One of the biggest problems that our generation currently faces is the fact that mostly everyone is indecisive and incapable of independent thought. This is a weakness, a fault and more detrimental to your life than you can even imagine.
We all have trouble making decisions, some more than others, but you should always remember that decisions are what shape your destiny and you can't constantly depend on others to make them for you. If you go up to any person within Gen-Y and ask them how their lives are going, 9 times out of 1o you will simply hear, "I don't know what I am going to do with my life."
We, quite frankly, are one confused group, we grew up in a time where things were supposed to be easy for us – but we were sold a broken American dream of getting good grades, finishing college and being guaranteed a good life – and yet, none of that came true. This has left many of us afraid and unsure about where our lives are headed – and thus, we have become indecisive in nearly every aspect of life.
Insecurity and judgments, of course, play a big factor in people’s inabilities to make decisions on their own. They are afraid to take risks, try something new and explore because of what others will think of them or how they will be judged based off their decisions. The keyword here is “others,” and that is why so many people are indecisive in our world today.
They let others shape the way they live their lives; they let others judge them and they let others own their lives by sacrificing their autonomy to the external world. This is why so many people are always asking others what they think they should do and then take their shitty advice.
What they don't realize is that everything in life is rooted in perception. Many of us may have not felt the pressure that we do until now, because we have come to realize how powerful and how much meaning our decisions hold in the progress of our futures. That’s why we are afraid to make them on our own, it’s as if we are waiting for someone to hold our hand while we cross the street into full-functioning adulthood.
Because that is what you are – you are a functioning adult who is experiencing the real world – and it might come as a bit of a shock to you. Your biggest weakness in life is that you are incapable of making the decisions you want to. You are stuck and will always be stuck in your bubble unless you truly start thinking for yourself.
If you want to get anywhere and live a life that is enjoyable, you need to start being more assertive. It’s your life and your decisions, and the routes that you decide to take will shape your life years from now. You are not perfect, you will make mistakes and you will soon learn that partying until 5am on a Tuesday night won’t get you far in life, choosing to date the wrong person will slow you down, having a job you hate will only waste your life. It’s all a part of the learning curve that we all go through to allow us ultimately to become more assertive.
But, of course, here is where we run into our next roadblock of fear, we have the constant worry about what others are doing in their lives, or in short FOMO. We, as a generation, have become so stupid that we have started comparing our lives to the artifice of others’ lives. We have become scared to make mistakes and to make the choices that we feel are right in our gut and not what our friends see as correct.
I remember when I was in the 8th grade and going to high school in just a few months. My teacher gave us an hour-long speech on conformity and peer pressure. Back then we all let it go in one ear and out the other, because we all thought she was referring to us smoking weed in high school, which we all did anyway.
But the scope was much larger, she was actually teaching us a lesson in life and explaining that we should never let peer pressure and conformity shape our lives, rather we should create our own paths and do what feels right in our guts.
Those words still stick with me today -- and they should stick with you. If you do what everyone else is doing, and if you are making decisions to contour to the irrelevant world around you, your indecision will have you leading someone else’s life. Everyone’s biggest fear is to end up average, a pedestrian and worthless, yet many people of this generation are on their way to that lifestyle, because they lack assertiveness in making choices.
It is all about a sense of responsibility and taking control of your own life. Putting things off until tomorrow will never get you there, because tomorrow never comes. I have friends that constantly complain about how much they hate their lives and their jobs, yet they do nothing about it, because they are afraid to take a risk and go outside of their comfort zones to find their own paths.
You need to realize that there is no road map for your life. The only route you can take is the one you can create for yourself and being assertive will only get you there faster and sooner. Make decisions on your own, take the risks you need to take, explore -- and if you don't, you will never find your way. There is so much out there, but if you allow yourself to stay in your bubble of uncertainty -- you will always be stuck there.
You have to be crystal clear on your goals and their relative priority. This is the inner-workings of the probability of success. A lack of clarity around success means that you can't judge the outcome. Some successful outcomes involve trade-offs.
The best option may involve losing things you don't want to lose in order to achieve a better overall outcome. If the desirable trade-offs are not clear because of an unrealistic expectation to have it all, then hesitation may result.
Preston Waters | Elite.
