14. Making Empowered Decisions
What are the decisions that you’re making day in and day out that just seem to happen by default? Does your brain offer you the same pre-selected options for how to run your life and business? Are you craving a fresh start instead?
If you notice that you’re living your everyday through decisions that no longer serve you, this is your invitation to redecide. As the CEO of your interior design business, you get to make new decisions now or in the future, intentionally keep a decision you love, or decide on something entirely different. It’s all about empowering yourself to make decisions that serve you and your business, and I’m showing you how.
Join me this week to discover why redeciding is a great opportunity to look at the decisions that have contributed to the results you have in your life and business, and go all-in on decisions that you love. I’m sharing examples of decisions you can revisit, and my process for choosing decisions with your eyes wide open.
Are you ready to Create Your 2023 Roadmap? I’m holding a two-part guided workshop experience to help you set a vision for the year and decide how to get there. I’m sharing my process for setting and achieving any goal in a simple and specific way to guide you throughout the next 12 months, as well as providing live coaching. All of this is $87, we start on January 27th 2023, and you can click here to sign up!
Out of Overwhelm is my signature six-month program designed to take you from overwhelmed and stressed to profitable, in control, and fulfilled. Doors open for the next round in June 2023, so if you love the topics covered on the podcast, click here to get yourself on the waitlist!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
How there are many decisions in your life and business that are going unchecked.
Why our brains will continue to choose the same pre-selected options until we intentionally consider other options.
What redeciding in your interior design business is all about.
Examples of decisions you can revisit.
My process for redeciding various components of your life and business.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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If you love what you’re learning on the show, I’d love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, designer, you’re listening to episode 14. This is the one where I’m talking all about re-deciding in your interior design business. This is your opportunity to look at the results you have in your business and the decisions that have contributed to those results and make a fresh start.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designers. Welcome back to the podcast. So excited to have you here, as always. I am really jazzed because this Friday, January 27th, is the first of two sessions for Create Your 2023 Roadmap. You’ve probably heard me talking about this. It is going to be your opportunity to plan your year with me. It’s going to be a combination of teaching, workshopping, and developing your vision for the year. And then making a plan to achieve it. How fun is that?
You’re also going to get coached by me and do this in the community with your peers. It has been really fun to see the excitement building around this with past clients and those of you who I haven’t worked with yet. I want to remind you that it is only $87, and that includes the two group coaching sessions and a beautiful workbook to guide you through my process.
And you’re also going to get access to my last workshop that I put on, Goal-Setting For Busy Interior Designers, because that has a lot of amazing tools and strategies that are going to support you in executing your plan throughout the year; the plan that we’re going to create together. You can find the link with all of the details and sign up in the show notes. Like I said, it’s this Friday, and there will be a replay if you can’t join me live.
During Create Your 2023 Roadmap, I’m going to walk you through my process to create a business and life vision that’s going to help inform you about setting a goal for the year and deciding what you’ll implement and also what you’re just going to delete off the plan, or those ideas that are kind of hanging over like a gloomy cloud that you don’t seem to get to.
This is a great way to put into practice what we’re going to be talking about today on re-deciding in your interior design business. Your vision acts as a way to filter decisions. A decision is really just the act of choosing something. A lot of my clients, when they start working with me, view decisions as a passive experience where things are just happening to them, and they’re along for the ride.
What I help them see, and what I want you to see today, is that a decision is an action. You may or may not be aware of your decision or action or even that you’re in indecision, but it’s always an active choice.
Before we dive in, I want to celebrate the final podcast winner for the $50 Jayson Home gift card. And this winner today is LTC123. And they have titled their review clear and valuable. They say, “Desi delivers. She masterfully weaves wisdom with practical strategies to help us transform stress and overwhelm into a calm, intentional, profitable work/life balance. Keep them coming, Desi.” Well, I will. Good news.
All right, I’m going to have you send me a DM on Instagram @DesiCreswell with your full name and mailing address, so I can get that gift card out to you. That is the end of the Jayson Home giveaway. And I’m also kind of thinking about what should I do a giveaway on next. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. If you have ideas, send me a message. Thank you, LTC123, and thank you to all of you who have rated and reviewed the show.
The reviews mean so, so much to me. It is how you can support me in getting these tools and concepts out to more designers. If you haven’t left a rating or review, I would appreciate it so much if you would let me know what you’re loving about the podcast.
Let’s get back to the topic of re-deciding. This is really important because, so often, we’re living our lives and running our businesses on default. There’s some decision or pre-selected option that’s in place, and when you don’t go through the process I’m sharing here today, your brain continues to choose the same option and often neglects to see that there are even other options available to you.
And that’s because our brains are designed to be efficient. They’re designed to take the easy route, which really is the most practiced route. So the decision we’ve made before is always going to be the most practiced or easy route because the brain wants to expend the least amount of energy.
This is really beneficial to you in a lot of ways. Even think about driving to the grocery store. You have one way you like to go. I know I do. There’s probably another route. But you go that one way that you always go. You don’t want to spend mental energy re-deciding your route every time you go to the store. In this sense, our brain is working really well for us.
Now, your grocery store route is likely inconsequential in the big picture of things, but there are many decisions in your life and business that are going unchecked that are running on default. Everything you’ve created in your business; the income, the types of projects, the support you have, and how you experience your day-to-day, it’s all a result of previous decisions.
The results you create going forward will be because of decisions you make today, tomorrow, and in the future. And this is where re-deciding comes into play. It’s about making a conscious decision in the now, not because that’s what you’ve always done or because that’s a decision you made three years ago when it worked for you then. It’s about deciding again for yourself right now.
I’m really going through my own phase of re-deciding in my business. And I think the beginning of the year is a great time to do this, and so I want to invite you to do the same. And I’m going to walk you through how I think about re-deciding.
Re-deciding is all about looking at the decisions you’re making in the present, whether those are conscious or unconscious decisions. When you notice you’re running on default or living out of decisions that no longer serve you, I want you to take a pause. That is your invitation to re-decide.
Let me give you a few examples of decisions you could start to revisit to get your mind going on this topic. It could be employees you’ve hired or the contractors or trades you work with. The types of clients you serve, the types of services you offer, your pricing or how you handle selling products, or what your daily schedule is like.
The support you have in your business or the way you’re supported, this could be a coach or a mentor. What your morning routine is and the support that you have personally falls into this, too. Whether that’s childcare, having someone to help you with laundry, or your meal prep, or making sure that you get a great workout in, whatever it is.
Hopefully, that gets your mind going on what types of decisions you’re living out right now. And then as you start to look at the various components of your business and your life too, because this process applies there as well, you might find there are a lot of things that are still a yes for you, and that’s amazing. And through the lens of a life and business vision, you’re going to be able to see what’s also a no.
Your no might be what feels like a permanent no. It could be a no, not right now. You might even find that something has always been a no, but you just haven’t given yourself permission to let it be a no. The first step in this process is getting clear on where you’re headed.
We’re going to be doing this together in Create Your 2023 Roadmap, so be sure to sign up for that. And in the meantime, what I want you to ask yourself is, what do I really, really want? Then it’s time to make a list of the decisions you’re currently living out and go one by one and ask yourself if you want to keep that decision or if it’s time to re-decide.
Whenever I’m making a decision, I always look at what my reasons are for making that decision. And more importantly, do I like my reasons? For example, I was coaching a client on this in Out Of Overwhelm, and she had an employee that used to perform really well for her and really contributed to the company. But at present, she was noticing a lot of missed deadlines, a lack of accountability, and some other issues.
She was continuing to work with this person out of default and a past decision. And when we uncovered that, we looked at her reasoning behind why she hadn’t made a change even though things were feeling off and she wasn’t getting the results she wanted from this person. The reason she hadn’t re-decided or made a new decision about this employee was that she didn’t want to have that uncomfortable conversation.
As we coached, she really understood that she did not like that reason for keeping this person on. And then she was able to ask herself, why do I want to have this conversation? Why do I want to make a new decision to support me going forward?
This is what I help a lot of my clients do, is helping them understand what they want to do, why they want to do it, and what would be best for their business, and then helping them navigate the discomfort that comes with making decisions that are in alignment with where you’re going and not where you’ve been. I talk all about getting comfortable with discomfort in episode six. I’ll link that in the show notes so that you can go back and listen to it.
Once we know what you’re re-deciding to keep and what you’re deciding to let go, you’re going to have your next steps, and you can plan accordingly. There are really only two options here, you keep the decision you had and re-decide that you want it still. Or you decide you don’t want that decision, and you make a new decision, and you make a plan to implement the new decision.
Another Out Of Overwhelm client said that one of the reasons she’s made so much progress in the last six months, and why she’s also loving her business now, is because she’s learned to make powerful decisions on a consistent basis. She makes a decision, implements that decision, evaluates the results, then makes a new decision, and so on. Making empowered decisions and re-deciding for yourself creates momentum, and it empowers you in your business as the CEO.
I will say if there’s something you know you want to change or it needs to change, but you aren’t ready to change it right now, whether it’s going to require resources you don’t currently have, or you just aren’t ready to wade through the emotional discomfort of it, there is also power in deciding to choose your current decision, knowing that you’re going to revisit it at a later date.
This means you acknowledge that you’re keeping the decision. You are actively choosing it. And instead of shoulding yourself or looping in indecision, you tell yourself, I’m choosing this right now. And then decide when you’re going to revisit that decision in the future.
When you follow this process, you get to drop the mental and emotional weight of spinning on a decision or having that nagging feeling that something isn’t right. And you get to go all in on loving your decisions, the ones that you’re choosing to make, eyes wide open. And that feels amazing.
This is an important piece here. You can re-decide and love your current decisions. It’s just taking a look at what is that decision and do I want to keep it. I think about this with the relationship that I have with my business, especially when something’s feeling really hard or frustrating. That always gives me pause. It’s an opportunity for me to re-decide that I want this business. I want to help and serve the designers that I’m serving. I get to decide that I want the hard. That it’s part of owning a business, and when I want the hard stuff, I get to enjoy the really amazing stuff as well.
I even think about this in my relationships, like my personal relationships, such as with my husband. We’ve crossed the point now where we’ve been together longer than we haven’t been together, which kind of blows my mind. And I know there are things that bug him about what I do and vice versa, right? That’s in any relationship. And I’m also actively choosing to love him and our relationship on a consistent basis.
And this doesn’t mean that you can’t make changes. You still might want to tweak aspects of a decision that you’re living out. But making changes to improve something from a place of I want this feels so much better and is so much more effective than trying to make a change from a decision you know you’re not on board with.
Let me give you a recap on re-deciding. First, you’re going to focus your attention on where you’re going, not where you’ve been. One of the ways you can do this is through creating a business and life vision. And if you want more details on that and how I think about it, check out episode one, and also sign up for Create Your 2023 Roadmap by clicking the link in the show notes.
Then you’re going to make a list of decisions you’re currently living out. And you’re going to decide if you want to keep those decisions or make new ones, making sure you like your reasons. You get to love what you decide to keep and start taking action on what’s going to go or what’s going to change.
As the interior design business CEO that you are, you can re-decide now, and you can re-decide in the future. You always have the opportunity to keep a decision and to decide something new. Nothing is permanent. This is so empowering, and it is a great way to run your business.
I’d love to know what you’re re-deciding in your business this year, so reach out to me on Instagram and send me a message. Or we can coach on it live in Create Your 2023 Roadmap.
In the next episode, I’m going to be sharing all about the difference between impeccability and perfectionism, something I see so many clients get hung up on. Even if you don’t identify as a perfectionist, you have to listen to this episode. You’re not going to want to miss it. So hit the follow button for the podcast so it’ll pop up as soon as it’s released.
I hope to see many of you this Friday for Create Your 2023 Roadmap. If you haven’t signed up, reminder, it’s in the show notes, and it’s only $87. So go sign up now and do something nice for yourself. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies, visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designers. Welcome back to the podcast. So excited to have you here, as always. I am really jazzed because this Friday, January 27th, is the first of two sessions for Create Your 2023 Roadmap. You’ve probably heard me talking about this. It is going to be your opportunity to plan your year with me. It’s going to be a combination of teaching, workshopping, and developing your vision for the year. And then making a plan to achieve it. How fun is that?
You’re also going to get coached by me and do this in the community with your peers. It has been really fun to see the excitement building around this with past clients and those of you who I haven’t worked with yet. I want to remind you that it is only $87, and that includes the two group coaching sessions and a beautiful workbook to guide you through my process.
And you’re also going to get access to my last workshop that I put on, Goal-Setting For Busy Interior Designers, because that has a lot of amazing tools and strategies that are going to support you in executing your plan throughout the year; the plan that we’re going to create together. You can find the link with all of the details and sign up in the show notes. Like I said, it’s this Friday, and there will be a replay if you can’t join me live.
During Create Your 2023 Roadmap, I’m going to walk you through my process to create a business and life vision that’s going to help inform you about setting a goal for the year and deciding what you’ll implement and also what you’re just going to delete off the plan, or those ideas that are kind of hanging over like a gloomy cloud that you don’t seem to get to.
This is a great way to put into practice what we’re going to be talking about today on re-deciding in your interior design business. Your vision acts as a way to filter decisions. A decision is really just the act of choosing something. A lot of my clients, when they start working with me, view decisions as a passive experience where things are just happening to them, and they’re along for the ride.
What I help them see, and what I want you to see today, is that a decision is an action. You may or may not be aware of your decision or action or even that you’re in indecision, but it’s always an active choice.
Before we dive in, I want to celebrate the final podcast winner for the $50 Jayson Home gift card. And this winner today is LTC123. And they have titled their review clear and valuable. They say, “Desi delivers. She masterfully weaves wisdom with practical strategies to help us transform stress and overwhelm into a calm, intentional, profitable work/life balance. Keep them coming, Desi.” Well, I will. Good news.
All right, I’m going to have you send me a DM on Instagram @DesiCreswell with your full name and mailing address, so I can get that gift card out to you. That is the end of the Jayson Home giveaway. And I’m also kind of thinking about what should I do a giveaway on next. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. If you have ideas, send me a message. Thank you, LTC123, and thank you to all of you who have rated and reviewed the show.
The reviews mean so, so much to me. It is how you can support me in getting these tools and concepts out to more designers. If you haven’t left a rating or review, I would appreciate it so much if you would let me know what you’re loving about the podcast.
Let’s get back to the topic of re-deciding. This is really important because, so often, we’re living our lives and running our businesses on default. There’s some decision or pre-selected option that’s in place, and when you don’t go through the process I’m sharing here today, your brain continues to choose the same option and often neglects to see that there are even other options available to you.
And that’s because our brains are designed to be efficient. They’re designed to take the easy route, which really is the most practiced route. So the decision we’ve made before is always going to be the most practiced or easy route because the brain wants to expend the least amount of energy.
This is really beneficial to you in a lot of ways. Even think about driving to the grocery store. You have one way you like to go. I know I do. There’s probably another route. But you go that one way that you always go. You don’t want to spend mental energy re-deciding your route every time you go to the store. In this sense, our brain is working really well for us.
Now, your grocery store route is likely inconsequential in the big picture of things, but there are many decisions in your life and business that are going unchecked that are running on default. Everything you’ve created in your business; the income, the types of projects, the support you have, and how you experience your day-to-day, it’s all a result of previous decisions.
The results you create going forward will be because of decisions you make today, tomorrow, and in the future. And this is where re-deciding comes into play. It’s about making a conscious decision in the now, not because that’s what you’ve always done or because that’s a decision you made three years ago when it worked for you then. It’s about deciding again for yourself right now.
I’m really going through my own phase of re-deciding in my business. And I think the beginning of the year is a great time to do this, and so I want to invite you to do the same. And I’m going to walk you through how I think about re-deciding.
Re-deciding is all about looking at the decisions you’re making in the present, whether those are conscious or unconscious decisions. When you notice you’re running on default or living out of decisions that no longer serve you, I want you to take a pause. That is your invitation to re-decide.
Let me give you a few examples of decisions you could start to revisit to get your mind going on this topic. It could be employees you’ve hired or the contractors or trades you work with. The types of clients you serve, the types of services you offer, your pricing or how you handle selling products, or what your daily schedule is like.
The support you have in your business or the way you’re supported, this could be a coach or a mentor. What your morning routine is and the support that you have personally falls into this, too. Whether that’s childcare, having someone to help you with laundry, or your meal prep, or making sure that you get a great workout in, whatever it is.
Hopefully, that gets your mind going on what types of decisions you’re living out right now. And then as you start to look at the various components of your business and your life too, because this process applies there as well, you might find there are a lot of things that are still a yes for you, and that’s amazing. And through the lens of a life and business vision, you’re going to be able to see what’s also a no.
Your no might be what feels like a permanent no. It could be a no, not right now. You might even find that something has always been a no, but you just haven’t given yourself permission to let it be a no. The first step in this process is getting clear on where you’re headed.
We’re going to be doing this together in Create Your 2023 Roadmap, so be sure to sign up for that. And in the meantime, what I want you to ask yourself is, what do I really, really want? Then it’s time to make a list of the decisions you’re currently living out and go one by one and ask yourself if you want to keep that decision or if it’s time to re-decide.
Whenever I’m making a decision, I always look at what my reasons are for making that decision. And more importantly, do I like my reasons? For example, I was coaching a client on this in Out Of Overwhelm, and she had an employee that used to perform really well for her and really contributed to the company. But at present, she was noticing a lot of missed deadlines, a lack of accountability, and some other issues.
She was continuing to work with this person out of default and a past decision. And when we uncovered that, we looked at her reasoning behind why she hadn’t made a change even though things were feeling off and she wasn’t getting the results she wanted from this person. The reason she hadn’t re-decided or made a new decision about this employee was that she didn’t want to have that uncomfortable conversation.
As we coached, she really understood that she did not like that reason for keeping this person on. And then she was able to ask herself, why do I want to have this conversation? Why do I want to make a new decision to support me going forward?
This is what I help a lot of my clients do, is helping them understand what they want to do, why they want to do it, and what would be best for their business, and then helping them navigate the discomfort that comes with making decisions that are in alignment with where you’re going and not where you’ve been. I talk all about getting comfortable with discomfort in episode six. I’ll link that in the show notes so that you can go back and listen to it.
Once we know what you’re re-deciding to keep and what you’re deciding to let go, you’re going to have your next steps, and you can plan accordingly. There are really only two options here, you keep the decision you had and re-decide that you want it still. Or you decide you don’t want that decision, and you make a new decision, and you make a plan to implement the new decision.
Another Out Of Overwhelm client said that one of the reasons she’s made so much progress in the last six months, and why she’s also loving her business now, is because she’s learned to make powerful decisions on a consistent basis. She makes a decision, implements that decision, evaluates the results, then makes a new decision, and so on. Making empowered decisions and re-deciding for yourself creates momentum, and it empowers you in your business as the CEO.
I will say if there’s something you know you want to change or it needs to change, but you aren’t ready to change it right now, whether it’s going to require resources you don’t currently have, or you just aren’t ready to wade through the emotional discomfort of it, there is also power in deciding to choose your current decision, knowing that you’re going to revisit it at a later date.
This means you acknowledge that you’re keeping the decision. You are actively choosing it. And instead of shoulding yourself or looping in indecision, you tell yourself, I’m choosing this right now. And then decide when you’re going to revisit that decision in the future.
When you follow this process, you get to drop the mental and emotional weight of spinning on a decision or having that nagging feeling that something isn’t right. And you get to go all in on loving your decisions, the ones that you’re choosing to make, eyes wide open. And that feels amazing.
This is an important piece here. You can re-decide and love your current decisions. It’s just taking a look at what is that decision and do I want to keep it. I think about this with the relationship that I have with my business, especially when something’s feeling really hard or frustrating. That always gives me pause. It’s an opportunity for me to re-decide that I want this business. I want to help and serve the designers that I’m serving. I get to decide that I want the hard. That it’s part of owning a business, and when I want the hard stuff, I get to enjoy the really amazing stuff as well.
I even think about this in my relationships, like my personal relationships, such as with my husband. We’ve crossed the point now where we’ve been together longer than we haven’t been together, which kind of blows my mind. And I know there are things that bug him about what I do and vice versa, right? That’s in any relationship. And I’m also actively choosing to love him and our relationship on a consistent basis.
And this doesn’t mean that you can’t make changes. You still might want to tweak aspects of a decision that you’re living out. But making changes to improve something from a place of I want this feels so much better and is so much more effective than trying to make a change from a decision you know you’re not on board with.
Let me give you a recap on re-deciding. First, you’re going to focus your attention on where you’re going, not where you’ve been. One of the ways you can do this is through creating a business and life vision. And if you want more details on that and how I think about it, check out episode one, and also sign up for Create Your 2023 Roadmap by clicking the link in the show notes.
Then you’re going to make a list of decisions you’re currently living out. And you’re going to decide if you want to keep those decisions or make new ones, making sure you like your reasons. You get to love what you decide to keep and start taking action on what’s going to go or what’s going to change.
As the interior design business CEO that you are, you can re-decide now, and you can re-decide in the future. You always have the opportunity to keep a decision and to decide something new. Nothing is permanent. This is so empowering, and it is a great way to run your business.
I’d love to know what you’re re-deciding in your business this year, so reach out to me on Instagram and send me a message. Or we can coach on it live in Create Your 2023 Roadmap.
In the next episode, I’m going to be sharing all about the difference between impeccability and perfectionism, something I see so many clients get hung up on. Even if you don’t identify as a perfectionist, you have to listen to this episode. You’re not going to want to miss it. So hit the follow button for the podcast so it’ll pop up as soon as it’s released.
I hope to see many of you this Friday for Create Your 2023 Roadmap. If you haven’t signed up, reminder, it’s in the show notes, and it’s only $87. So go sign up now and do something nice for yourself. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies, visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
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