How many times have you talked yourself out of doing something? If you’re anything like me, its been frequent. I can be an expert at talking myself out of doing things. Even if its something I want to do, I can still talk myself out of it. I kept thinking, there has to be a way, something that I can do, to help get myself out of this cycle. I wasn’t being productive or getting anything done. I’m also an enneagram 8, so I struggle with feeling like I’m never doing enough. And if it never feels like enough, then it can be easy to just not do anything at all. Man, its rough, and can feel like no matter what, you just can’t win. So lets talk about how to stop talking yourself out of doing things.

Plan, plan, plan. Did I say plan? This is essential. Without a good plan, we are left to make in the moment decisions, which likely will not end up in your favor. We’ll decide to put off that walk until the next day, we wont try that new recipe, we wont go to bed early, we just wont. If there isnt some type of plan in place, its easy to think, well I wanted to exercise and move my body today, but now I don’t have enough time because I was looking at TikTok for too long (been there my friend). We’ll run out of time in the day because we didn’t give ourselves enough structure. 

Our goals and things that we want to accomplish, will end up only getting half, or none, of our attention, because we didn’t plan enough time to pay attention to it. The more decisions you leave yourself having to make each day, the less and less likely it will be that you’ll actually have made time to accomplish anything. Like, I really wanted to nourish my body today, and eating fast food is not the best way to do that right now, but I wasn’t prepared ahead of time and couldn’t decide what else I would eat, so I grabbed something quick and easy. Now I’m left feeling unfulfilled and guilty because I didn’t follow through on what I really wanted to do. 

Have you heard of decision fatigue? Its a real thing. Every day we make tons of decisions, big ones down to little ones, but each decision we make shapes our day and the time we have in it. As the day goes on, and the more decisions you’ve made, the less and less likely you’ll be to make good decisions. So if dinner wasn’t already planned for the night, it can be easy to say, fuck it, I’ll just grab something. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with eating out if that’s what you want to do. But that’s not the point here. The point is, you will end up making a decision, and not like the outcome, when you have reached decision fatigue. 

If you have planned ahead of time, you can lessen the amount of decisions you are making in one day, and avoid making a hasty decision in the moment that you will feel guilty or have friction over later. This is especially useful when you are trying to cultivate a new habit or new routine. Those don’t just appear out of thin air. It takes consistent work to make something stick, and sometimes you will have to do things that in the moment, you wont really want to do. 

Instead of expending the brain power to get outside of your comfort zone and create a new habit or routine, its much easier to stay in the familiar. If you haven’t planned ahead of time for how you will create said new habit or routine, when it comes time to either do something that is unfamiliar, or do something that is familiar, which do you think you will choose? Its too easy to talk ourselves out of doing things, because doing something is harder than doing nothing. And in the interest of dear sweet brain trying to protect you, its going to say, no its cool, just stay in our comfort zone. Its warm and fuzzy here. We don’t have to try new or hard things here. Lets just do the same thing we’ve always done. 

Practicing making decisions beforehand, staying consistent, and avoiding decision fatigue, will be the number one way you will get better at not talking yourself out of things.

Think about your day, and tell me, did you reach decision fatigue today?