How To Make a Damn Decision

How To Make a Damn Decision
by Joshua Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus
The first step in any journey is often the most difficult. This was true for our journey into
minimalism. In this case, our first step had nothing to do with a task that we had to
complete. Our first step was deciding. Or, rather, deciding that we wanted to make a
significant change in our lives.
Making decisions is often difficult. And procrastination is easy, at least for the
moment. But there is no reward in procrastination.
Everett Bogue, in an essay that eventually led us to create our website, summed it
up like this:
Whether it’s leaving your wife, destroying your car, burning the bridges at your
high paying job you hate, or running away from your childhood home. It’s all the
same, and it’s all hard.
The truth is that you deserve to be happy, and something is in the way.
Our society is being reborn, but in order to follow the path we have to make tough
choices. There will have to be yes or no answers. You can’t keep it all and have
freedom too.
Sooner or later the moment will come when you can’t hide from the things we’ve
done anymore.
…and you’ll have to make a choice, which I really believe is between life and
death.
For years you couldn’t figure out what the problem was, instead you had this raw
aching feeling that something/somewhere was terribly wrong.
And that’s exactly right. But the most difficult part of creating a change is deciding to
make that change a reality, it’s deciding when to take action, it’s when you know that
you must make a decision in order to change your life.
This might sound like abstract nonsense or hyperbole, so let’s get more concrete.
Two Kinds of Decisions
Fundamentally, we believe that there are two kinds of decisions you can make:
intellectual decisions and emotional decisions.
Intellectually, we knew that we wanted a change in our lives. We knew we were
unhappy, unsatisfied, unfulfilled. We knew that we didn’t have freedom. Not
real freedom. The problem is that we knew these things intellectually but
not emotionally. We didn’t have the feeling in our guts that things must change. We
knew they should change but the change wasn’t a must for us. And, as we consistently
reiterate, the fundamental shift occurs in one’s life when they change their shoulds into
musts.
Should vs. Must
And so it’s just like anything else you tell yourself.
I should change.
I should stop wasting my money.
I should work less.
I should get rid of all this junk.
I should eat healthier food.
I should exercise.
I should write more.
I should read more.
I should watch less TV.
I should, I should, I should.
Anthony Robbins has a good aphorism to describe all these shoulds in your life,
he says that after a while you end up “shoulding all over yourself.” It may be an off-color
analogy, but it’s fitting because you really do feel like shit after you’ve put everything off
for so long, after you’ve procrastinated over and over and over.
But once you understand these things on an emotional level, you are able to turn
your shoulds into musts. We believe that is the pivotal point. That is when you get
leverage. That is when you are compelled to take action.
Thus, a decision is not a real decision until it is a must for you, until you feel it on
your nerve endings and it effects you at a cellular level, until you are compelled to take
action. Once your shoulds have turned into musts, then you have made a real decision.
I must change.
I must stop wasting my money.
I must work less.
I must get rid of all this junk.
I must eat healthier food.
I must exercise.
I must write more.
I must read more.
I must watch less TV (or no TV at all).
I must, I must, I must.
Go back and say these things out loud. Serious, don’t do anything else until you
go back and say those musts out loud. Do you feel how much more powerful they feel
than the same exact list of shoulds above? The should list is passive and defeated and
lethargic and dead. The musts are alive and filled with vigor and strength and energy. I
must take action!
Now, your only exercise for today is simple, it’s to make your Must List. What
are your musts? What must happen in your life for a fundamental change to occur? Take
as much time as you need and write down all of your musts.
I must…
I must…
I must…
We must take action. That’s what we decided when we started this journey. And
you must take action too.
Your first day on your journey isn’t even about taking action though (you’ll take
action every day after today), but your first day is still your hardest day. Today is the day
that you must decide that things must change. You know, at least intellectually, that you
are not happy with how things are in your life. But you can’t have it both ways. You
can’t want it to be one way, when your actions are the other way. If your actions are not
congruent with your desires, then you will never feel happy, never feel fulfilled, never be
content.
Take a look at your Must List. Put that list somewhere where you will see it all the
time. Now stop everything you are doing and make a decision. Make a decision to
change your life, to live your life the way you want to live it. Don’t just think about the
change intellectually, feel it in your gut. Know that you must change. Feel the change on
your nerve endings.
Today is the best day of your life, because today is the day that everything
changes. Today is the day that your shoulds turn into your musts. Today is the day you
decide to take action. Today is first day of the rest of your new life, your new minimalist
life.