The Real Reason You Can't Decide

Dear Worthy Woman,

A few years ago, when I was building my first coaching brand, I stumbled onto the website of a branding expert I knew nothing about.

Her site and approach spoke directly to my heart. There was just one problem. Her prices were three times my budget, and her company was in Austria, which meant that if things went wrong, my only recourse involved international law.

I signed on anyway, in a single phone call, without a pro-con list or a week of second-guessing. We built a custom package that met my budget and got to work.

In years past, I would have spent weeks researching, chasing referrals, and running through every possible outcome before committing to anything. What I eventually understood was that none of that research was actually about making a better decision. It was about trying to control something I could not guarantee.

When I stopped trying to control the outcome and started trusting my own judgment, I got hours of my life back. I also stopped Googling “how to know if you’re making the right decision” at midnight, which is not a rabbit hole I recommend.

If you are ready to stop circling and start trusting yourself, the Decision Hour was built for exactly this moment. Book your Decision Hour today.

Book Your Decision Hour Session Now

When I think about what I want most for my daughter, the answer comes back again and again to self-trust.

As women of color, we are conditioned from an early age to look outside ourselves for the answers. We learn to scan the room before we speak. We are taught to check whether our instincts are “acceptable” before we act on them. We learn to treat our own inner knowing as a rough draft that requires external validation before it becomes official.

We stop, defer, and deliberate endlessly, waiting for someone or something outside of us to tell us we’ve got it right. So much so that indecision becomes a way of life for women who are, by every measure, more than capable of deciding.

Indecision is rarely about not knowing. I say that from my own life and from sitting across from high-achieving women of color who are brilliant by every external measure. It is almost always about not being willing to trust what you already know.

We are afraid to trust ourselves because we have been told, in a thousand explicit and implicit ways, that we cannot. We are told that our instincts will lead us wrong, that our judgment is flawed, or that wanting something different is naive, selfish, or just a little too much.

I want my daughter (and you) to feel that even if she wants something that is “too much” in the eyes of others, including me, she can trust herself to go after it anyway because she is the best judge of what she needs.

Self-trust is not certainty. It is not knowing exactly how things will turn out or having a guarantee that you will not fail. It also does not mean that you leave self-awareness and discernment behind.

Instead, self-trust is knowing that whatever happens on the other side of the decision, you will not fall apart. And even if you do, you will put yourself back together.

When you trust yourself, you move toward what you want, not because you have eliminated all risk, but because you have stopped requiring yourself to prove that you are allowed to want it.

What keeps women of color stuck in indecision usually isn’t a thinking problem. They have done plenty of thinking already. It is a trust problem.

And the solution is not more time, more research, or one more conversation with a friend who is just as stuck as you are. It’s trusting yourself and getting the support you need to take action aligned with that trust.

If you are ready to stop circling and start trusting yourself, the Decision Hour was built for exactly this moment. It is a focused coaching session where we name what you actually want, build a framework for making the call, and create clear steps for what comes next. No more lists. Just a decision. You want it?

Book your Decision Hour today at wokeupworthy.com/decision-hour.

In power and solidarity,

Toya

If you are ready to stop circling and start trusting yourself, the Decision Hour was built for exactly this moment. Book your Decision Hour today.

Book Your Decision Hour Now