Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Next phase, conceptual editing. Tate Publishing and my editor are going to want me to make decisions. They don’t know that I am not making decisions right now. Not making big decisions and not making little decisions. I think that I won’t be able to make any decisions until at least Halloween when I know the Texas temperatures have cooled and my children and I are all safely settled into our new homes. No decision making is going to be possible until the leaves are turning up north and the weather permits me to drive with the lid down on my car. No decisions will be made until cool and stiff breezes have cleared my head of the consequences of all the decisions I have had to make over the last 18 years. 18 years, exactly. I have decision making exhaustion.

As a small business owner and single Mom, decision making demands have been a constant and almost unbearable part of my world. In order to survive, I had to make large and small decisions. I made terrible decisions and I made great decisions. Some were made after extensive deliberation and some were made on the spot. I have been held accountable for every single decision I was forced to make. Many carry huge regret while others are still heralded as the best decisions I ever made. Some will affect me for the rest of my life and I can hardly bare to think about them and their far reaching effects. Others were but a moment on my big screen.

In the beginning, I made all my decisions on my own. I didn’t trust very many people at all and was, frankly, running exhausted and scared. Business growing, small children, mortgage, expensive divorce(s), you get the picture. I just did what I felt I had to do because at that moment in time I didn’t trust anyone. I find this interesting now because looking back, that was during a time when I trusted myself least of all. Yet, I still forced myself to make all my own decisions without counsel. What terrible decisions I made and what an ugly person I was to be around as I was making some of them.

My business grew and my children grew and the dynamics of my life changed. Instead of needing to be so hands on with both my business and my children, I noticed that I was able to use my brain power a little bit more often than my physical power. I was learning from my mistakes. I was training employees to do the tasks that in the past only I had completed. Consequently, I was able to concentrate on the cerebral side of my company. I learned the hard way that in order to really see progress and success, I needed to empower people around me. I needed to learn how to trust and depend on my employees and business associates. That meant giving some control to my banker, CPA, web man and insurance man. That meant giving some power and even a key to the employees working in the evenings.

That meant realizing that my company could grow even bigger and stronger if I didn’t need to do everything myself. That meant that I didn’t have to make ALL the decisions. Could I pick up the pieces if a bad decision was made when I wasn’t on watch? Absolutely. I learned what an amazing feeling it is to give some power away and watch it flourish and blossom. How great it felt to watch an employee stand taller and sound more decisive and strong when they were given the ability to come up with a plan without asking any questions.

I am realizing now all these years later and as the book is getting closer and closer to release date, that I want to give the decisions away again. I want small business owners all over the globe to know that they don’t need to make all of their decisions all by themselves. That they may not be the experts in every single area of their business and they just might need to place trust and power in others. In order to make the right decisions, they might not need to be the decision maker. They might need to empower those around them to take charge.

In order to make the right decisions right now, I need to not be my decision maker. In exhaustion, I want to give my decisions away to someone else. Tell me where to be, when to be there and even what I should be wearing. It’s too hot outside for me to decide.