If you look at every decision you've ever made, it's either fear-based,
"You know if I give him up, someone else will get to love him for the rest of his life.
I can't let him go. I mean, five cats isn't a lot right? Right."
-- or growth-based.
"You know, if I keep him, I'll have six cats. Yeah, that's more than five,
But I've done a ton more than five. Totally doable."
Now, fear-based decisions tend to be about what we don't want. And we've all done that right?
Stayed in relationships because we didn't want to be alone,
Accepted the first job opportunity, because you were worried there wouldn't be any more.
Or stuck in a toxic friendship, because you didn't want to go out there and make new friends.
Oddly enough, fear-based decisions tend to come from a need to feel safe and stay in the familiar.
Whereas growth-based decisions are usually a lot scarier,
because they come with uncertainty and unknown change.
Whether that's leaving a well-paying job to pursue a passion,
ending a relationship or a friendship,
or packing up all of your stuff and moving to a new place.
Now, I would hope all of us kind of have the self-awareness
to know what motivates our decision-making.
But in case you don't, that's what this video's for.
So the first thing is make a list of every big decision you've made in your life,
and analyze each of those decisions and ask yourself honestly:
Was it made out of fear,
Or was it made for a desire to grow?
Now, even though growing decisions are scary as hell,
they're not *motivated* by fear. And that is kind of the key difference.
So let's say you look at your list, and some of your decisions, or maybe *all* of your decisions,
are pretty much motivated by fear.
And let's say for the sake of this video, that you want to change that. What exactly do you do?
Well, this requires a lot of self-reflection and introspection on your part,
because now you need to be able to ask yourself honestly and seriously, in each of these instances:
What were you afraid of -- was it a fear of failure?
Rejection, judgment, scarcity, change?
Maybe deep down, you don't actually feel like you deserve success and happiness.
[laughs] "What about all of the above?" [clicks tongue] That's fine.
There's a multitude of reasons as to why we are afraid.
And it is much, much easier to make decisions from that place.
But now that you know the root cause of your fear, you can start the second step.
Which is asking yourself: if I made my decisions out of growth,
and it all worked out exactly the way that I wanted it to,
What would my life look like?
Now, it's not going to happen overnight,
but the more you apply this visualization and self-awareness to *why* you make your decisions
and *how* you make a decision, you can slowly, but surely start shifting your mindset.
Everyone I know who's done amazing artistic work has done it with a lot of fear and anxiety.
But they choose to make growth decisions anyway,
because they know that it's gonna lead them to where they want to be.
So yeah. The first step is self-awareness,
and the second step, and the third step, and the fourth step, and the fifth, and the sixth,
all the way to infinity, is to slowly but surely start changing yourself.
Really easy right? Simple solutions, [hold back laughter] just do that.
I'm Anna Akana, stay right here for a sponsored message.
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