Overcoming OCD: The Power of Making Decisions

The OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching. Music.

Hello and welcome to The OCD and Anxiety Podcast where we explore how to have a more positive relationship with anxiety disorders disorders, taking back control so that you can start living the life you choose and not the one chosen by your fears. Music. Hello and welcome to episode 397 where today I'm going to be talking about OCD.

Here i am yes again yet another day and we are talking about ocd and specifically today we will be discussing about the the importance of kind of making a decision sometimes i think we can over complicate things when when it comes to ocd i spend so much time talking about it in in each of these episodes and you know sometimes actually if we just cut to the chase what what dealing with OCD really involves is kind of making a decision to do things differently. Now, obviously, that isn't easy.

But I think sometimes we can overcomplicate things. And today, I'll be kind of unpacking that a little bit. If you find the podcast helpful, it would be great if you could follow and like on Instagram, my Instagram handle is at RobertJamesCoachingUK. Also, the podcast is now on YouTube, you can follow there too. And I really hope that you enjoy. If you you have any questions do please let me know and off we go.

As i often do i'm going to start with a quote today and this one is by nelson mandela may your choices reflect your hopes not your fears and this is obviously a really nice quote because with ocd so often our choices are actually because of our fears they can so often dictate the things that we're doing in our lives. Maybe we're avoiding certain things.

Maybe there's something in our life that we really know we should be doing, something that's very important to us, something that, you know, if we were doing it, perhaps we would feel more fulfilled, more content in our life. But we're not quite allowing ourselves to do it.

And it's really kind of holding us back and this is because a lot of the time our fears are making our choices for us and that can be conscious you can be really aware of that and some of the time it can be unconscious it can be these kind of behavioral loops that are going on in the background where you know you're not even aware that you're actually avoiding certain things or not doing things in your life that would actually improve things because of the fears and

the anxieties that you have about them you know and so a lot of the time with OCD I think as I was talking about at the start I think we can avoid making decisions we can put our decisions off and the idea is that you know by by not making a decision by not choosing to take.

You know certain action in one direction or another really what we're doing is we're we're kind of just delaying the uh inevitable discomfort and anxiety that comes up when we do make a choice when we do uh decide to do to do one thing or or something else the thing is though that actually once we do make that decision and we just deal with the resulting kind of uncertainty that will will appear what tends to happen is you kind of get used to that you habituate to that discomfort

and actually you know you feel a kind of sense of relief because you've made a decision you've committed to something and now you can kind of you know get on and move on in that direction in your life and that kind of feels good so often with with OCD we're doing the opposite of that we're kind of waiting we're kind of waiting to feel just right for example so that we feel that whatever decision we make we've made the right decision 100% and now we can you know now that we're feeling good enough

now we can move forward in our lives and this really kind of keeps us stuck and and I think it really over complicates things as well you know when we're kind of looking for the perfect answer the perfect solution really what we're doing is we're just kind of getting caught up in in OCD in another in another way you know OCD is very good it's very sneaky It likes to find these different ways to kind of get into us and.

You know, get us doing kind of repetitive behaviors and performing those compulsions. And one of those sneaky compulsions can be looking for certainty about making decisions, wanting to have the exact correct answer or wanting to make the perfect decision.

And that perfectionism as we've talked about you know quite a lot in the podcast is something that can really hold you back if you're willing to actually step forward and step out into your your life despite the fact that you know you may be a little bit uncertain about things but you've actually chosen to make a decision and kind of get on despite that uncertainty well that's actually going to really support you moving forward in your life because when you're willing to allow

a little bit of uncertainty when you're willing to to make a decision despite the fact that you know maybe you don't have all of the information because maybe it's almost impossible to get all of the information maybe that's just another part of you looking for certainty and so if instead you're willing to to kind of you know make a decision and commit to that.

Obviously, not in a reckless way, but in a positive way. It's not that you don't think about things anymore. Of course, you weigh things up and you look at the pros and cons of things, but you don't want to do that too much. When people talk about making decisions, you know, classically in CBT, for example.

People might ask you to kind of draw up a list of pros and cons, write down all of the positive things about the decision and all of the negative things, and then you can you know choose which one is the best one if one of them has more positives then that's the one for you for example and unfortunately for people with OCD this kind of approach can actually make things worse because as I'm sure you're aware this can end

up just being another kind of compulsion where you know you you think well there's lots of positives here but actually now I'm feeling like I want to do the opposite thing and so you know an OCD again again, is really good at kind of doing that, finding different ways for you to kind of get stuck and, you know, and to start overthinking things again. And when we start creating lists in that way, well, you can get stuck in that trap of overthinking and overanalyzing, you know.

So a little bit of that may be helpful, but just be wary of doing that kind of thing if you have OCD, because I think it can actually, you know, be a bit of a trap.

So, you know, decision making when you have OCD can sometimes be a bit more tricky you know we we know that that that can be true but to be honest a lot of the time you know we're trying to collect too much information a lot of the time after you've thought about something you know for for for long enough you've probably already figured out what you want to do really what what's what's happening is the OCD and the anxiety is maybe blocking you from figuring out kind of what you want to do

but deep down you probably do know and actually when we let go of all of the thinking the analyzing the trying to figure it out you know looking at it from all the different angles when we actually just let go and we try to come back into the present maybe we go off and do something else we stop thinking about it all together. We go for a walk, we do mindfulness, we do some meditation, we do, we go and do some other form of exercise.

You do some painting, whatever you enjoy doing, and you give yourself some headspace by actually just taking a break from all of that incessant compulsing and thinking about it. Well, sometimes when you do that.

You actually begin to kind of get in touch with that inner wisdom a bit more and you recognize that actually you know you you could kind of do either thing you potentially could make you know this decision or that decision and you know both of them you could probably make work and you know sometimes I like to think about decisions in that way I think we can with OCD we can put too much pressure on ourselves and say well there has to be the right decision you know something that I find to be

quite helpful for myself is thinking you know there is no right or wrong decision I will just make whatever decision I choose I will make it work for me and that happens to to work quite well for me when I when I do that it may be different from you and your personal perspective.

But I think uh you know when we give ourselves the opportunity to have a break from all of the thinking about it we get a bit more in touch with our intuition and that can really help you know with that kind of decision making process but at some point you've got to let go and choose something you can't just you know be uncertain or well you can be uncertain but you can't just allow that decision making process to go on indefinitely I've been there myself in with

relationship OCD, for example, where I spent years agonizing over my relationship that I was in and it kind of really took away from the quality of my relationships at this time because I wasn't fully present, I wasn't able to enjoy the relationship as much as I wanted to because I was always agonizing over this kind of decision as to whether this was the right relationship for me, whether I should perhaps move on and try something else or whether actually I could

be happy in this relationship and you know it was exhausting and I think you know that can happen where we draw out decision making processes you know over many months or even years because you know we don't want to make a decision because that final decision means that well we have to kind of let go. And not do the other thing and as soon as you know the the idea of like giving up that one thing pops up into your head it can make you feel frustrated.

You know and you don't quite want to let go of that thing and so you can remain stuck and kind of go around in circles and so if that's you if you struggle with that kind of thing you know it's really helpful at some point to kind of have a cut off where you kind of say to yourself well by this point I have to make the decision and when you do it actually feels good you actually feel like okay now I can refocus on this I can really commit to this thing and

I'm going to move forward Of course, though, OCD may well come up after you've made a decision and try to convince you that the decision you've made was the wrong decision and that now you've missed out on this thing and everything's going to be terrible.

Of course, what that is, is just the OCD looking for another way to get you compulsing again, to start getting you to go back to the overthinking, the overanalyzing, you know, and believing that you've made a wrong decision, which is really fertile ground.

To start obsessing and so you know if you do decide to make a decision one of the things that you have to do afterwards is be quite determined to not allow yourself to go back down that rabbit hole of second guessing the decision of course if you really feel that you've made a wrong decision okay of course you can go back and correct that decision if you can you know but just be wary that a lot of the time with OCD, the second guessing is actually about kind of anxiety

coming up, uncertainty as to whether you've made the right decision again, and then wanting to go back to have that certainty. And sometimes when you do go back, perhaps, not always, but perhaps then, you know, the other thing that you've now not chosen, suddenly that seems like the right thing again to choose.

And this is you know really a really good kind of example of how OCD can kind of get us stuck in that trap of ruminating because we kind of move from you know one thing to another and the OCD doesn't really care in a way which one you you choose it just wants you to remain stuck it just wants you to keep doing that typical obsessive compulsive behavior because you know it just wants to perpetuate itself it wants you to keep on doing the habit of OCD and so whenever we

try to change that well OCD doesn't necessarily like it that much it might actually kick up a bit of a fuss and try and get you kind of compulsing again you know so if that's something that comes up for you with with decision-making then that's something that you know it's important that you're you're aware of. So there we go, guys. I think this is an incredibly important area.

When it comes to decisions, at the end of the day, it is actually more simple than we often think. Yes, it can be uncomfortable to make a decision. Of course, the OCD will create. Anxiety for us when we choose to do something and not do something else.

You know but in order for us to kind of really move on from OCD and start kind of you know making changes in our lives unfortunately we do have to make those decisions and you know the understanding the and having the realization that actually that choice is an amazing thing the fact that we do actually have a choice means that in the long term we can learn how to manage our OCD because is we don't have to choose to keep on compulsing we can actually make much more positive choices in

our lives and when we do that well things may start to to change with the OCD if we stay stuck in the trap of believing you know that there's a perfect decision out there that we can make 100% and we're going to keep kind of waiting until we figure that out well we may be waiting a long time and in the process you're giving OCD the opportunity to kind of really run wild you know and kind of take over and so you know learning to make decisions in a timely way and learning how to accept

the uncertainty that comes up around that process can be a really helpful and powerful thing so many thanks guys I really hope that you enjoyed if you have any. Questions at all about anything I've spoken about today. Do please let me know and I will see you next time. Just a quick reminder that if you want to get a free session, all you need to do to get that is to head over to my website, www.robertjamescoaching.com and there you can leave me a message and we can arrange the free session.

And now just a quick reminder of my disclaimer. Any information that you view on my website, Instagram page, Facebook group or anywhere else online or any information that you listen to on the podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for actual medical or mental health advice from a doctor, psychologist or any other medical or mental health professional. Music.