Just Do What You’re Told

I’m an over analyzer. Some people may be surprised by this, because often in my life I seem to make snap decisions. Usually though, behind the scenes there have been hours, weeks, months of research, analysis and polling my peers before I can make those snap decisions.

Becoming a mother has made this worse. It seems now that just buying milk requires me to do at least one Google search and call two friends. Then usually after I get all this information, I STILL have to think and compare and wonder. Ridiculous. Not only is this crazy, it’s exhausting.

I have no idea why I do this to myself. Maybe, it’s being the youngest-I refuse to just take people’s advice because I need to prove I can do it alone. Maybe it’s fear-making a decision means living with a decision and now-it’s a lot of people who have to live with my decisions. Whew, I’m tired just writing this.

Lately, I’ve been hemming and hawing over a few decisions in my professional life. I called my mentor today and shared my concerns (I wasn’t expecting a solution, just venting). Immediately for both situations she said, you must do this you must not do that. I was stunned. She has never been the type to tell me what to do. She often works through things with me, but I can never remember-do this do that.

After my initial shock, I thought-OK. That’s it…OK. See my mentor is successful both professionally and personally. She loves her family, her life and her job in that order. She has almost 30 years of success to back up her advice. Since the moment I met her, I have wanted to”grow up” to be her. So…OK.

I found myself a while later starting to THINK again. Pondering her advice and doing my usual pro-con action list in my head. Then I stopped myself. I reminded myself of all those things I just said about my Mentor above. Then I compared her life to mine and… you guessed it-she wins. So, I stopped thinking and DECIDED to take her advice. I will do one thing and I won’t do the other-because she told me to.

You know what? Direction is freeing. I can check things off my list and head forward with action instead of just stewing in the juices of my thoughts.

I feel like a whole new woman. Let me think on that for a bit.