How to Make Powerful Decisions

Have you ever felt stuck in indecision, like you're spinning in circles while waiting for the right answer to magically appear? The truth is, powerful women don't wait for clarity, they create through intentional decisions. In this episode, I'm going to be sharing my personal decision filter to help you make aligned confident choices in every area of your life. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello. Hello friends. How are we doing? Are we feeling good? Are we feeling excited? Are we feeling powerful? Because I am. And I want to talk to you about why I'm feeling so excited and powerful. And it really comes down to one thing. I have been making powerful decisions lately. A lot of them. In fact, I just hung up from a call with my financial advisor and I just made a big powerful financial decision. I've been making a lot of decisions in my business, one of which I'm going to be announcing next week, have something exciting to share with you about the summer. I've just been making a lot of decisions and I've been thinking a lot about this because a lot of what I coach women in the membership on is making a decision.

I want you to think about how much of your life you spend in indecision. You don't know what you want to wear, you don't know where you want to go to dinner, you don't know where you want to go on vacation, you don't know if you should stay or go, you don't know if you should take this job or stay in your current one. And the one thing that I have discovered throughout my life is that indecision just zaps your power. Being indecisive keeps you from moving forward. It keeps you from creating momentum in your life. I want you to think of it like this.

Let's say you're at the airport and you're standing in front of two gates. One is we'll just say it's going to New York. The other one is going to Miami. And you're sitting there thinking, "Well, a part of me wants a weekend in the city. I want to go see some shows. I want to experience some dinners. But then there's this other part of me that really just wants to go be in the sunshine. I want to go sit by a pool. And in the meantime, the gate attendant is saying, "Last call for boarding." And you're over there negotiating with yourself as to where you want to go. And before you know it, the gates are closed and both planes are taken off and you're not on either one of them.

You're simply standing there right where you were stuck in your own life simply because you didn't decide which plane to get on. Now, why is it so hard to make a decision? And the reason why it's so hard is that we believe in wrong decisions. And I will tell you, for me personally, I have just decided that there are no wrong decisions, they're just decisions that I learn from. There are decisions that are going to teach me something. There are decisions that are going to reveal to me maybe what I won't do or what I will do next time I make a decision. But every time I make a decision, what I have noticed is that I get my power back.

Decisions give you power. Indecision, it leaks your power. It creates more overwhelm, more overthinking and more paralysis in your own life. To me, decisions is like getting dressed in the morning. You can stand in front of your closet for 30 minutes in indecision, trying things on second, guessing everything, or you can just decide and wear it with confidence and move on with your day. Because the truth is, it's not always about the perfect outfit, it's about choosing and owning it.

And the same is true with decisions. Most of the time, it's not about making the right one, it's just about making it powerful by how you live out that decision. One of the things that I have repeated over and over to the members of the School of Self-Image I tell them the most important decision isn't the first one. It's not the decision itself, it's the second one. And that's deciding how you are going to feel about your decision. Because even for those of you who make decisions, you spend so much energy doubting your decisions, regretting your decisions, second guessing your decisions, and all that does is it just slows down the momentum on the decision that you made.

Whenever I make a decision, I decide in that moment I am going to have my own back on that decision, I'm going to feel confident about that decision even if it doesn't work out. I made a decision this year. I hired someone and I was confident about it until I wasn't. The moment I realized this isn't working, I re-decided. But guess what happened? In that moment of making that decision and learning and re-deciding, I had gotten so much further along than the person who's still trying to decide, "Should I hire someone?" and is taking so much time in making a decision. Now, with that said, in business, I do believe in hiring slow and firing fast.

And to my team's credit, we went through a very thorough hiring process and even still a month into it, I just knew, I knew that I needed to make a new decision. Now, I didn't sit around and judge the decision is bad. I didn't say, "Oh my God, you made such a terrible decision. How dare you?" Because it wasn't a terrible decision. I learned so much. Just because something doesn't work out doesn't mean it's a terrible decision. Have you ever considered you needed to go through that to understand how to make the decision in a more powerful way in the future?

There were things that you needed to experience in that decision to help you with whatever you're going to be facing in the future. And so I never look at decisions as bad decisions. I never look at it that way. I look at everything through the lens of I am learning, I am growing. And because of that, I've gotten really good at making decisions. I'm excited for them. I'm excited as to whether they're going to lead me where I want to go or what they're going to teach me that's going to help me get to where I want to go. Now, with all of that said, I want to talk about how to make powerful decisions.

Now, what I want to encourage each of you to do is to create a decision filter for your life. This is something that we have implemented in my business that has been so incredibly helpful and helping us make aligned decisions and quicker decisions. Before every meeting, someone on the team reads our decision filter. I also have one for my life, and I'm going to share that one with you today, and you're welcome to use this one. If you want to tweak it for your own life, that's great. But this is how I like to think about making decisions. I call this my Self-Image Decision Filter. So the first thing that I do is a values check.

Now, this is going to require that you spend some time getting to know what your values are. This is why one of the first things that women do when they come into the membership and they go through the self-image method is that they have to get very clear on their values because that becomes the foundation for your life. If you are making decisions without knowing your values, without checking in with your values, chances are you're making decisions that don't feel aligned. And no wonder you feel frustrated. Or maybe you're not making decisions because you haven't even checked to ask yourself, "Is this what matters to me most?"

So when I think about a values check, I love to ask myself, "Is this aligned with what matters most to me?" So a recent example that I can share with you is that I was invited to speak at this high profile event, but the energy felt off. It was a very hustle, heavy, very bro marketing kind of event. And when I thought about the kind of leader that I am, when I thought about my values of beauty, connection and inspiration, it just didn't feel like a good fit for me. And so I said, no. It was a very easy decision. Even though it would've been great for exposure, even though I probably could have made some really incredible connections, it was not aligned with my values.

It was an easy decision because I know what's most important to me. So that's number one, a values check. The second one is a vision check. So a vision check is going to require that you spend some time really creating a vision for your future. Again, a lot of the reasons why decisions feel so hard is that you don't have a clear vision, you don't know your values, you don't know who you are. And so of course, you don't have the foundation in which to make powerful decisions. But when you know who you are, what you value, where you're going, making decisions becomes so much easier.

So when it comes to your values check, not your values, but your vision check, you need to ask yourself, "Does this move me closer to my dream life?" So let's say for example, you are wanting a beautiful romantic partnership and you have a vision for what that looks like. You value stability, passion and supportiveness. And so you meet someone and you can tell, "Oh my God, this is going to be thrilling, but it's also going to be chaotic. I can already sense that this is not going to lead me to that stable, supportive and passionate vision that I have for a relationship."

You recognize the pattern and you choose to walk away, creating space for the kind of relationship you truly want. So you need to ask yourself, "What is my vision for my future?" And I just realized, I had not planned to put this into this episode, but I think it'd be a great resource for you. The Sweet Spot Playbook, it asks you to get really clear on your vision in every area of your life. Because again, when you have that vision, you know what's a no and what's a yes. You can feel, "Oh, this is going to take me closer to what I want. This is going to take me further away."

So if you have not downloaded that resource yet, you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot, all one word, get it and spend some time with yourself asking yourself, "What do I want? What is my dream life? What really matters to me?" Once you have all of that in place, again, it's going to be so easy to make powerful decisions. So again, go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot and get that guide. It's going to be super helpful for today's episode. Now, the next check that I like to do in order to make powerful decisions is what I call a self-image check.

And the question to ask yourself is, "Is this a vote for the woman I'm becoming?" So good. Is this a vote for the woman that I'm becoming? Because every decision that you make is either reinforcing your past self or your future self. So let's just take a business example. Maybe you're deciding on whether to raise your prices or not and you feel a little nervous. But when you ask yourself, "What would the woman I'm becoming do?" the answer is clear. It's going to be clear. And I'm not going to tell you if it's raised the price or not because I don't know that for you. It's going to depend on a host of things.

I think most people will say, "Oh, she raises her prices," not necessarily. So get clear on your vision, get clear on your values, and get clear on the woman that you're becoming, and then ask yourself that question. It's so incredibly powerful. Even when I'm shopping now, I'll ask myself, "Is this a vote for the woman I'm becoming?" And sometimes that means I don't buy it. Believe it or not, I think sometimes we run these fantasies of, "Oh, the woman we're becoming, she raises her prices, she buys the designer bags," not necessarily.

The woman I'm becoming, she is creating wealth. And so that means sometimes saying no to the thing that I'm tempted to buy. We're going to talk about another check that we're going to do in a moment that will bring you even more clarity. So carrying this question with you is so incredibly powerful. You think about should I stay or should I go? Well, think about you in the future, the vision that you're creating and the woman you're becoming, does she stay where she is or does she leave? And again, I don't know the answer for you, only you know that. But this is a very powerful question to ask yourself.

So at this point, we've done the values check, we've done the vision check, and we've done the self-image check. Just those three checks in your decision filter will give you so much clarity. But I have four more that I want to offer you that are super helpful. The fourth one is a gut check. Your body knows often before your brain does. Ask yourself, "What does my body say?" Most people when it comes to decisions are all up in their head. They're in the head that likes to make everything super complex.

They're in their head that's full of fear and anxiety and overwhelm, and they're trying to make decisions from there, which often causes them to make decisions that only perpetuate those very same emotions that they're trying to escape. But when you get into your body, and when I'm talking about gut, I'm talking about your intuition. Now, listen, a lot of women confuse fear with intuition. I've had so many women come to me and they'll be like, "Oh, this just doesn't feel right." I'm like, "Well, tell me more about that." And when they start talking about their feeling, it's not a body intuitive feeling, it's a fear feeling.

What's really happening is that they're afraid of being judged, they're afraid of failing, they're afraid of getting it wrong. And so they confuse that with intuition, that discomfort. But what I've learned about intuition is that it's very quiet, it's very calm. It whispers to you. Fear is panic. Fear is very loud. Fear causes you to shut down where I feel like intuition causes you to expand and open up. Now, once you make a decision based off intuition, you're probably going to have some fear around it, and that's okay. That's why I love the tools that we teach in the membership.

We learn how to navigate that fear and all of that discomfort, which is simply the discomfort of the unknown. But when you listen to your body, your body knows. How many times have you been facing a decision, fear gets involved and you listen to the fear? And when you can go back, you can look at it, you're like, "God, my body told me to take the job" or "My body told me to walk away, but I listened to the fear and I did the exact opposite and it didn't lead to an outcome that I actually liked."

So check in with your body because the body hosts so many past experiences, pattern recognition. The body also can sense and feel when things just aren't aligned. And so we have to learn to tune into and trust our own bodies. And I've just gotten really good at intuitively just knowing and making decisions quickly based off of that knowing. Because I think at the end of the day, for me, I know no matter what the result is, I'm going to figure it out and it's going to make me even better. So I'm not afraid of it anymore, but my body often knows the answer way before my brain does.

So let's say, for example, someone offers to partner on a project and it looks great on paper, but when you think about moving forward, something just feels off, you feel uneasy, your chest tightens a little bit. That is your body saying no. Trust it and politely decline. I've been working with my business coach and the other day he made a suggestion to me and I felt it in my body. It was a huge, no. It was not fear-based. It was not a no coming from anxiety. It was just a knowing of my business, of my team. And I told him, I'm like, "I respect your decision. I can understand why you think that, but I just know where we are right now, this is not the decision for us."

It just became a no. He wanted to argue with me about it. I was like, "You can argue, but I just know it's a no right now.' Now, again, it's very crucial that you understand the difference between intuition and fear because there have been moments in my life where a coach, a mentor, offered me a suggestion and I immediately said no and it was coming from fear. I had hit the edge of my self-image and it didn't seem possible for me. So I rationalized it with no, no. And I tried to pretend that was intuition, when really it was just fear.

But in this situation, the difference was, number one, I want to be challenged now. I want to be offered all of the possibilities. I love when someone can step outside and see the larger picture because when you're in it, you can't always see it. But with this particular decision, it was a calmness. It wasn't me fighting for my limitations, it was me just honoring my values, it was me honoring my gut, it was me honoring my vision. All of those things in place helped me to make this decision with so much clarity. So check in with your bodies, ladies. Your body knows. The fifth check that is very helpful is your motivation check, what's driving this decision.

And it comes down to this question, is it love or fear? Okay? So let me just give you an example. We'll talk about the shopping example. If I'm standing at the counter about to check out with a designer handbag and I am feeling a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, now that could mean that I've hit a self-image edge, which has happened to me before. Right? It's something that I've deeply wanted for a long time. I've not allowed myself to purchase it, to have it. I've had all of these stories. And so in those moments, it's fear trying to keep me from purchasing the thing.

Now equally, there have been moments where that anxiety, that feeling of unease has been motivated by me realizing I'm purchasing this thing to maybe feel worthy, to feel good enough. Because it's not about the thing. That's the thing, it's not about the thing. It's always about what is this decision. Another example is let's just say you're about to launch a program because you're feeling the pressure to make something happen, but when you ask yourself what's driving it, you realize it's the fear of missing out.

It's not being driven by inspiration, wanting to add value, being excited about this thing you get to put out in the world. It's being driven by a fear of missing out. Maybe it's being driven by scarcity. And so when those kinds of motivations are revealed to you, what I suggest that you do is pause, regroup, and create from clarity instead of chaos. I've seen this so much, especially in business. When you make decisions from fear, it just leads to more fear because what you're doing is you are creating a self-image of a woman who is full of lack, full of scarcity.

And here's the crazy thing, you can launch something, it can actually go well, but you're still in a state of panic. You're still never trusting that life is working out for you. You're never trusting an abundance. And so you never deal with the core issue of what's driving those decisions in the first place. And it's always going to come back to self-image work. And so until you stop and say, "Hey, what's motivating this? Am I being driven by fear, ego, urgency, pressure, lack, or is it coming from love and curiosity and abundance and trust and excitement?"

Until you get clear on your motivations, chances are you're never going to feel confident in your decisions. Because decisions made from fear just lead to more fear and decisions made from power lead to more power. And so we have to be very clear on what's motivating our decisions. The sixth check that I love to do with my Decision Filter is what I call the speed check. And the question is, how fast can I decide and learn? One of the things that I've seen, a quality that I've seen in very successful people, is that they make decisions and they make them quickly.

Think about it like this. Let's say for example, it takes you a month to make a decision, and I make that decision in a day. Even if I make that decision in a day and it's not a great decision, doesn't work out, I can learn from that decision and already find a different solution and make a different decision faster than it takes you to make one decision. Now all of that stacks up. Over time, speed is going to win because I am making decisions faster. I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm course correcting way faster than the person that it takes a whole month to make one decision.

And not only that, when you make decisions quickly, you don't have time to overthink it. You trust your intuition, you make a decision and you move on. Versus the more time you give yourself often to make a decision, the more you overthink, the more you feel paralyzed and the more you stay stuck. Now, if decisions equal momentum, which they do, think about who's going to get where they want to go faster, the person who's making quicker decisions or the person that it takes a long time to make a decision? Again, it's going to be the person making the quicker decisions that gets there faster every single time.

So learning to make decisions, fail, learn, grow, re-decide, that is the secret to success. It is not, I am convinced, you all, it is not the smartest or the most talented people that are successful. It's those of us who make decisions quick, who aren't afraid to fail, who learn, get back on the field and try again. Have that persistence, that tenacity, and that quickness in their decision making. And that's something you can do. Think about a decision right now that maybe you've been thinking about for weeks, months, maybe even years.

Think about how that has slowed you down. Right now, you could get your power back by deciding. Isn't that fun to consider? And yes, it's going to be scary. The brain is going to fight you, but when you learn to feel your emotions, when you learn to understand that they're being driven by scary thoughts in your mind and you learn how to think on purpose, then you have the tools to get behind your decisions. So that's number six, the speed check. How fast can I decide and learn? Because you don't need more time, you need more trust. That's the reality.

Now, the next one's going to be interesting because it may seem as if it contradicts the one that I just said, but it actually works beautifully with it. Because speed of decision doesn't mean that you make a decision in a split second, right? It just means that you make a decision when you've gathered the information and you have a knowing and you just decide. We don't want to make reckless decisions. So speed doesn't necessarily mean, "Oh my God, I need to make a decision right now." But it also doesn't mean that you wait forever, right?

Speed is going to be different depending on the decision. There are going to be some decisions that we're facing that we don't want to make super fast, but we don't want to slow ourselves down unnecessarily either. So I call this one the reversibility check. And this is actually based off of something that I heard Jeff Bezos say one time that was really, really useful when it comes to making decisions. And he calls it the one-way or two-way door. Because not every decision is permanent and you need to know the difference.

When you are facing a high stakes, an irreversible decision, which is like a type one decision, that's when you may want to slow down a little bit and really move thoughtfully, really think about the potential downsides, think about are you willing to deal with the worst case scenario if it were to happen. These are decisions that are one-way doors. Once you go through it, you can't come back. And those you don't want to make super fast unless you just know, unless you're like, you know, you have all of the data, all of the information, and maybe the reason why you aren't making that decision is you're just afraid.

That's when you need to get on board. But sometimes we need to collect more data, we need to maybe bring some other ideas to the table, more options to the table, and really think it through. And this is when I would do a lot of the work that I talked about previously, really getting to know what's really important to me. What is my vision? Who is the woman that I'm becoming? I find that these type one decisions, these irreversible ones, they're so much easier to answer when you have that foundation in place. But type two decisions are the low stakes and reversible ones. These are the ones where I want you to practice deciding quickly over and over again. Don't wait. You can change it.

It's not a irreversible decision. So let me just give you a business example for this one. Let's say I want to test selling a new course on something. That's a quick decision, that's not irreversible. I can test it, see if it works, see what I like about it, what can be better about it. It's not a major structural change to my business. I can launch it to a limited audience, I can test it, I can adjust messaging. I can do all of that, or I can just scrap it and say, "This didn't work."

Those are the decisions, act quickly, decide, act, learn, keep the momentum going. Now, back in 2020, I made an irreversible decision. I decided to burn down my old brand and create School of Self-Image. That was a one-way door, and that was a decision that I made over the course of many months of really thinking about the motivation behind it, thinking about my values, thinking about my vision, thinking about my own self-image, and how I had grown as a woman and what I was ready to step into. That was not an overnight, "Let's just burn it all down because I'm having a bad day."

It was a very thought out decision. It was a one way door decision. Now, looking back for the enormity of that decision, I do think I did it pretty quickly, but it wasn't done in a day. It wasn't done even in a week or a month. I spent a lot of time really thinking that decision through, and more than anything, spending that time getting myself on board with the new decision because that was the most important part of that equation.

Had I gone into that doubting, second guessing and being full of fear, it would not have worked out as well as it has. It's been beyond my wildest dream. But it was one of those irreversible decisions that I wanted to go into very thoughtfully, very intentionally. When I think about irreversible decisions, I think about things like leaving a marriage, leaving a job, anything where you can't go back. Now, one could argue you can always go back to that job if they'll have. You can always go back to the marriage if that person will welcome you back. But for the most part, those types of decisions they do render the need for more thoughtfulness.

But again, speed is relative, right? Making that decision in six months might be a speedy decision relative to the thing that you're making the decision about. But on type two decisions, the low stakes, reversible ones, learn to make those really quickly. Just put the program out there, see how it works. Go for the interview, wear the dress, book the trip. All of those things are not irreversible. You're going to learn so much. And on the ones that are irreversible, spend some time getting to know who you are, what you really, really want, what you value. And even those, make those decisions quickly relative to the thing that you're deciding about.

Because here's the thing, you gain confidence not by being perfect, but by moving forward and refining as you go. So that's number seven. Number eight, and the final part of my Decision Filter is what I call the win-win check. Sometimes there is a way to honor both or several desires. Many times what we're deciding between is it this or is it that? And I love this question, is there a way to honor all of it? Because sometimes the choice isn't either or, it's yes and. And we limit ourselves when we look at life through such a myopic lens. So ask yourself, is there a way that you can honor both?

Or what would this look like if you assume both options could succeed? Remember, the quality of your life will be a reflection of the quality of your questions. And we often limit ourselves with our questions. We ask ourselves, which one is it going to be versus how can it be both? And so do a win-win check because maybe there's a world in which both of the things that you are deciding around can coexist together. A great example boils down to what I'm going to be announcing next week.

And without going into too much detail, I was thinking about it as I can either do this or that. And then I was like, "Wait, I think there's a way to honor what I deeply want for the summer and also stay extremely connected to my community." That's all I'm going to say for now before I give it away. And I came out of that even more excited. What felt at first as very limiting and didn't feel great, but I knew it's what I needed, turned into this creative brainstorming process for myself where I was like, "Oh my God, I'm more excited than ever." And it's because I did this win-win check.

How can I do this and that? Which led me to come up with so many other solutions that I would've never seen had I looked at it as it's got to either be this or that. Because here's what you need to know, powerful women don't choose between desire and alignment. They create solutions that honor both. So there you have it, folks. That is my Decision Filter for making powerful decisions. And at the end of the day, I feel like decisiveness is a self-image skill. When you see yourself as a decisive woman, guess what you're going to do? You're going to make decisions and lots of them, and every decision is going to teach you something.

It's going to move you along on your path much more quickly. Because your life right now is a result of decisions. Think about it. What you're experiencing right now is a result of decisions. So if you want your life to look and feel different, you're going to have to make different decisions. And every time you make a decision, what you are doing is you're telling yourself, "I am a woman who decides. I'm a woman who trusts herself. I'm a woman who has momentum in her life. I'm a woman who is taking action.

I'm a woman who knows what she wants, and I'm willing to say yes and no to the things that will help me get there or not get there." And you also know that every graceful pivot builds the kind of self-trust that changes your life. So make a commitment to yourself to more decisive and use this filter that I just offered you, make it your own. Maybe you want to tweak it, maybe you want to add some other checks in for yourself. But it really does boil down to you need to know who you are, you need to know what you want, and you need to know who you're becoming, and you need to trust your gut. Just those four alone will help you make more powerful decisions.

And then when you add in the motivation check, the speed check, the reversibility check and the win-win check, that is a framework for making powerful decisions in your life. Now, don't forget, if you have not downloaded The Sweet Spot Playbook, that really helps you get clear on your vision and your values and your essence, that self-image. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot and get that guide and give yourself self the beautiful experience of an hour or two with yourself, really thinking about where you're going, who you need to be to get there, and what matters to you most. All right, my friends, I hope you have the most beautiful week, I hope you make some powerful decisions, and I hope I'll see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

Before you go, I have a beautiful gift for you, especially if you're craving more ease, alignment, and clarity in your life. It's called The Sweet Spot Playbook, and it's completely free. Inside, I will guide you through a powerful four-step process to help you define what truly matters, clarify the woman you want to be, and start living from that energy starting today. So if you're done with the hustle, the confusion, and the endless striving, and you're ready to feel good while creating the life you want, this playbook is for you. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot to download your free copy. Because when you find your sweet spot, life doesn't just work better, it feels better. I'll see you there.