A Thousand Tiny Decisions — Decision Fatigue, hemisphere theory & feet (!?)
Are you in the midst of a creative project — song, book, video, painting, child — and you’ve encountered yet another round of exhausting decision fatigue? It’s too much, does it have to be this way?
You love the project, the desire is there, so you want to craft it. You want to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. You want to make it someone’s favourite. It’s worth the effort. You couldn’t bear to see it as less than what it could be. You see the potential in it.
You want to take on those thousands of decisions — but is there a way to do it without getting that horrid tension headache from decision fatigue?
Yes. It’s all in the type of attention we pay to the process.
Any work of passion has had thousands of tiny deliberations to make it what it is. A thousand tiny yes’s and a thousand tiny no’s go into the making of every single song you play, every painting and photograph, every word of a book, every outfit someone has put effort into, maybe even someone just walking down the street has made a thousand tiny decisions just to leave the house.
But ask a musician and they’ll tell you that the thousands of choices to create a song or album just made themselves. It was a labour of love. It was a team effort. It came through all at once. It was worth it. There’s something interesting about the way these things come through that seems to bypass decision fatigue.
There seems to be two approaches to decision making — one leading to ease and flow of meaningful discernment between options; and the other leading to a clogging up, too much pressure, a throwing up of our hands.
How do we get into the easy lane of decision making?
The Source of Inspiration
First of all, it’s important to get a picture of what inspiration is and where it comes from. I mean, that’s the currency we’re all working with when we’re creating isn’t it? So what the hell is it?
I’ll use a metaphor.
Inspiration is like the constant flow of water in a river. It’s always there, whether it’s a trickle or a flood. This river flows through us at all times but our programming and inner processes (that we’ll get into) can overly restrict that flow.
When we are working on a project — that project requires us to UTILISE that flow of inspiration through the process of discernment.
The Process of Discernment
Discernment, the ability to judge well, is a process. It’s a weighing up of that water and then placing it into the right container that calls out for it (the calling out is another little piece to explore another time).
We associate decisions and discernment with the mind’s intelligence and processing capacity, but in reality, the mind (as in the left hemisphere) can actually get in the way of the creative process.
Too much linear, rational and logical thinking actually creates confusion. The check list approach to a creative work can limit it too much because we forget the wider context that the project sits within.
If there’s a decision to make between A, B, & C and you throw all of your effort into choosing between these options, but the best fit is actually M… well that’s a problem of a restricted viewing window.
The body (or the right hemisphere), has the ability to feel into the wider aspect of the project as a whole. It is connected to a much wider source of information and experience which then gives us a leaning (even physically so) towards the best decision.
In my experience with photography and writing, this checks out. The pre-verbal sensation within happens first and then my hands go to a tool — camera, pen or keyboard — to allow that inspiration to flow into a container — a yes or no, this word or that word, louder or softer, this setting or that shutter speed.
Connecting to the Body’s Intelligence
This is going to sound weird but … I feel my anxiety in my feet, lol.
I know that if I am too much in my head and getting all in a tizz about decisions — I’ll be leaning forward, my weight is off of my heels and onto my toes.
I’m spilling that water out in anticipation.
Simply standing on some grass or carpet and rocking backward and playing around, feeling into all four corners of my feet is one really effective way to come back to my body.
Walking around barefoot is kind of a necessity for me to express myself creatively.
There’s so many other ways to connect to your body. This is just one way that I’ve found works for me and it’s easy to remember. Too much thinking up the top? Think instead right down to the bottom.
When you find yourself combating decision fatigue — too many decisions thrown at you in too little time — it might just be that doing the counter-intuitive thing, taking a break from the brain and checking into the body, might be the thing you need to get back into that space where discernment flows.
Left and Right Hemisphere in the Decision Making Process
Hemisphere theory isn’t what it used to be.
More research has been done and more importantly, better interpretations of the findings have been written. Psychiatrist and professor of Literature Dr. Iain McGilchrist has compiled over 4000 studies into his works, ‘The Master and His Emissary’, 2009, as well as ‘The Matter with Things’, 2021, to give us a comprehensive understanding of how the two hemispheres see the world.
“The right hemisphere underwrites breadth and flexibility of attention, where the left hemisphere brings to bear focussed attention.”
— Dr. Iain McGilchrist
In the context of decision fatigue, if it is getting the better of us it means that we are paying attention to whatever it is we are doing through a heavily left hemisphere mediated attention.
Which is narrowly focussed, linear, abstracted, de-contextualised, fragmented, mechanical, lifeless.
It’s the hemisphere that allows us to grab objects as well as concepts and grabbing gives us power. It’s the closing down upon something in order to use it in a specific way.
“The left-hemisphere view is designed to aid you in grabbing stuff. Its purpose is utility and its evolutionary adaptation lies in the service of grasping and amassing ‘things’.”
— Iain McGilchrist
But there is another mode of attention that brings us back to the wider context — the project as a whole and the relations it sits between. It brings us back to our body and the continuous flow where inspiration can be fully experienced — right hemisphere mediated attention.
“The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold several ambiguous possibilities in suspension together without premature closure on one outcome.”
— Iain McGilchrist
Decision making (just like everything) is a process that flows between these two types of attention. Decision fatigue, I believe, is a symptom of being too much in the narrowly focussed left hemisphere, without coming back to the experiential understanding of the right hemisphere.
Your Hands Will Tell You
If you’re holding a DEVICE in your hands — it’s likely that the weight of your attention is being mediated through the left hemisphere which, remember, brings to bear a narrow focus.
A device is necessary for those creations. I wrote this article on my laptop. A song is mixed using a soundboard. An artist holds a paintbrush — a tool — in their hands to apply the paint. There is always this go between but the left — because it controls the right (usually dominant) hand — can have a tendency to clamp down and keep us in a too narrow mindset.
So if you are feeling that restriction of decision fatigue coming upon you, take a break — let go of the tool from your hand — and get into that right hemisphere mediated attention — AKA get back into your body (or your feet) to get back in touch with the source of that inspiration.
More inspiration — more flow — easier decisions.
We want the left hemisphere (the Emissary) to grip the tool it needs to — we don’t want it to take over completely and snap shut the doorway to the right hemisphere (the Master).
Conclusion
Bringing inspiration into physical form is a process. It’s a beautiful thing that flows between the right and left hemisphere — but let’s not let the hands (or the left hemisphere) grip too tightly.
We make a thousand tiny decisions — which is a picking up of the waters of inspiration with our tool of choice, weighing of it inside our body (discernment) and then placing it into something that calls to us to bring a new creation into being.
Forgetting the right hemisphere, forgetting the real source of inspiration, forgetting the body’s vital role to play in it will lead to decision fatigue — a drying up of the river.
It may feel ‘unproductive’ to step back from the tools and connect to your feet (or whatever) but that’s the whole point. Productivity is a left hemisphere thing, but to produce anything, you need that inspiration — and that’s found by just ‘being’ without reaching out to grab it.
You’re passionate, you’re full to the brim of excitement for your project — you want to make those thousand decisions — just remember where to find the source of that inspiration and then let the thing flow!