Monday, February 25, 2013

Decisions

School decisions for next year are right around the corner. Lottery bids will be sent to homes, phone calls from schools accepting your kids will be made....all in the next few weeks. 

While I feel like this is a great time to take a look at how you are feeling about your choices, I also wanted to share a bit about how I approach big decisions like this. I have a set of four beliefs that support me in making the best decision I can make during important moments in my life - by releasing me from the stress that surrounds most of my decision making like a destructive tornado. Sometimes I repeat these beliefs, over and over, to help me calm down and see the situation clearly. I hope they help you as well - especially until those acceptance letters come in the mail. 

(1) There isn't a perfect decision. No. Really. There isn't one. Cross my heart. We can only do our best with our given information, our given energy, and our given situation at any one moment in time. Release your guilt here - shush the voice inside your head that says that you should have seen one more school, or gone to another information night. That screams that you didn't look at nearly as many schools as Suzie's mom did. Tell that voice to go find someone else to bother - perhaps Suzie's mother....:) 

You have done what you can to make a good decision for your child. You have done the best you could - that that is more than good enough. (And, let's be honest, more than our families probably did for us back in the day. :)) Even if you had seen 20, 40...100 schools - you still couldn't guarantee that the decision you made is the "best" one. It is simply the best you could do with that information. Let go of any guilt, any nagging feeling, any fear - those voices, those emotions will not help you in the end. They will only cloud your decision making clarity when the big day arrives. 

(2) All decisions can be changed. This is what got me through signing the mortgage on our home. As I signed all hundred pieces of paper, I breathed in and out, and mouthed quietly, "We can sell the house if we can't afford it. We can sell the house if we can't afford it" until I was finished. And it is true. We *could* have sold our house - if we had to. We could have changed our decision if things weren't working as we planned. 

Would that have been easy? No. 
Would that have been stressful? Yes.
Hard on our daughter? Yes.
Difficult to lose the house - or the money? Yep. 
But could we have done it if we had to? Absolutely.

Pretty much all decisions can be changed (or at least, repaired) down the road. We have the strength and the ability to change lanes if the traffic flow requires it. You (and your child) can change schools if it doesn't work out. Now, is this ideal? No. But life isn't really ideal...and the non-ideal stuff? It teaches us an awful lot. Tell the voices in your head to be quiet - that if you need to, you can fix any problem that arises. You are that strong - I know you are. And your kid is too, by the way.

(3) Decisions are both intellectual and emotional. While I am sure this belief will have a variety of reactions from different types of decision makers (a.k.a my husband - the intellectual decision maker in the family vs. my mom, the emotional decision maker), I really believe that good decision making takes plays from both playbooks. Thinking deeply about your educational priorities and whether the schools you applied to match those priorities - is a great use of your intellectual decision maker in your family. Set him (or her) to work, making the charts and graphs, the pro and con list, listing out the hard information you have about each school. 

Sorting and processing your "gut instincts" about different schools and how you see your child and your family fitting in there - that is a perfect place for your emotional processor (a.k.a my mom, or your family's equivalent) to weigh into the process.  Sit down with her (or him). Have some tea and sift through your experiences, your feelings, your fears. Both types of information have a place in this decision. Make space for them both in your discussions about which school would be the best fit for your family. 

(4) There will always be multiple, unknown factors in a decision. I call them "what ifs". What if the math program isn't as good as we thought and our child gets bored in class? What if we can't afford the tuition of that school past second grade? What if the school is too far from our home and our child doesn't make any neighborhood friends? (I can keep at this for awhile. I am *really* good at this game.)

These what ifs are a huge part of my daily discussions with clients. I listen carefully to them - I do. These what ifs are important to name - to say out loud so that they aren't swimming around like sharks inside your head. When they ask me what I think - to participate in the "what if" game professionally - I am gentle. I am soothing. And I calmly say that if I could answer that question, I would get paid much more money - because I would be predicting the future. No one, I remind them, can predict the future. Not an educational consultant, not Berkeley Parents Network, not a mother or a father - not even as much as we deeply would like to protect our child from the what if from coming to pass. 

We can gather key information around our what ifs. We can watch the math program in action at our school of choice; we can call up a financial planner to talk about money for tuition; we can talk to other families at our favorite school about how people from outside the neighborhood make friends. Doing those things might help quiet the voices of doubt, or might give us another way of looking at the "what if". Great - but even with this extra effort, you will not be able to control future outcomes. The math program may be fantastic - but your kid might not like it. You might plan for tuition - and then have a second baby. You might move into the neighborhood of your school when a great house comes up for sale. Lots of things could happen - bad AND good.  

So don't get stuck here. List your what ifs. Write down what you can proactively do to gather information. Do those things. Then clear your head and move on. Release yourself from the stranglehold of the future. You have done what you can do...because there is no perfect decision to be made (remember #1?)....and luckily, if the what if comes to pass, you can always change your decision (#2). 

I wish you best in the upcoming weeks!

"We can't control all life, but what we can do is look ahead and dictate where we go next."  
- Demi Lovato

3 comments:

  1. Beautifully put! From the trenches of decisionland I thank you, Theresa!

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  2. Beautifully put! From the trenches of decisionland I thank you, Theresa!

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  3. Thanks Kim! I wish you well in your decision making!

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