One thing I work through with my clients is the fear of the unknown. They are afraid of taking the next step so they never do. My clients come to me because they are stuck and they don’t know how to get unstuck. 

There is a very simple solution that I work on with them in the Courage Driven Latina program. I tell them, “It’s ok! Do it scared.” And we work on taking courageous action.

In this week’s episode, we talk about how to make decisions confidently without overthinking. Overthinking comes from letting the fear take control. It paralyzes you and keeps you from moving forward in life. But fear is not in control, you are. Tune in to hear how I guide my clients into making decisions confidently.

Follow Erika on:
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Website:
http://www.theerikacruz.com

How to work with Erika:
Join the waitlist for Courage Driven Latina here.

Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST.

Episode Transcript:

Erika: Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Ch*ngona Revolution podcast. I am your host, Erika Cruz. I’m a Latina coach and speaker and founder of Courage Driven Latina, which is a group coaching program that helps women take action on the project that scares them. I will tell you more about it in this episode, but I’m so excited to talk about today’s topic, which is all about how to overcome being indecisive, how to make decisions.

Confidently. Okay. So this is a topic that my clients and I discuss a lot. This is, I end up coaching on this so, so much and you know, here I am inside of a podcast studio in Nashville and this is the first time that I’ve rented a podcast studio. I’ve already had a couple of interviews and they’ve been incredible.

And I’ve just got to say that a podcast studio is definitely on my vision board for this year. So I’m here whenever I move. I have to get a two bedroom because the second room is going to be my office and podcast studio, and I can’t freaking wait. So if you are one of my clients, I hope that we get to do a lot more of these podcasts in person because it’s such a game changer.

And this was probably one of the decisions that was actually really easy for me to make. So I’m sharing this because in the past I would have made like a pros and cons list on, Oh my gosh, is it worth the investment? Is it, what if I, you know, don’t get the most out of my time? Oh my gosh, do I have the money for this?

Do I have the time for this? What if I’m not prepared? What if I mess up? I mean, all those thoughts would have come up, but I’m sharing this to tell you that the decision making gets easier. It gets so much easier. You can find the tools and resources to help you make decisions confidently. Okay. So in this podcast episode, we are going to talk about how to know if you are struggling with decision making, why we struggle with decision making.

how to stop being indecisive and how to start trusting yourself. I’m going to share with you the process that I take my clients through when it comes to making big decisions, right? Not just like, where are we going to go eat? But like life decisions, like what’s the next step in my life?

Because overthink. And then I’m going to tell you what happens when you really begin to trust yourself. Okay? So that’s what we’re going to cover today. And if you’re listening to this podcast and chances are you’re either first gen or an immigrant yourself or maybe a woman of color, maybe you’re not a woman, but if you struggle with making decisions confidently, then this episode is for you.

This is probably the number one thing that we coach on inside of Courage Driven Latina because people overthink, right? So how do you know that you struggle with making decisions? Here are just like some signs how it will show up. So first and foremost, you. Are constantly asking people what you should do.

That’s number one. Okay. Number two is you’re very much in your logical mind. You are trying to make pros and cons list. You’re trying to figure out which one’s going to be better. You’re trying to predict the future. You want a lot more certainty before you make a decision. 

The thought of making a decision is keeping you up at night, right? You’re like constantly battling back and forth and it’s like you think you make a decision and then you jump back to the other side.

And overall, you just feel anxiety when you think about it, like maybe in your body, like maybe in your chest or your shoulders because you don’t want to make the wrong decision. Okay, so this is how you know that it’s showing up. So why is it that it’s so hard for us to make decisions? So I can tell you from personal experience growing up in my household, my mom is very indecisive and she does not trust herself and she will call me to make decisions for her.

So I grew up in a household where I constantly saw My mom questioning herself and it taught me to question myself. And there was just so much anxiety around decision making, even, you know, basic things with like, Oh, what should I make for this party? Or what should I wear to this party? Which like, I think we can overthink a lot, but now thinking about your purpose and your life, you know, or specifically my clients who work on a courage project.

Inside of Courage Driven Latina, which a courage project is a project that excites them, scares them and makes the world a better place. So this project could be launching a business, it could be starting a podcast, starting an Instagram account, working on their confidence, it could be working on their career or maybe asking for salary negotiations.

 So why is it that we struggle with making decisions?

So maybe you grew up in an environment like I did, where we were constantly taught to doubt ourselves, but maybe Secondly, you really freaking care, right? So in the context of a courage project, these are big things. This is what they’re doing next in life. This is their purpose in life. This is the next decision that they’re making.

Do they stay in the relationship or do they go? Do they start the business or not? Do they leave the job or not? Do they ask for the raise? Do they not? Right? So there’s, there’s so many different paths that we can take. And then whenever they affect not just us, but our family members and it’s our overall purpose, of course we overthink it.

We care. And that’s simply what it is. So what is the solution? Well, the solution is that you have to trust yourself and. You simply have to make a decision, and the way you do that is through the Courage Cycle framework. This is how I’ve taught my clients. It’s what I’ve implemented for myself, which is why I was able to book this podcast studio without any mind drama.

It’s why I can make decisions way easier now. Of course, there are some times when I, I do get into this overthinking phase, but I use this process and I use my own tools. So that’s what I want to share with you all today. The first step. And the Courage Cycle is to find clarity, okay? And we use this as guiding principles inside of Courage Driven Latina.

So if this is something that you would like to be a part of, the link is down below. And I will give you more information about the program in a second. But the Courage Cycle framework starts with finding clarity. The second one is making a decision. So first we find clarity and then we make a decision and then next we take brave action and then we reflect and revise and then it comes back to finding clarity.

So it’s this cycle that keeps going. And how do we find clarity? Well, I’m so glad you asked as I sit here in this podcast studio by myself. We find clarity. Through conflict. Okay? So like a lot of us are sitting there looking at our lives and we’re like, Oh man, I don’t like how my life is right now or this isn’t what I want or I’m so unhappy in my job.

But whenever we have conflict, we actually have clarity. And let me tell you why. Because when you know what you don’t want, you know what you do want. Okay, so whenever you get clarity about what you don’t want, you know that you want something different. So that’s already giving you so much clarity.

Another way that we gain clarity, and this is so unconventional, it’s not really like what people hear, through comparison. If you find yourself comparing yourself to somebody else and almost getting a little bit triggered, that is clarity for you, right? If somebody wrote a book and you felt something in your stomach, like a little pit in your stomach, okay, honey, do you want to write a book?

Maybe you do, right? See? So. Through conflict, through comparison, we find clarity. Through just living life, we’re finding clarity every day, right? You’re getting to know who you are more and more every day. So once we have just a little bit of clarity, notice I’m saying a little bit of clarity and not certainty, because certainty does not exist.

A lot of us want to know what’s going to happen next before we make a decision, but I’m sorry, that is not possible, right? We all had plans for our lives in 2020. And we thought we had a sense of control and a sense of certainty and then the pandemic happened and none of us knew that. But if that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be where I am now and you wouldn’t be where you are in your life.

Right? So if we already knew what was going to happen, we, what’s the point of living? So, once you have a little bit of clarity, I want you to make a decision. And with this step, which is step number two in the courage cycle, make a decision. You could convince your brain of pretty much anything, okay? You can convince your, your brain that decision A is correct or decision B is correct.

And I want you to, and you get to convince yourself of whatever you want. But it’s just about make a decision and feel good about it. Okay, so whenever we’re making a decision a lot of us Just avoid making the decision and we keep delaying it and we keep delaying it Okay, so I’m gonna tell you the story of two clients in Under this step of making decisions and then we’ll get to the rest of them.

So I had a client a we’re gonna call her Angela, okay client a Angela knew that She wanted to start a business. Okay, and this is relevant to you whether or not you want to start a business. So she knew she wanted to start a business and she wanted to start a business where she made like fragrances and she was debating between starting her business With fragrances and selling them on Etsy or just selling them on social media with like a Google form so people could easily buy them.

So she could have stayed in that decision, you know, of like, oh, I don’t know which one I want to do and not made a decision but she ended up selling on Instagram and Facebook to people she knew. And that was the decision that she made, and she started to make money, okay? And once she started to make money, she hired somebody to help her build a website.

So then she, people were able to go buy her fragrances on her website, okay? So that’s Angela. And then we have client B, Bianca. We’re going to call her Bianca. And Bianca was debating whether she wanted to start creating content on Instagram or on TikTok, okay? And so, these are two different types of projects, right, but each of them are working on their courage project.

And she kept making lists. She was like, well, TikTok has more views, but I already have followers on Instagram, and I’m not sure which one to pick, and she kept making pros and cons lists. So, Bianca is sitting here not wanting to make the wrong decision, right? She’s like, okay, well, the guidance from Erica was like really simplify.

So just pick one of the platforms and I don’t know which one to pick. And also, I don’t know what name I want, right? For the username. So, and I think it was a little complicated. Like it’s the, the username was available on Instagram, but not on Tik TOK, something like that. So. These decisions that needed to be made, right?

She already had a little bit of clarity. She already knew she wanted to create content and her content was like wellness content or something like that. And there was a bigger mission behind it. She wanted to give back to the community. She wanted to be able to support people on their wellness journey because it was so transformational for her life.

Whenever she took it, she took control of her health and. It was a really important mission for her. So as we look at these two clients, right, they’re both like stuck making decisions. And I know I went a little ahead and started telling you about, Angela already, but we’re going to fast forward to a month and a half, right?

At that moment, Courage Driven Latina was only three months, but we’re a month and a half into the program. And, Angela made the decision to start selling on Facebook and on Instagram because she already had accounts there and she just like was selling to people she already knew. Remember these were like fragrances, they’re non toxic, right?

So it was something that was also really important to her. She was still freaked out. She was like, I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but she, we encouraged driven Latina. We have something called the ghetto first draft. So she made her ghetto first draft, just the first version of this. Like, let’s just reach out to the people who I already know.

And she started to make money. And because she started to make money, she was then able to invest in a freaking website. Okay. So then after the website, I mean, so many amazing things ended up happening over the span of like the next year. She really started to build confidence, went all in on her business, really started to trust her, her decision making because she knew all she needed to know was the next step.

And that’s what made the decision less scary. Okay. And then we have Bianca. And Bianca, a month and a half in, still hadn’t made a decision. She was still overthinking the name of the profile. She was still overthinking the Instagram versus TikTok. And at that point, she’d like taken no steps. So notice that her not making a decision was a decision.

It was the decision to stay in her comfort zone and stay where she was. So Angela is already like making money and creating results from her project while Bianca is over here still trying to make a decision. So when we look at making a decision, we have to remind ourselves that there’s no right or wrong decision.

If Bianca would have just started either creating content on Tik Tok or creating content on Instagram, she would have already found out, you know what, I actually like Instagram better because that’s where my target audience is. That’s where I can record stories. That’s where this, or it could have been the other way, right?

Like, oh my gosh, I actually love the TikTok community. I love the content there. I want to do this instead. But because she hadn’t taken any action, she didn’t know. So the next step is take brave action. And actually, let me go back to making a decision. As I mentioned earlier, you could convince your brain of anything.

So if Bianca would have picked TikTok, she could have made a list of 15 reasons why TikTok was better. And if she would have picked Instagram, she could have made a list of why Instagram was better. A list of 15 things for either one, right? Like she could convince her brain of anything. So when it comes to making a decision, we have to remember you can always make a new decision.

The faster you make a decision, the more information you’re going to have, which is literally what the whole courage cycle is about, right? Gain clarity, make a decision, take brave action, reflect and revise, gain more clarity, make a new decision, take brave action, reflect and revise. And the cycle keeps on going.

So. How do we take brave action? Brave action, as I mentioned earlier with Angela’s example, it’s just about taking the next step. It’s just about taking the next step. And anything that we do for the first time is going to be freaking scary. So how do we take brave action? We just have to find clarity on what the Next step is, what’s the immediate next step I need?

And the other way of taking brave action is managing your mind, which is the biggest thing that we do inside of Courage Driven Latina. So I know I’m telling you all the process of the Courage Project Cycle, which is the overall theme that we cover, but inside of each one of those, there’s so many tools to help you execute that actual step in the process.

Erika: So when it came to taking brave action, Angela was getting coached. Every week she came with her doubts. Every week she was like, Okay, is this the, the, is this the correct thing to do next? what if I fail, right? Like she still, it wasn’t that she was 100 percent confident the whole time. It was that she was still willing to take the action despite feeling confident.

She was still willing to do it being scared, right? Which is the definition of courage. So when you take brave action, it’s just about taking action that really taps into your courage. It’s about just the next step. It’s about moving forward, even if you don’t know if it’s the correct one. And then once you take action.

You can reflect and you can revise what worked, what didn’t work, and then you’re going to gain more clarity. But unless you take the action, unless you make the decision, you’re not going to gain more clarity. You’re not going to be able to reflect and revise. An analogy that I use for my clients is I want you to imagine that you are standing in a hallway, okay?

And in this hallway, there’s doors to your left, there’s doors to your right. And you’re like, oh my gosh, I want to go through one of these doors, but I need to know which one’s the right one. Which one has my purpose on the other side? Which one is the next step in my life? Which one has the right decision on the other side, right?

Because we want the correct decision. So we’re looking at all these doors and we’re like, I don’t want to open it and go through it if it’s going to be the wrong one. But we won’t know unless we go in. And I think a lot of people think once they go through a door, they can’t leave the door. But like, just like you went in, you can also come out.

So if you close your eyes and you imagine yourself in this hallway with all of these different doors, you must know. Open doors to see if it’s the room that you want to be in and if it’s not you can leave and you know what’s so cool a lot of times one room leads you to another room that you couldn’t get to from the hallway.

That’s literally what happened with me, right? Like, as we’re looking at my life, you see me now as the host of Chingona Revolution podcast. You see me as the creator of Courage Driven Latina, helping hundreds of women take action on their courage project. But There was a time when I overthought taking action.

I was overthinking, oh man, do I want to have a food blog that’s just on Instagram or an actual website? I finally just started the Instagram, but do you know how long it took me? Two freaking years. Two years of overthinking. So I feel you. My frameworks come from me being in your shoes not that long ago and now being where I am today.

So when I finally started a food blog, I did it for a few months and then guess what? So I found some clarity. I knew I wanted to start a food blog. I made the decision. That was really scary. I finally took the brave action. I started the Instagram page and then I also started the food blog. I got clarity.

I reflect and revised. I realized that it’s easier for people to find recipes on website. So then I invested in a website. I had my recipes there and then you know what, I reflected and revised again and I was like, this isn’t fun for me anymore. But I got comfortable creating content and from there I became a wellness blogger.

So I started talking about overall wellness and then I started talking about mindfulness because I started getting into meditation and then the pandemic happened and then people started to look at me as this coach and as this thought leader. The reason I became a coach is because people began to ask me.

If I did one on one coaching. I didn’t even know what that was. I was over there offering free workshops without really knowing what the heck I was doing. So if I wouldn’t have initially gone through that one door of food blogging, which then led me to wellness blogging. And then I became a yoga instructor.

And then that’s what got me into mindfulness, right? It’s like one door led to the next, which led to the next. But I have a question for you. Are you still in the hallway? Are you still in the hallway, not wanting to make the wrong decision? Because a wrong decision is better than not making a decision.

And delaying making a decision is also a decision. And I say this with so much love because I want you to get to where you want to go. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be so worth it. Because you’re not going to feel like, oh my gosh. I didn’t do it, right? So whether it’s you wanting to join a group coaching program like Courage Driven Latina or an online community or like an online course that you’ve seen somewhere or maybe applying to a job, what’s the worst that can happen?

That’s a question I always ask my clients. What is the worst thing that can happen? And they usually say, well, I’ll just go back to what I was doing. And I’m like, so you’re literally in the worst possible situation right now. It can only get better because you’re going to learn so much, even if things don’t work out.

So what happens, like what happens once you begin to trust yourself and you implement the courage cycle framework? What happens is that you begin to develop this unshakable confidence and trust in yourself. You don’t shame yourself. You don’t spend time overthinking. You become a lot more decisive. And then what I love more than anything that some of my clients have told me is that you become the friend that everybody comes to whenever they need to make a decision because they suddenly see you start making all of your decisions.

and then you also feel free knowing that you get to choose a path that you can then change and you can choose a new path. Anytime, even if you do make a mistake, this I’m like literally reading what my clients have said, even if you do make a mistake, you won’t beat yourself up because you know, it’s all a learning experience.

Can you imagine living a life where you just trust yourself and you know that it’s all going to be fine and that there’s an abundance of opportunities and decisions and you’re never stuck, right? A lot of you tell me whenever we start working together, when you listen to this podcast or send me DMs, Oh man, I just feel stuck.

But this is the way to get un stuck. Stuck. This is the way to get unstuck. 

So, if this podcast resonated with you and this sounds like exactly what you want support with, then I highly recommend the Courage Driven Latina program. And I specifically recommend that you take the confidence path. So inside of Courage Driven Latina, we now have different paths that you can take for courage projects.

And what I described of indecisiveness and wanting to be able to make decisions in a really confident way, I really recommend the courage path. Let me tell you what is included in that one.

You’re going to learn how to build confidence no matter what other people say to you. You’re going to be able to make decisions easily and confidently.

We’re also going to cover my framework on how to deal with rejection and how to reframe the way that you think about rejection.

And then we have tools to help with confidence building. So if this is resonating with you, then the confidence path inside of Courage Driven Latina is the best path for you. You can always take that path to go to another path. Maybe you go from the confidence path to the content creation path or the confidence path to the career building path or from the confidence path to the CEO path.

If you know that one day you want to either start a side hustle or a business or maybe you already have one and you want to grow it, that would be A perfect combination of paths for you. 

 I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode. If you took anything away from it, be sure to take a screenshot and tag me or send me a DM. I read all of the DMS. I would also appreciate an Apple podcast rate and review.

And I want to remind you all that we have Courage Week coming up. Courage Week is my favorite week. It’s four days of courage coaching. It’s from February 12th, which is a Monday, all the way until Thursday, February 15th, Courage Week is happening from 3 to 4 p. m. Pacific time. And what happens at Courage Week?

Well, if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be coached by me, come to Courage Week. It’s an insight into what kind of coaching happens inside of Courage Driven Latina. I share some of the tools with you. Obviously I shared one during this episode, but I share a few more tools with you. And you can come ask questions on anything that you’re struggling with.

Every day of Courage Week, we have a special training. So on Monday the 12th, I’m talking all about confidence, right? So how to build more confidence if a Confidence Courage Project is the right one for you. Different examples of how to execute your Confidence Courage Project. 

on Tuesday, I am doing a content creation training and then we’re opening it up for general courage coaching. On Wednesday, we’re talking all about a career courage project and then opening it up for general courage coaching. And then on Thursday, which is the 15th, we are talking all about Chingona CEO.

I’m doing a training on entrepreneurship or side hustling. And then opening it up for courage coaching. So if you can attend live, come live because every day we’re going to go into general coaching, even if the training at the beginning is about something specific. So be sure to attend live so you could get coached by me.

I cannot wait to see you there. And the doors for Courage Driven Latina do open on the first day of courage week. Okay. So be prepared. We have over a thousand people on the wait list for this program. So if you know that you’re ready to take action. on the project that you’ve been delaying. This program is for you.

Courage Week also gives you a super special bonus. So we have, instead of getting Courage Driven Latina for 12 months, which is already freaking game changer, you’re going to get it for 13 months if you sign up during Courage Week. And get this, you also get a free ticket to the Courage Driven Latina event that’s happening in March in Los Angeles.

Super exclusive for those people who Sign up during Courage Week. So we get to hang out all throughout Courage Week. When you sign up for Courage Driven Athena, we get to meet in person and you get 13 months of access to the program. I can’t freaking wait. I cannot wait to work with you and see you at Courage Week.

I will see you next week.