Decision Fatigue.. what it is & how to handle it

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Extreme Lifestyle Living Podcast. Now I have had a lot of technical difficulties getting this episode started, um, with the mic and everything, and won't get into a long tangent of it, but it's super fucking stressful. This is a huge reason as to why I don't do the video, but it's funny, the video actually worked perfectly. It was my phone, my phone's microphone kept. Hooking up to my phone, my laptop for some reason. So I couldn't use audio, not that it's relevant to anything, but if I'm a little flustered getting into it, that's why, because I was like, what the fuck's going on? And I almost literally just said, fuck this week's episode. Um, but actually it's funny, not that this topic is relevant to how I feel right now about it, but, um, I wanted to talk about decis decision fatigue. Not only do I wanna talk about this because a lot of my clients that I've talked about. With the last two or three weeks of their check-ins. Has this been relevant? But also I think it's a very simple topic because a lot of us struggle with that. I struggle with this for sure, like decision fatigue is literally just when you're so constantly tired of thinking about things over and over and over again that you don't wanna make any decisions. You know, we've all got to that point. Usually we're that like that. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, through the course of the week if you're working a ton. Do you know what I mean? And you're like, you know, you're just exhausted by the end of the week and it shouldn't be like that all the time. You know? And I, and kind of saying that out loud makes me realize I should probably work on my, um, day-to-day week to be processed. So I don't feel like that's through the course of the week. Um, I am in prep though, so I do, I do know that I'm more susceptible to stress with the lower calories, more output and things like that. But decision fatigue is literally just when you're just tired of making fucking decisions. And every single one of us. Has trouble with this, but I think a lot of us have trouble just understanding what our day-to-day actions look like when we have decision fatigue. And you know, since we are humans and we like to organically take care of ourselves, we have a safety net in our brain where we can't really, we become naive to our day-to-day, week to week stress when we don't really realize that we're. Kind of deteriorating mentally, if that makes sense. And why I say it that way is'cause when, when we talk about what decision fatigue is, every single person can understand it. We all understand the concept of it, but every single one of us struggles with it differently. And what I mean by struggle with it differently, it's how we, how we respond to it, how we acknowledge it, how we, how we figure it out. Because at the end of the day, all decision fatigue is, is like when it comes just related to, to nutrition is, you know, try to figure out when you're gonna work out. How do you schedule workouts? So when you're gonna meal prep, get groceries. You know, what meals you're gonna eat, what lunch, snacks, all these different things. All these are decision fatigues, you know, and then your boundaries in your life that you're thinking about every single day, every single week about, you know, what you can and can't do. Whether it's, you know, going on to certain outings, whether it's, you know, hanging with certain people or whether it, maybe you have like a work event that's gonna take you away from the gym, whatever means, but there's like thousands, thousands of decisions that need to be made through the course of the days and weeks to keep those standards high from a finished standpoint. And just from a factual standpoint, the brain thinks about. Almost 30,000 decisions a day. You know, when you wake up, just think about your morning routine of you getting ready for just a day to get set up. You're deciding when to make breakfast, deciding what to wear. You're deciding when to brush your teeth, wash your face, all these different things. So we have a lot of decisions we make, and a lot of'em are automated. You know, like a lot of times we. Don't really realize we're doing a lot of these different things. But again, as these decisions compound, as these decisions accumulate, we get tired. And the reason why I'm highlighting that like that is because decis, like I said, decision fatigue. We all understand it. We know what it is, but it's like how do we find out where we have that in our life? And the way I like to relate. Decision fatigue to my personal experiences with life is it's just, it's just a sign of stress. It's a sign of overwhelm. It's a sign that you need a break.'cause at the end of the day, no matter what level of life you're at, you're gonna be tired of doing things all the time. I love my life. I absolutely love every fucking avenue of it. I coach clients and I have a community that I absolutely love. I'm in a great relationship. My friends and family are all fucking doing great. I'm planning things for the rest this year. Like it could not get any better for me. That doesn't mean I still don't get decision fatigue and I'm tired of gonna the gym and tired of deciding when I'm gonna do certain things. It just ti tired of the even like work stuff, right? Just'cause I love work and it's truly, truly great, doesn't mean I'm gonna, I'm gonna get desired, uh, uh, fatigued from fucking making all these decisions to try to keep their standard high. So I think a big thing. Of with decision fatigue for you, is just to realize how it affects you. And the reason why it happens, like I said, is because of stress. You're tired of making these decisions. You're tired of making these repetitive things in your brain to the point of exhaustion where you say, fuck it. And that's a big sign when you're deciding to say, fuck it in terms of when you go to the gym or let this standard slide for small little things in your life. That's when you know that you're just not living the life that you need to be doing. And that's a big sign of decision fatigue When you stop making decisions for yourself, and again, it's overwhelming. You have too many tabs, open your head. So the, the way you combat decision fatigue is you gotta have systems in place for everything to make sure you're locked in. Like prime example with the gym. Like a lot of you guys at the beginning, when you start your workout program and start tracking your nutrition. We get a lot of fatigue from deciding when we're gonna buy groceries. What are we going to eat? How are we gonna cook it? When are we gonna pack it? How are we gonna put that into our day-to-day life? And then when are we gonna go to the gym? Like all of that is super exhausting the first month of starting a program. But eventually you create systems and day-to-day habits and routines that keep that standard high. Prime example, most people start training in the morning. So there you're not deciding when you're gonna train. You know you're gonna be up at 5:00 AM to go get your workout at 6:00 AM to be at work for 8:00 AM there your decision's gone. You got a routine, your standards are high, you don't gotta think about it anymore. Same with the nutrition. You know, we all talk about meal prep, buying groceries and finding foods you like. Once you find a set of foods you like. You don't have to decide every day what you're going to eat. You know your staples. You know, once you have a routine each week, you know, let's say it's Monday, or let's say it's Sunday and Wednesday, you meal prep your food. There's your routine, so you don't have to think about it, you know? Then you start meal prepping, you start planning your food, you start taking lunch, you start bringing snacks. You start realizing that you have a lot of this stuff automated. So when you feel decision fatigue coming up and you feel the symptoms of it, of it just being like, fuck everything. I don't wanna really make decisions for anything. Even when you're like, I don't even want to cook food right now. That's just a sign that you're stressed out. That's just a sign you need to take a step back and you know, nurture and rejuvenate your fucking soul so you can look at everything through a clear lens. Because no matter what level of life you're at, no matter how a ambitious you are, no matter how great everything is around you, if you're actually. Trying to become a better version of yourself every single day, and you're actually trying to challenge the people around you and challenge yourself to grow and just like make the best decisions every single day to just, you know, make sure you look back with life and know that you lived it as best as you can, fulfilled no regrets, you know, happy, full of joy, peace, and all these different things. You're gonna get decis decision fatigue.'cause you're gonna be, you're making decisions all the time as to what's gonna leverage your future, what's gonna make you progress, what's gonna make you grow, what's gonna make everything in the future better. So organically you're gonna be stressed out with that. I feel like that last week I was like that all week. Even up until now, because I'm getting into the thick of prep, I'm ta. 12, 11, 10 weeks out. So this is when I start, started having that big turning point of nutrition gets tested, my output gets tested, my energy gets tested. You know, on top of that, like, you know, I got a lot of business stuff that I got going on. So like, you know, that stuff gets tested. Even recording this podcast and getting it set up, you know, making the decisions to do this each day, each week that I've been doing forever, become a little bit more burdened because of the stress of other areas in my life. So it's just a symptom of just continuous growth, right? So it's not about. Being mad at yourself that you can't make decisions or being upset that you're, you know, having anxiety and animosity around these things. So you're creating a bunch of, like, again, like emotional fucking damage.'cause you're overthinking things. Just look at it as a sign that you're, you're, you're tapped out. You gotta take a step back and just look at your, look at your day-to-day, week-to-week routine. Like, what can I do to make these things more automated? You know, if you notice prime example, if you notice your laundry's always accumulating every weekend, create a system so you can, I know that's a random analogy, but it's the same thing I, I call decision fatigue is kinda like shin kicks. When you start to feel like life is giving you shin kicks where you're just getting pissed off all the time, you're cranky, you're as motivated to do the same things you wanna do every day, and you just don't want to fucking do shit. That's decision fatigue, and you're overwhelmed. So you need to take a step back. So anything that you're gonna ask yourself that is just in your way each week. If it's like, you know, you notice like prime example with the reason why I do groceries every Wednesday. It's'cause every fucking Thursday I'm running outta chicken and I run outta food and I'm mad as hell'cause I come back from the gym, get ready to do my work block, get ready to eat, and get into the day and set my, you know, week up for success. And I can't, because I gotta take two, three hours to get food cooking and prep it, eat it so I know if I take 20, 30 minutes every Wednesday evening, Saturday. Our Thursday through Saturday is absolutely fucking better. Same with laundry. Every Friday night and Saturday morning, I all the, all the house chores get done because it's just easier because Sunday I don't do house chores. I work and get the week set up. So it's all these small little things you just gotta ask yourself, what can I automate my day to day, week to week life that's gonna give you my desired outcome? And it's the same analogy with nutrition. You know, you want to gain muscle, lose fat, feel your absolute best. You're gonna track your protein, you're gonna track your track, your carbs, and you're gonna track your fats. And then how do you do that? You meal prep, you buy groceries, you have your standards and you track them. So you're gonna do all of those in alignment because you know it's gonna guarantee your success. So you create systems for it. so that's all you have to do with decision fatigue is really just take a step back, nurture your soul, and that's a whole other conversation of how you nurture your soul and relax. A lot of people don't how to do that. Which is why they go back into decision, back into fatigue and back into all these different things. So if you don't know how to nurture your soul, unplug and actually rejuvenate yourself, that's your number one priority. If you're getting consistently tired of making decisions and overwhelmed with life. So that's a big thing too, in itself. And if you don't know how to do that, that's your area of opportunity. You're really change your life.'cause decision fatigue is organically gonna come. You're gonna be overwhelmed'cause you're gonna wanna become the best version of your stuff at all fucking times. Um, but when you notice it getting at to like, you know, there's no return on investment from overthinking things. Then you gotta take a step back and relax and rejuvenate and come back with clarity, come back with motivation, come back with that energy and fire and that grit that you once had to originally start your journey. That's how you stay in momentum. You know, you, you, you clear yourself, you clear your mind, rejuvenate yourself. Come back to the drawing board. Start showing up, creating systems and habits, showing the fuck up every single day. And until you get exhausted, until you get overwhelmed, you hate your ceiling, you get decision fatigue, which is one of the many symptoms of, you know, hitting your ceiling and being overwhelmed. You take a step back. Go to the drawing board, nurture your soul. Ask yourself what you can get better at. And that's where the, that's what I mean with the nurturing and asking yourself what you get better at is so impactful.'cause decision fatigue, we all struggle with it. And we can take it from a macro and a micro situation. Macro is huge. Big decisions. We all struggle about life. We all struggle with. The purpose of life is like, what is religion? What is faith? What is relationship? What is love? What is trust? Big things in life, like what's the point of things? And then on a micro decision is your, your day to day and week to week life says what you're stressed about. Like what am I gonna wear? When am I gonna eat, when am I gonna drink? All these different things, right? So. We are all bio our, our biochemistry program for that. So if you're not hitting that, then you're just not living your life 110% or you're just fucking. Not stressing you're good, but maybe I challenge you. There's probably areas in your life you're just neglecting wholeheartedly. But, um, that's it. You know, decision fatigue is a sign of overwhelm. You figure out you're overwhelmed by nurturing your soul to come back to the drawing board with more clarity, more motivation. Once you have your clarity and motivation, then you just put it back on paper. You then once you get your uh, paper written out, that's your game plan. Stick the game plan. Get overwhelmed again. Repeat the process, and that's all. It's. So, um, not to dumb, not to dumbify it, but it really is one of those things that it's just a sign of an overwhelm and it's a sign that's here, have high stress and if you can manage that relationship with yourself,'cause it's not about beating yourself up and thinking that you gotta get rid of it entirely.'cause I think it's a good thing that to have decision fatigue.'cause you're at least thinking of shit. I mean, obviously my micro, if you're, you know, stressing about what socks to fucking wear, then maybe we should talk about that. But you know, at the end of the day, having some form of. Decision fatigue is normal.'cause you're trying, you're progressing, you're digging through things, right? So, but when that happens, take a step back, go back to the drawing board and then just continue, continue to keep moving forward in the same, in the same fashion. But that's all I have for you guys today. I won't lie. I have pretty low energy today. I actually, I have a refeed meal today, so I'm gonna get more calories. So hopefully I'll kickstart my energy again. Um, but I appreciate you guys all. Hope you guys have a great motherfucking week and let's just keep doing what we do best with you. Leave from the front and set the fucking standards. Let's go.