are occasions where our instincts are telling us that something isn't right because it isn't. But sometimes it's because our emotional regulation system is broken and can't be trusted. And that's why I think checking in with your values is a good idea. If you can't trust your gut instinct, you're going to have to do more work cognitively. You're going to have to actually think.

And when it comes to making decisions, you might think that all the thinking and then what turns into overthinking is the biggest part of the problem. And yeah, you'd probably be right, to be honest. So rather than thinking about the decisions and what ifs, think about your values, your morals, your ethics.

That is who you are. And unless you're a psychopath or a massive misogynistic racist, your values can be trusted. So even if you make what turns out to be the wrong decision, you know that you made the decision for the right reason that you were supporting your values rather than avoiding your fears. So I'll leave that with you. As always I'll be back on Monday on Patreon. So you know where I am, if you need anything, I'll speak to you there. See ya.

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