Yes, facts. And, feelings.
How to make balanced decisions without disregarding our humanity.
I almost pulled my application for national officer candidacy last spring. I spent a whole day convincing myself I shouldn’t run again. I called up a brutally honest mentor and realized I was letting my volatile feelings override the facts I knew to be true.
Let me tell you a bit about Mark Bunselmeyer. If you meet him in a highly formal context, he will be wearing a suit and tie. If you meet him in literally any other context, he’ll be sporting his favorite bib overalls. But his fashion choices aren’t what define him as much as how he speaks into the lives of people around him. Mark is one of those rare humans who is not afraid of being disliked for telling the truth. He had traveled with my state officer teammates and I during our year, from Washington, D.C. to Chicago, Illinois, and we got close. Now, I have the privilege of hearing his candid thoughts whenever I need some life advice.
When I shared my frustrations with Mark last spring about why I felt I shouldn’t run again for national office, he listened to me as I dumped out all my feelings--feelings of doubt, anger, unhappiness. He understood where those feelings came from, and respected the emotions. What he didn’t do was let me think my feelings could make the decision for me.
Listen to your feelings so you can teach them the facts
Has anyone ever said you should ignore your feelings? Sometimes we fear emotions and decide to make decisions based only on facts. Then we run into a problem: we are human, and humans have feelings, and there is really no such thing as an objective decision based on facts alone. (One could even argue that feelings are facts, too… but that’s a debate for another day.) Regardless, we’re influenced by our feelings even when we look at facts. Last spring, I knew running for national office would take a significant amount of my time, it would be emotionally exhausting, and at times, it would be isolating. My initial feelings told me to just listen to those facts. The tricky thing, though, is that those weren’t the only facts.
Mark reminded me I had more than one option, and I didn’t have to ignore my feelings to see it. Yes, running again would be hard. But, how often are we fulfilled when we just take the easy way out? Yes, running again would mean I had to be willing to disagree with people so I could speak what I believed to be the truth. But, how often does going along with the crowd actually add value to the world? As Mark and I talked, I realized those initial feelings I had weren’t telling me the whole story, and I was letting them make my decision instead of using them to inform my own decision.
Ignoring our feelings isn’t the solution, because they’ll just come back even uglier than they started. Allowing our feelings to rule us isn’t the solution, either, because they’re not very good at decision-making. The balance? I think we find it by listening to our feelings and teaching them the facts.
What does this look like? Well, the final piece of my conversation with Mark went like this:
“Miriam, you could walk away because of those frustrations. Or, you could choose to take those feelings and do something meaningful for the FFA because of them.”
Oof.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear. But, it is exactly what I needed.
Mark knew how to talk to feelings about facts. If he had started off by telling me I was stupid for feeling the way I did, I would have hung up the phone, point blank. Instead, he listened to the feelings, recognized their (at least partial) validity, and then appealed to those same emotions with the facts of what I was up against. Yes, running again would be hard, but that’s why I needed to do it. If I still loved the FFA and felt like I had something unique to offer to it, it was my responsibility to run. Not that it meant I should get elected, but it simply meant I needed to volunteer to serve. The nominating committee would decide if I was the right fit for the role. I’m deeply grateful for the decision they made.
Making a decision that LASTS
Do you find yourself battling between making decisions based on emotions or facts? Take heart, because we don’t have to limit ourselves to one or the other. The neat thing is that these same principles apply whether we’re making decisions for ourselves or giving advice to a friend.
Here’s a quick outline of the path:
Listen to feelings
Ask where the feelings are coming from
Step back and look at the facts
Teach our feelings through the lens of the facts
Start down the path of your decision… and correct as needed
(And look, it’s even an acronym… remember LASTS to make decisions that last.)
I’m grateful for that conversation with Mark last spring because it not only set me down the path which led me to this deeply meaningful experience as an officer, but also taught me how to make more balanced decisions in the complex world that is the mind of a human being. Let’s live our lives with discernment as we listen to our feelings in order to teach them the facts.
What’s a decision in your life right now where you can apply this concept? Let us know in the comments or on social media by tagging @miriamrosah and @nffaevp and using the hashtags #EmbracingComplexity and #FFA21.