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Decision Fatigue

One of my favorite keys to unlocking the door to sustainability and avoiding burnout is how you can best make decisions and avoid decision fatigue based on your unique personality type.  

I have a few questions, which of the following apply?

  • Do you feel like you get asked 100s of questions per day?
  • Do you find yourself snapping and saying, “WHAT!” when people come in your office, or give you a call?
  • Or how about this?  Is your butt on the line (or maybe even your finances) if the wrong decision or action step is made?

Trust me, if you answered yes to any or all of those questions, you’re not alone.  And you’re probably experiencing some decision fatigue, one of the leading causes of burnout.

Understanding how you best make decisions helps you achieve better flow in the decision making process.  Fortunately, once again, the Enneagram brings us that insight.  The Enneagram is broken down into what’s called 3 intelligence centers, and these centers show us how to best make decisions and take action based on our type.

So what are these centers anyways?  There are three:  Head(logic), Heart (feeling) and Body (Intuition).  

The Head Center.  This is for types 5, 6 and 7.  If you are in this group, you take action or make decisions best by observing the world.  You do best when you rely on logic and reasoning to help you work toward a solution.  Positive ways to use the head center are to gather information, generate ideas, engage in mental processing, rational analysis and planning.  Fortunately for you, this is where most of the mainstream messaging encourages decision making.  Just make sure you’re not too in your head, and allow for outside feedback.

The Heart Center.  This is for types 2, 3 and 4.  If you are in this group, you do best when you take action or make decisions with your feelings or emotions.  You do best when you rely on your feelings, memories, images and dreams to help you work toward a solution. Positive ways to use the heart center is to experience feelings, relate to others emotionally and be sensitive to the feelings and reactions of others.  It can be tough being in the feeling center as society sometimes deems emotions as negative.  I encourage you to use them as your guide, but not consume your world.

The Body Center (this is also referred to as the gut).  This is for types, 8, 9 and 1.  If you are in this group, you do best when you rely heavily on instinct and intuition. You do best when you allow yourself space to become present with a situation and reduce any potential anger to help you work toward a solution. The body center is best used when you can move around to think, experience physical sensations and when you are in control of their environment. It’s important to not get your instincts confused with emotion and feeling.  To tell the difference, engage in a stress relieving activity to get in tune with your body.

What is your Intelligence center?  Did you have any AHA moments?

I think uncovering my center of intelligence has been one of the biggest components of my success and recovery from  burnout.  Once I understood that my feelings and emotions (as a 3) were positive, I was able to feel so much more authentically myself when making decisions or taking action in my business.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you how to best make a decision or take action.  They aren’t you!