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  • If you look at every decision you've ever made, it's either fear-based,

  • "You know if I give him up, someone else will get to love him for the rest of his life.

  • I can't let him go. I mean, five cats isn't a lot right? Right."

  • -- or growth-based.

  • "You know, if I keep him, I'll have six cats. Yeah, that's more than five,

  • But I've done a ton more than five. Totally doable."

  • Now, fear-based decisions tend to be about what we don't want. And we've all done that right?

  • Stayed in relationships because we didn't want to be alone,

  • Accepted the first job opportunity, because you were worried there wouldn't be any more.

  • Or stuck in a toxic friendship, because you didn't want to go out there and make new friends.

  • Oddly enough, fear-based decisions tend to come from a need to feel safe and stay in the familiar.

  • Whereas growth-based decisions are usually a lot scarier,

  • because they come with uncertainty and unknown change.

  • Whether that's leaving a well-paying job to pursue a passion,

  • ending a relationship or a friendship,

  • or packing up all of your stuff and moving to a new place.

  • Now, I would hope all of us kind of have the self-awareness

  • to know what motivates our decision-making.

  • But in case you don't, that's what this video's for.

  • So the first thing is make a list of every big decision you've made in your life,

  • and analyze each of those decisions and ask yourself honestly:

  • Was it made out of fear,

  • Or was it made for a desire to grow?

  • Now, even though growing decisions are scary as hell,

  • they're not *motivated* by fear. And that is kind of the key difference.

  • So let's say you look at your list, and some of your decisions, or maybe *all* of your decisions,

  • are pretty much motivated by fear.

  • And let's say for the sake of this video, that you want to change that. What exactly do you do?

  • Well, this requires a lot of self-reflection and introspection on your part,

  • because now you need to be able to ask yourself honestly and seriously, in each of these instances:

  • What were you afraid of -- was it a fear of failure?

  • Rejection, judgment, scarcity, change?

  • Maybe deep down, you don't actually feel like you deserve success and happiness.

  • [laughs] "What about all of the above?" [clicks tongue] That's fine.

  • There's a multitude of reasons as to why we are afraid.

  • And it is much, much easier to make decisions from that place.

  • But now that you know the root cause of your fear, you can start the second step.

  • Which is asking yourself: if I made my decisions out of growth,

  • and it all worked out exactly the way that I wanted it to,

  • What would my life look like?

  • Now, it's not going to happen overnight,

  • but the more you apply this visualization and self-awareness to *why* you make your decisions

  • and *how* you make a decision, you can slowly, but surely start shifting your mindset.

  • Everyone I know who's done amazing artistic work has done it with a lot of fear and anxiety.

  • But they choose to make growth decisions anyway,

  • because they know that it's gonna lead them to where they want to be.

  • So yeah. The first step is self-awareness,

  • and the second step, and the third step, and the fourth step, and the fifth, and the sixth,

  • all the way to infinity, is to slowly but surely start changing yourself.

  • Really easy right? Simple solutions, [hold back laughter] just do that.

  • I'm Anna Akana, stay right here for a sponsored message.

  • Thank you to Audible for sponsoring today's video.

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If you look at every decision you've ever made, it's either fear-based,

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