So I was sitting in a coffee shop with one of my favorite people, who is in my inner circle. To be in my inner circle, you must have integrity, loyalty and I must truly trust you with all aspects of my life. The friend that I was meeting with, as a little background, has about 15 years of additional life experience on me and has always been someone that I look up to.  Informally, she has been an important mentor to me in my personal and professional life; always providing solid, objective feedback and being a great, supportive person in my life.

This coffee sharing time however was different today. My friend REALLY needed me to be there for her and I was honored to do so. My friend was in a state of confusion about a big decision she needed to make in her life regarding her career.  As a side note, I think it’s important to say that my friend is highly successful by many people’s standards and can pretty much get her pick of many high-level positions out there.  But one thing that I have learned through the years, is that it doesn’t matter how successful you are.  We all have big decisions to make and no matter where you are in life, you can still feel at odds with what decisions you should make.

So, back to my friend.  She came to me indicating that she’s got a very big decision to make and wasn’t sure what to do.  She’s presently in a high-ranking position with a great salary to match. Fortunately, this position gives her Live a balanced lifethe flexibility in hours so she can have quality family time. However, on the flip side, she admits that the other people that she works for are sometimes very hard to take.  They are negative and instead of working with each other, they work against each other.  She then told me that just the other day, she had been offered back a position she had years ago in a field that she is super passionate about. In this job, she was able to be creative and make decisions on her own. However, the salary is significantly lower and it’s one of those 24/7 positions that she’s on-call all the time and there would be very limited flexibility with other aspects of her life.  What a decision to make! As she discussed with me, and I totally agreed, many decisions we have to make in life have positives and negatives on each side and it’s sometimes really hard to determine the best decision for our lives.

I could tell she was exhausted about thinking of all of this and felt pressure to make a decision from outside influences that were communicating their opinions to her. As I was talking with my friend, I thought about how each one of us has our own story and what decisions we make sometimes involve other aspects of our life.  Because she was asking for my advice, I did what Values are keywas natural to me – to be ‘real’ and just say what I use every day of my life to make those tough decisions in my life.  I didn’t tell my friend what decision she should make. What I did tell her was, trust her gut instincts and go with what’s really important in her life. I felt like she needed to do what’s going to make her happy in life.

I keep referring to the person in this post as ‘my friend’ because she is currently in the decision-making process!  I wish the very best for her and know that if she follows her gut and what she values in her life, she will make the VERY best decision in her life!

We’ve all got big life decisions to make in our life at times!  When they come to you, take some time by yourself, preferably in a relaxed setting, and ask yourself these questions below:

  • What are the REALLY important things in my life?
  • Are my decisions aligned with who I really am? my values? what I truly believe in? … Are they best for my life?
  • What is my gut instinct telling me about the decision(s) I need to make in my life?
  • Am I doing what I am passionate about?  Will the decision I make, contribute to happiness in my life?

So is there a big decision you need to make? Or have you made a big decision recently in your life?  Other than the questions above, what other things do you think about when you’ve got a big decision to make?  I would love to hear from you!

Sig2