Being Decisive

I remember something that Dean had learned at a conference he went to for work. The speaker talked about making a decision and sticking with it. He said even if it turns out to be the wrong, at least you made a decision and empowered yourself. Be decisive, I guess is the message. I definitely think this applies especially in situations when you are choosing between two good things. It is something that Dean is really good at. For instance, we have just made a huge decision to leave Marriott for Ensign group. He left at the beginning of the year to start a new job in a whole new industry. We did not make this decision together lightly, especially because we like Marriott and his job was secure. But in light of everything going on with the company and the economy, we saw an opportunity and everything fell into place. We had to make the decision first though. I have not been a really decisive person but as I get older, I have had to get over it. Which is why I am in awe of Danielle.

She makes decisions so well at 11. At 36, I still am not nearly as decisive as she is. She has made three key decisions recently that were hard and yet she was so confident about each of them.

Her first decision came last year when she wanted to play softball instead of playing soccer select, which she was asked to do. Dean and I tried to talk her out of it, or to do both. But, she held firm. The result was that we all had a great time going to the games with friends and were not as busy as we would have been.

Her second decision was to not sign up for softball this year. We were surprised and tried to talk her into it. She held firm. As it was, she went all the way to Regional Playoffs for soccer and so would have overlapped with the start of softball. It would have been almost impossible to do both.

The third decision was that she chose to skip the first soccer regional playoff game and go to a robotics tournament instead. It was an Invitational Tournament that only 56 teams out of 2000 teams in California were invited too. Only 18 teams accepted the invitation. They would be competing against high school and junior high teams that were very committed programs. We tried so hard to talk her out of this one (aren't we good parents? encouraging decisiveness?). We felt that she had already gone to a Robotics tournament, and she didn't need to be at this tournament for her team to do well. We felt she needed to be there for her soccer team. Well, she ended up going to the Robotics tournament on February 6. They won first place--best over all! Her soccer team tied the game she missed. She was there for the two games the next Saturday, and they lost both. So, I have learned that I really need to listen to my oldest charge. She is obviously more inspired than her parents about where she needs to be to get the most out of life. I admire her so much. I feel so lucky to be able to watch her live her life. We just need to get out of her way...please, no really.