Decisions: How to Make the Good, Shake the Bad, and Take the Rest Hi, I'm your host, Connie Minnell. Today I talk about what goes into making good decisions I'll share the 4 roadblocks of indecision that people over 50 need to look out for, and I'll give the 5 steps you need to prevent them from happening to you. We'll look at how depression, stress and age can affect your decision making, and I'll tell you how a good memory can cause poor choices. I'll share a true story about how one man had to rescue his mother from a poor financial decision and I'll give you the five steps to making better choices in midlife. And finally, we'll talk about how the decisions we make every day create our life and build our legacy. The great thing about being over fifty is getting to know all the stories that we all share about all the different stages we are at in our journey. While some are still working, others may be at the peak of their careers or had to re-enter the work force after years at home or being retired. Some are caring for an elderly parent or grandchildren, and more. We have a great diversity in our lives, and all of the things needing our attention can really cause some stress. Our decisions affect our relationships, finances, and futures. But sometimes all those demands on us can cause us to become temporarily frozen from deciding what to do. Our system shuts down and we retreat to our "safe place," that's what indecisiveness equals-- being stuck. Decisions become harder to make for reasons like depression, stress, and age, or even having a good memory! Depression When you get depressed you are less likely to go with your gut instinct. In an article in research digest, Carina Remmers and her colleagues tested 29 patients diagnosed with major depression and found that the people with depression had an impaired ability to go with their gut instincts. Disclaimer: If you are seriously depressed, or if you think you ave had symptoms of depression for more than a few weeks, please see you doctor, because I'm not one, and this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Stress Stress can affect our bodies and our abilities to make good decisions. In the podcast, I share a story about how stress during my last year at work caused my lack of decision, which became my decision and it affected my health in a negative way. Age Another thing that affects decisions is our age. Studies have shown that as we age, we begin to rely more on our instincts and our past experiences when we make decisions. Age affects decision making also. As people move further past 65, many are taking greater financial risks. This can cause some of us to have to make decisions on behalf of our parents. My friend John had to take over his mothers bills and accounts because she was giving money to a charity and not paying her bills. The people from the charity were tugging on her heart strings, so she gave them a large amount of money that she couldn't afford. I tell you what he had to do in the audio. The choices we make tell a lot about who we are and what makes us unique. but everyone of us at one time or another has some really hard choices to make. and living with the results of those choices, or the choice of not even choosing at all, can sometime cause anxiety, and even regret. The thoughts that you have every day influence the decisions that you make, and those decisions have everything to do with what your life is. As long as you're alive, you're making choices and those choices represent what is important to you. Character traits develop as you respond to the choices that you make. Decisions can be quite stressful especially when you don't feel good or someone else in your family is sick. Before you know it, you let your emotions decide for you, or you just do nothing and let the chips fall where they may. Philosopher Ruth Chang calls this "drifting" She says that people who don't exercise their own power of decision-making when faced with hard choices are called drifters. Drifters allow the world to , as she says, "write the story of their lives" I relate drifting in life to the story of watching a stick in the stream. This stick, drifting fast down the stream, sometimes forward, sometimes spinning in circles, sometimes getting stuck someplace. Don't be like that stick. Get in a boat. Make those decisions that move you forward. Indecision is a lot like drifting. Now I get to tell you about the surprise I found that will make you feel better if you think its all related to age: A (Really) Good Memory A fourth reason you might be having difficulty make a decision is that you may have a high working memory but are easily distracted. Researchers at the University of Chicago and Michigan State University studied a group of people with a high working memory but who freeze when making decisions. Studies show that the people who have high working memory brain usually rely on those resources to...
