How to make high Quality Marketing Decisions for greater leverage, more efficiency, impact and better mental health!

I’m a pretty open book. About my business, my own marketing, even areas of my life – where I genuinely believe that it will serve people to take a glimpse behind the curtain.

Because of this, one of the things I hear most often from people who work with me in my programs or experiences is that they learn as much by watching me DO things as they do from what I teach.

I’m a hands-on parent to five children and the ability to be an engaged, active, and present, as well as serve my clients, look after myself and do what I love has been a huge area of growth over several years.

I’m also very candid about the things I struggle with. One of the things I’m most challenged with is decision fatigue.

It’s astounding how many decisions we actually make daily.

One piece of research puts the number around 35,000 decisions per day, for the average adult. (Sollsich, 2016, published in the J Health Psychology  Journal in 2022)

The number of decisions I need to make on any given day can be mind-blowing and as a result I sometimes have instances when my brain involuntarily freezes and is incapable of making basic decisions like what to eat.

My fridge could be full of food and yet the simple act of going to the kitchen, choosing some food and serving it up might be just too much.

Or I can do eight loads of washing in a day, because the tactile experience of washing and hanging and drying doesn’t require focused thought.

But folding one basket of dry washing becomes “too much” because it requires 40 micro-decisions as to who each item belongs toand where it goes.

I can load the dishwasher quite easily as everything is going in one location – but I find unloading sends my brain into a frenzy – because again it requires thought about where to put things.

My brain has a way of shutting down to conserve my energy for bigger decisions (and thankfully I have little people who can help with dishes!)

I’m not alone. I’m comforted by the fact Barak Obama faced similar challenges.

He famously told Vanity Fair magazine…

“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

Obama went on to explain that the act of making a single decision erodes your ability to make later decisions. 

And I feel this way too.

I need to conserve my "decision making reserves" for the big things that only I can make. 

I quickly learned the power of making one high-quality decision that removes the need to make multiple smaller decisions over the course of each day/week/month/year.

This gives me so much more mental capacity to rest, relax or direct my thoughts on things that need focused attention.

Not saying I’ve nailed it all by any stretch. But I’ve adapted pretty well.

I was telling my mentor about my practices recently and she said "you should write a blog post about it!" So here we are!

And this week I made this video about it  – talking about three key areas where making one high-quality decisions has eliminated a whole lot of mental clutter in my life.

I give a couple of personal examples, and one about my business and specifically my marketing and why it’s so powerful.

I reckon marketing is one of the areas where we are faced with an impossible number of choices – especially if we are a personal brand.

This leads to an abundance of “coulds”, “shoulds” and “oughts” that don’t serve us, or our purpose.

Your “high-quality decision” may need to be different to mine, and I talk about some different approaches in the video.

It's also something I've written about in my upcoming book Marketing Me.

And one of my priorities with everyone I work with is helping them sift through their clutter of possibilities so they come to that one high-quality decision that is going to have the highest leverage for them.

Because we could all do countless things, but that just leads to overwhelm, inaction, procrastination and ultimately guilt and shame. And we are not here for any of that.

This is why my philosophy is that if you are a personal brand, and if you can’t feed and sustain your most basic marketing system in an hour of your time each week, it’s too much.

But on the contrary, the power of a simple, powerful, strategic, aligned decision can be game-changing for your business, practice or consultancy.

Anyway, tune into the video if you want to know more and get a breakdown of how I harness the power of a high-quality decision in three areas of my life to eliminate hundreds of small ones and give me more energy.

In almost all respects, my life is completely by design and while there are ebbs and flows, highs and lows, I’ve learned a lot and constantly optimise my schedule as my family and personal life evolves.

By and large, I’ve intentionally created the spaciousness that a multi-faceted and full life like mine requires to be a thriving, healthy and vibrant individual – because I wasn’t in a good place I wouldn’t be able to do things like write a book, travel and speak, or do family or fun activities.

When you are marketing yourself as a brand, it’s important that you not only have a consistent sustainable easy-to-implement system in place, but you also protect “you” as the brand, and the mental energy you need to live and be your best.

So as we head into the weekend think about this question: What’s one marketing decision you could make (that would be easy to follow through on and take you max 1-hour/week) that if you did it every week your business would be in a different place in 90 days time?

I’ve shared mine with you in the video (it's very meta, and very effective!) – and I’d love to know what yours is (or could be) too!

I love hearing from you and any insights you have too!