This week’s question from our portal “Ask Us Anything” comes Tracy.
You mentioned that Bob taught you your most important lesson, which was how to make a decision. I remember wanting to ask about this because I hear that word thrown around all the time—”just make a decision”—but I’m not entirely sure what it actually looks like or how you actually make a decision. Like, what does it actually mean to make a decision? How do you actually make a decision in practice? Because I think about things I want to do, I think I’ve decided to do them, but then I don’t follow through. So have I actually made a decision or not? What’s the difference?
Make a decision to squat down.
Okay, I’ve decided to squat down.
No, you didn’t. You haven’t squatted yet.
[Person squats]
Now you made a decision to squat. How did you do that?
I thought in my mind that I was gonna squat down and then I told my body to do it.
That’s it. That’s how you make a decision.
See, most people think that thinking about something is making a decision. It’s not. Talking about something is not making a decision. Writing it down is not making a decision. Telling someone else about it is not making a decision.
You know that you made it if you follow through on what you said you’re going to do. If you don’t, if you hesitate, if you procrastinate, you did not make a decision.
This is where people get confused. They say “I decided to start a business” but they haven’t done anything yet. They say “I decided to lose weight” but they’re still eating the same way. They say “I decided to leave my job” but they’re still showing up every day.
That’s not a decision. That’s a wish. That’s a desire. That’s a thought. But it’s not a decision.
Look at the Latin root of decision, it’s “decire,” which means to cut away from. I’m no longer going to do this, I’m doing this. It’s “burn the ships” in Think and Grow Rich, right? It is:
I’m 100% moving this way. No matter what happens, that’s what I’m doing.
When Cortés landed in Mexico, he burned the ships. Why? Because he didn’t want his men to have the option of going back. The decision was made. We’re moving forward. There’s no retreat. There’s no Plan B. There’s no “let’s see how it goes.”
Most people keep one foot in the old reality and one foot in the new reality. They say they’ve decided to build a business, but they keep their job “just in case.” They say they’ve decided to invest in themselves, but they’re waiting to see if they get a client first. They say they’ve decided to go after what they want, but they’re still worried about what everyone else thinks.
That’s not a decision. That’s dabbling. And when you’re dabbling, the universe responds accordingly. It gives you dabbling results.
So how do you know if you’re in the decision or you’ve made the decision if you don’t have the result yet?
You don’t need the result. All you need is the action in the direction of what you’re going for.
Let me be clear about this: the result will come. But the result is not what tells you whether you made a decision. The action tells you whether you made a decision.
If I decide to build a million-dollar business, I don’t need to have a million dollars in the bank to know I made a decision. What I need is to be taking the actions every single day that are moving me toward that million dollars.
Am I making the calls? Am I having the conversations? Am I investing in myself? Am I learning what I need to learn? Am I putting myself in uncomfortable situations? Am I saying yes to opportunities that scare me?
If the answer is yes, I made a decision. If the answer is no—if I’m still thinking about it, planning it, waiting for the right time, waiting for more money, waiting for more confidence—I did not make a decision.
And here’s the part that really matters: when you actually make a decision, there’s no internal struggle anymore. The back-and-forth stops. The doubt quiets down. The resistance fades.
Not because you suddenly have all the answers or because you’re not scared anymore. But because the decision is made. There’s nothing left to debate. You’re just doing it now.
That’s how you know. That’s how you always know.
