How often do you make decisions based on fear?
Let’s look at some examples of fear-based decisions.
– We stay in a bad relationship because we don’t want to be alone.
– We accept a job we will hate because we don’t think we will get any other offers.
How would your life be better if you made decisions based on love and not fear?
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Before we get too far into this post, let’s be straight up about this one. This stuff isn’t always easy.
The hard cold fact is sometimes we take a job we hate to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads.
With that said, if we are really being honest with ourselves the other reason we might stay at that same job is because it’s safe. At least in our minds, we consider it to be safe. Safe and practical.
We might pick the practical job because it’s expected of us.
We might pick it because we fear letting other people down. We might stick with it for fear of not being good enough.
We might choose a safe job because we are afraid we might fail at what we really want to do. We might rationalize to ourselves that we stay in a job we hate because the economy is lousy so we have to stay (see fear not so sweetly hiding in there).
Think about some of the major decisions you have made in your life.
When it comes down to it, they have all been a choice of love or fear.
You might be thinking love could mean a million different things in this scenario and you would be right.
The best way of making a decision is through the lens of self-love.
Will this decision make me feel content and fulfilled? Will this decision contribute to my success and happiness or is it just avoiding some sort of pain?
We fear someone will break up with us, so we leave them first. We have a fear of being vulnerable so we close ourselves off to people and hide our feelings.
Fear-based decisions are often about avoidance. They are often more about what we don’t want instead of what we do.
Love based decisions are about going after what we want.
Books that can help you choose love over fear –
- The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage by Mel Robbins
- You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero
Love based decisions can often mean doing what’s right, even when it’s not popular. They’re about knowing and believing that you are good enough.
They are based on knowing (and accepting) that failing is not the end of the world. Making a love based decision means we don’t fear failure because we know it’s part of life and more importantly a vital part of success.
Fear-based decisions are often about giving our power away.
We let other people make the decisions for us. We leave the decisions to our parents, our children, our partners, our companies, our managers, our clients, and our governments. At least that way, if it all goes pear-shaped we’ll have someone else to blame! That way we won’t have to take sole responsibility for our decisions.
The worst part of fear-based decisions is when we feel we have no decision to make at all. We feel trapped. We feel there are no options.
We settle for fear. We get comfortable with it without even realizing it.
Let’s face it decisions based on love/growth/change (however you look at it) can be hard.
We often pick easy over hard, even when what’s in the hard column is what we dearly want.
The next time you make a big decision ask yourself – Am I choosing love over fear?
Ask yourself – Am I doing what is right for myself or am I just trying to keep certain people happy? Am I doing what I truly want or simply taking the easier option because I’m scared of the harder one?
Choosing love over fear takes practice. It takes awareness, courage, strength, and persistence. It takes all of the things you already have, so go for it! Choose love over fear.
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