Taking back control and ownership with conscious decision making

I’m going to have to start out with an apology?

I’m sorry?

I’ve been away for about 6 weeks and not got a newsletter issue out for a time?

Not that any of you were waking up and giving it a second thought but still...

Now I could sit here and tell you that I’ve been busy

• Building new programmes
• Serving clients?
• Spending time with my family?

But I’m going to put my hands up and take full ownership

I put this newsletter together to provide you with practical, hands on physical and mental health related topics - covering nutrition, energy, performance, exercise, mindset and overall optimisation

Thing is, I have to be honest and say that I made a conscious decision to do it.

See there’s a difference between conscious and unconscious decision making?

A conscious decision:? making a decision with full awareness, having assessed the implications and being ok with it.

E.g. deciding to have the pizza at the weekend, because you know that you'll enjoy it, whilst pulling back on calories a bit in the week to compensate for it.

An unconscious decision: making a decision with no awareness, usually because it is a habitual pre-programmed response to a given stimulus or set of stimuli and not giving thought to any further implications.

E.g.?hustling through day after day, smashing your career, but not taking stock of how it affects your health or relationships .

Although most people I talk to are the equivalent of a modern day corporate athlete, competing at the top of their game mentally where the stakes are as high (or higher) than some of the biggest international sports matches. ? There are still a number of areas that I find people often make unconscious decisions in:

Unconscious decision making in relation to your Energy levels:

This leads to burnout - a state of being? emotionally, physically and mentally drained caused by excessive and prolonged stress and high cortisol levels.

Often burnout is unconscious, because we’re not aware of how the stress is accumulating and feel that we don’t or can’t make time to reflect so instead we just throw another cup of coffee on it or take the weekend and then jump straight back into the pressure cooker?

Unconscious decision making in relation to Food/Nutrition:

This leads to weight gain - often people will gain weight unconsciously, because they are not aware of what is in the food that they eat, they don’t track their calories and think that?they'll be able to just burn it off through exercise alone.

It’s not until you reach a tipping point where the weight puts you in so much pain (physical, mental or emotional) that you acknowledge it and start trying to make conscious decisions in relation to how you eat.

Unconscious decisions also lead to poor physical and mental health.? Generally having quick, easy on the go food, chosen without thought, leads to inflammation in the body.? As this builds up, if not kept in check this can often lead to degenerative diseases and auto-immune disorders later on in life.

Unconscious decision making in relation to Exercise:

By not making time for exercise and letting the day run away with you, focussing all of your energy on business, what will happen over time is a higher risk of circulatory issues which can lead to things like heart disease, muscle and skeletal degeneration > leading to aches, pains and a greater chance of things like osteoarthritis.

Unconscious decision making in relation to Emotions:?

When you don’t consciously take stock of your emotions, this can lead to irritability, stress (cortisol hormone which increases weight gain and ageing), anger and suppression of deeper emotions, which then resurface at other times - often bursting out when we least expect or desire.

In contrast, conscious decision making leads to:

Ownership - you take responsibility for your actions because they are made with full awareness.? You accept the consequences and deal with them.?

Empowerment - As you start to take ownership, you feel empowered to make the right decisions more often.? Rather than just keeping things on auto-pilot and relying on habitual responses, you choose your actions consciously from moment to moment as you become more present. in

Control - The greatest part about conscious decision making is that it allows you to take back control of areas of your life that may have felt out of control before.? By being conscious, you focus on the things you directly have control over and condition yourself to tune out or leave the things that you can’t (thus saving you energy and mental capacity for other more important things in your life).

How to instil conscious decision making:

1. Start to identify areas where you have been making unconscious decisions e.g. trying to work late continually to get tasks done, which has led to lower productivity and efficiency each day as you continually work in an energy deficit.
2. Pattern interrupt, by recognising this action/behaviour and bring awareness to it, so that you are conscious of it.
3. Make decision in the moment to continue with the behaviour or to cease.? If you continue at least you are doing it with full awareness as opposed to being on autopilot
4. Reflect on your actions and performance each day or week and see what is going well and what could go better - where and how can you improve.

So this weekend, whether it be with your energy levels, exercise, food or even emotions - make conscious decisions, take ownership and gain back control.

=================================================================

If you want to actually see this in action and understand what can actually be achieved through behaviour change psychology and performance optimisation?then watch my most recent interview with ex-client Alex Yates - Where is he now? A year in the life after coaching.

================================================================

Need more help and want to explore working with a performance coach?

We've got possibly our best offer of the year out now.

If you havn't seen already click the link below - I've partnered with an 8-figure biz owner for private consulting on your biz, 1on1 private coaching with me for a full day AND the newly upgraded and relaunched Reignite PRO 12 week performance optimisation programme.