Learning to Trust Your Decisions
The biggest decision I made during my skating career happened a few days after starting the 8th grade.
It was a Friday night. My mom and I were sitting across from each other in our living room, 90 miles outside of Cape Cod, MA.
I had moved to the Cape for training, away from my family home, earlier in the week. On the second day at my new school, I sat alone crying in the back of the library during lunch. The transition to a new school, living away from my family during the week and the new training environment were too much. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to go home.
Historically, my mom wasn’t someone you told you wanted to quit something. There was often little room for a discussion; instead, once you made your mind up to do something, there was an expectation you would follow through.
Sitting on the couch that evening, I struggled to make eye contact—the shame I felt was too intense. But more than anything, the fear of my mom’s response was paralyzing. Stumbling over my words, I told her I couldn’t go back to the Cape. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wanted to come home.
How my mom responded was so important. In her response, she helped teach me how to make a sound decision.
She didn’t react or let her emotions take over. She didn’t tell me what was “right” or “wrong.” Instead, she told me to think about my choice throughout the weekend and let her know what I wanted to do on Sunday evening. By doing this, she gave me time to sort through my feelings, and she set a time boundary for the decision. She stressed that her opinion didn’t matter; this decision was mine to make.
She also laid out the facts of the decision. She said if I didn’t want to return to the Cape for classes on Monday morning, she would sign me up for middle school in my hometown. If that was my choice, she would be fine with it, but skating wouldn’t be taken as seriously; she could no longer make the trip to the Cape once a week for me to get lessons as she had done the previous year. I would continue to train, but I would return to lessons with my local coach.
She was honest. She gave me space to feel, presented boundaries and facts, and then she let me own the decision.
As an athlete, you usually become skilled at following directions and trusting the professionals around you to make decisions on your behalf. When to show up for practice, what to focus on during training, what events to sign up for—it’s often laid out by a coach or the team around you. Coaches, athletic trainers, dieticians, physical therapists—they all have plans for you to follow. To be on the receiving end of others’ decisions usually feels most comfortable. Because of this, making decisions for yourself can often feel daunting, especially after you leave your sport. There is no longer a coach or team to whom you can defer. It’s up to you, and it can be unnerving to trust yourself to know what choice is best for you.
When we are faced with a big decision, whether it’s a professional change, a decision to end a relationship or the decision to retire from our sport, we can sometimes become paralyzed with anxiety. The fear of making the “wrong” decision may overwhelm us. We might create all sorts of stories about what could happen or how others may perceive our choice. We may unintentionally avoid the decision and find ourselves polling everyone around us to see what they think we should do, which only amps up our overwhelm and decreases self-trust.
Decision-making anxiety usually stems from our desire to make the “right” choice. We want to help ourselves; we don’t want to make a mistake. The challenge, though, is we rarely ask ourselves what criteria we are using to define whether our decision is “right.” Often, anxiety arises when we believe a "right" choice means no future regret. The problem is we don’t yet have access to our future self; we can’t possibly know if we will regret the decision because we are not yet living in the future.
Instead, we want our criteria for the “right” choice to depend on information we have access to in the present moment. This is where facts can be incredibly helpful. Facts ground us, and they allow us to explore the pros and cons of our choice. While weighing the pros and cons, we want to consider potential future outcomes of our decision, and it can be helpful to run the facts by people we trust. We just want to be mindful that our decision is informed by what’s within our control and the information available to us in the present moment.
For example, if we’re thinking about accepting a new job, we can’t know for sure if we are going to like the position, enjoy working with our colleagues, have a supportive boss. Expecting ourselves to have answers to these questions while making our decision is unreasonable. We can, however, consider our feelings and insights from the interview and research process. If what we gleaned and observed during that process lends itself to supporting our needs, that criterion can be sufficient when making our decision.
When looking at the facts, we also want to pay attention to our feelings. Our feelings help us know what’s important to us, what we value. While we likely don’t want to rely solely on feelings to inform our decision, how we feel must be part of the process. By adding our feelings to the equation, we take our full self into account—the logical and the emotional.
Behind the fear of regret is usually the fear that we won’t be able to comfort ourselves if we let ourselves down by making a decision that doesn’t end up serving us. Because of this, setting up clear boundaries around self-talk can help to build trust for future decisions. How would we speak to someone we love if they did everything they could to make a sound decision and ended up feeling disappointed by their choice? We likely wouldn’t shame them, yell at them or judge them. Instead, we’d comfort them and listen to their feelings. We want to do this for ourselves.
Life is a series of decisions. What to have for breakfast, what time to get up, what to wear—we are constantly making decisions. When faced with more significant decisions, it can be helpful to remind ourselves we are decision-making machines; this is a muscle we are constantly strengthening. So if the decision we make doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean there won’t be potential consequences or discomfort, but it does mean we can make another decision. Rather than sitting in self-loathing, if we pivot our attention to the next decision we need to make, we help ourselves move past shame and toward agency and action.
After deciding to return to the Cape on Sunday evening, I wish I could say I immediately knew I had made the “right” choice. But what turned out to be one of the best decisions of my skating career took some time to feel “right.” Decisions are transitions — and transitions often bring the discomfort that comes with growth. We need to give ourselves space to assess how we feel over time and be gentle with ourselves through the settling process. Big decisions can be incredibly stressful, and so giving ourselves the compassion, support and love we would provide others during a similar process is paramount. And, over time, decision-making becomes less about being “right” and more about exercising self-trust—trusting we know what is best for today and that we’ll show up for ourselves tomorrow.
The content on this blog is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy. The content does not replace a therapeutic relationship with a licensed mental health professional.