“A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.” – Tony Robbins

The word “decision” comes from the original Latin word decider – which literally means to “cut off.”

That might sound a bit drastic, but think of it this way…

When you make a powerful decision (according to the REAL meaning of the word), you literally cut yourself off from all other ways of thinking and acting that don’t align with whatever it is you want to achieve.

When you truly make a decision, you stop procrastinating. You get off the fence. You go both feet in with no second guessing yourself and looking back. You just move forward.

And there’s a lot of freedom in that!

If you find that you sometimes sink into paralysis analysis mode when it comes to making decisions in your life, here are 3 tips designed to help free you from your mental mud and get you into clear, decisive and powerful action:

Trick 1: Feeling Stuck? I Know Why You Are Procrastinating

I’m all for making big decisions with a clear head. And I’m all for “sleeping on it” if you feel like you have to.

But if there’s a big decision to be made and you find yourself waiting longer than 24 hours, chances are good that you’re just procrastinating.

And why is that? It’s helpful to get clear on the reason why.

And there’s really ever only one reason: FEAR OF FAILURE.

That fear of failure may be internal – Are you afraid of stepping outside of your comfort zone into the unknown where you don’t know what will happen? Do you prefer to stick with what’s predictable and familiar even though it may not be making you happy?

Or that fear of failure may be external – Are you of making the wrong decision because you’ll end up looking bad? Are you afraid of disappointing someone else? Are you afraid of what Wayne Dyer calls the “good opinion of other people”?

Get clear on which type of fear of failure is really holding you back from making your decision. This doesn’t have to take long – just name it and then be willing to stare it in the face.

Hello fear of what other people will think. I see you. Thanks for coming by, but you’re not going to stop me from taking action and moving forward. Get the $)#@ outta my head.

Trick 2: Redefine Your Fear of Failure

One of my mentors, Tony Robbins, says this thing that I love:

There’s no such thing as failure. There are only results. You always produce a result. If it’s not the one you desire, just change your actions and you’ll produce new results.

Once you start realizing that there are no failures, there are only results, making decisions becomes a lot easier.

If you decide to go down a particular path and you wind up somewhere other than where you’d planned, make a new decision. Take some new actions. You’ll produce new outcome.

Think of things in this way, and life becomes a living, breathing choose a new adventure.

Trick 3: Tune Into Your Inner Guru

Your brain is an amazing instrument.

It organizes experiences you’ve had in your life into blocks of information that it files away deep in your subconscious mind. And when faced with a tough decision, it automatically references these files in order to create some kind of reasoning of what you should do next.

This subconscious reasoning usually shows up like a subtle feeling that you can’t quite logically explain that seems to nudge you toward a particular direction.

Most people call this intuition, heart sense or your gut instinct. And it’s your wisest counsel.

Anytime you find yourself torn between two decisions, if you really tune in, you’ll always find that your gut instinct is nudging you in one direction more than the other. And if you listen to it, it will rarely lead you astray.

If you have a decision to make that you’re sitting on, realize that on the other side of making that decision is a whole new realm of freedom and possibility. So release your fear, tune into your gut instincts and take action!

The more decisions you make, the more action you take and the more results you see in your life. And if you create results that you’re not happy with, simply take some new action and correct your course.

Life is what you make of it.

To your freedom,