After waiting in line for 3 long minutes, it's my turn at last! This short conversation took place between me and the waiter, which inspired me to write this article:
- Waiter: Are you going to eat at the restaurant or are you going to take the food with you?
- Me: I will eat at the restaurant.
- Waiter: Would you like red or black beans?
- Me: black.
- Waiter: Would you like chicken, beef, or vegetarian dishes?
- Me: Chicken.
- Waiter: Would you like mild or spicy sauce?
- Me: Moderate.
- Waiter: Would you like to add a guacamole salad?
- I didn't answer it.
If you don't know, in most Mexican restaurants, ordering guacamole increases the cost of the account by 50 cents or one dollar, it's not a lot, but it's extra anyway.
As an emerging entrepreneur, I feared the consequences of ordering a guacamole salad; I was always that annoying person in restaurants, who stood in mind and spent a lot of time ordering. It took me two minutes to make the right decision based on the amount of money in my wallet, the intensity of my hunger, and the worst part of the process that I often regret my decision:
- I regret buying guacamole and incurring unnecessary extra expenses.
- I regret not buying it, and I feel the loss and wasted opportunity to eat a rich and delicious green salad.
I put myself in the cycle of failure from the beginning; failure to order food, failure to eat, and failure to enjoy food, but today I realized the amount of energy wasted to make decisions like this. Three forces affect the success or failure of the decisions:
1. Inability to make decisions:
It was reported that the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, wore the same suit every day. He did not want to bother making another decision during the day, as he made thousands of decisions, thus saving himself such a small decision.
The ability to make decisions can be likened to muscles, as you exercise this muscle when making every decision, small or large. I have noticed that the decision to buy guacamole salad seems harder on my busier days, perhaps because the decision muscle is tired, so I decided to start thinking about the following questions:
- What are the unnecessary decisions during the day?
- What decisions do I think about and make over and over again during the day?
- Can I make decisions ahead of time and allow space for more urgent decisions?
- Can I make any comprehensive and general decisions?
A comprehensive decision is a decision that determines a clear and consistent answer to all circumstances. So, I sat down and wrote down all the decisions I make during the day, and came up with hundreds of decisions. Also, I started evaluating the pros and cons of each to make the right decision and adopt it consistently. If you make the right decision once correctly, trust that you do not need to think about it again.
Let's apply this to the decision to buy guacamole. I have found that the pleasure that guacamole gives me is more important than its high additional cost, and if I do not have enough money to buy it, no problem.
For this reason, I have decided to request the "guacamole" salad, and I have taken a series of other comprehensive decisions that day. I have adopted an annual day to review and make comprehensive decisions in my personal life, and I have applied this step in my professional life as well, such as:
- Disapproving unscheduled invitations or advisory calls.
- Failing to respond to unknown numbers.
- Requesting Wi-Fi on flights.
Here's a challenge:
Dedicate a day to comprehensive decisions, think about the decisions you make each day, make inclusive decisions, and save your time and energy.
2. Not feeling guilty:
I also learned from this experience that sometimes feeling guilty can be a waste of energy, but the worst part of the experience was getting confused between acceptance and rejection and regret in both cases.
Guilt is an obstacle to success, an emotion that is usually uncontrollable, but we may overcome it sometimes. So, think about your feelings of guilt in recent times, do you think it is justified? Did it help? After I woke up that day, I decided to ease my feeling of guilt. I started with the "guacamole" salad and included other areas of my life:
- I forgot my mother's birthday when I was 14 years old, and I felt very bad, and my mother dealt wonderfully with the situation, and she did not express any resentment for forgetting me. This increased my conscience, and I assure you that I have felt guilty ever since, and the feeling has been revived every birthday of hers, and this has not helped me at all, but it is a waste of time.
- It is hard for me to commit to healthy food when I am traveling. Many airports do not offer healthy food options, and only offer vending machine for canned ready-made food.
Here I feel guilty for buying this type of food, but I soon realized the truth of the matter, I had no other options, and my guilt will only make it worse, so I can instead enjoy the meal since I have no other option, and here I have come up with a new comprehensive decision which is fast food is allowed and enjoyed when no other options are available.
Here's a challenge:
Think about the last time you felt guilty, and reassess the situation. Do you think the situation is worth it? Make some new rules, let things go, and move on.
3. Renewable energy:
I often worry about the severity of my anxiety! I know it's ironic. If you're a person who thinks too much about things, you'll realize how much trouble you get into when you think over and over again about a life issue, but do you know that your behavior is the biggest drain on precious time and energy?
This is not proportionate to the limitations of time. We have 24 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour, and 60 seconds a minute. Therefore, I do not underestimate my time, and I like to double the value of every second, but I do not do the same with my psychological energy. I may waste my energy with anxiety, rumination of ideas, tension, or guilt, but I finally realized that we have to keep several considerations of time in mind:
The time I spend worrying about ordering guacamole is worthless.
Increase the efficiency and value of time invested in completing some tasks from my list.
The time invested in thinking about blessings and feeling grateful is an opportunity to feel happy.
Spending time meditating on people waiting in line is interesting.
Some describe following the news as a useful opportunity to invest time.
I finally realized that humans have exhaustible psychic energy, so why to waste it thinking in vain?
Here's a challenge:
Where does most of your mental energy go? What are distractions? What will help you to maintain your energy? Reevaluate activities and devote more space to thinking about what works for you.
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