Everyone makes bad decisions when they’re starving.
Your mouth is watering, stomach aching with hunger.
You walk into the grocery store.
The decisions are endless.
Everything looks good.
Even things you normally don’t eat look good.
Your mouth starts watering even more.
In that place, you have 2 options:
One… grab the first mediocre thing you see, buy it, and chow down.
Or two… spend an hour debating, picking up things, putting things back, frustrated by all the choices, finding it impossible to make a decision, while getting ever hungrier. And, even after all that debate, you still end up settling for something very mediocre.
But, there’s another scenario, a third choice… don’t go straight to the grocery store when you’re hungry.
Take a few minutes before you go to the grocery store to decide what you want.
Dream up an amazing meal. Decide exactly what you’re craving. Find the recipe. Then, go to the store.
You’re in and out in 5 minutes with exactly what you wanted.
This scenario is a very different experience, and far less frustrating.
Sometimes we skip the dreaming part. We skip the part where we decide what exactly we want. We just run straight to the store. We assume it will work itself out when we get there.
We believe we will “know it when we see it”.
If you don’t take a moment to dream, to decide exactly what you want, you might end up picking the first thing you see.
Or, you could end up lost in the aisles, frustrated because everything looks better than what you’ve got… and you’re starving.
Maybe right now, you’re starving.
Starving for fulfillment, for money, for meaning, for creativity.
If you’re starving, don’t set foot in that grocery store.
Don’t scramble and grab the first thing you see, hoping it will make you happy.
Don’t get lost in the aisles of what everybody else is doing.
Don’t spend your days mulling over every single option available.
Instead, put the starving off to the side for a second.
For just a moment, try to forget that you’re starving.
Step out of the grocery store, take a deep breath, and dream. Dream, without outside influence. Dream about what you really, really want.
Imagine the details of it.
The starving sensation will try to creep back in and cloud your judgment, wanting to make you run back into the store.
The starving sensation will tell you that all that dreaming is useless, that it’s a fantasy. The starving sensation will tell you that dreaming is the enemy, that it’s a time-waster, that it’s actually keeping you from buying food.
But, keep ignoring that starving sensation, just for a few more moments.
Because nobody makes good decisions when they’re starving. We are reckless and desperate when we’re starving.
Making decisions when you’re starving will keep you starving and unsatisfied.
Until you know what you want, you will never find it. And, you will likely settle for something far less than what you could have had.
If you feel like you’re frantically searching, maybe it’s because you’re lost in all the crazy, noisy aisles, listening to the starving voice in your head.
Step outside.
Take a deep breath.
Give yourself permission to dream a little bit first.
Then, decide what you want, and go get it.
