Every day, we are making decisions for our businesses and our lives. Some are so small we barely notice them. What gets our attention this morning? Do we take the meeting? Do we answer the email? Do we spend an hour creating something new or finally finish the thing we’ve been putting off?
Then there are the bigger decisions. Do we hire? Raise our prices? Invest in an opportunity? Let an offer go? Say no to a client? Step onto a bigger stage? Put our energy behind the idea we haven’t been able to stop thinking about?
Those decisions carry more weight because they shape what happens next. They influence our revenue and capacity, the work we become known for, the people we serve, and the amount of space we have for the rest of our lives.
I know in my own business there have been seasons when a decision felt incredibly weighty, right up until I actually made it.
I remember May of 2020, when I was trying to decide what to do about Ignite. Like every event producer that year, I was staring at a whole lot of uncertainty. Should I keep planning for an in-person event? Should I wait and see? Should I take the whole thing virtual?
I was keeping myself up at night trying to figure it out.
And then I finally made the decision to take Ignite virtual. I’ll admit, a pendulum was involved.
But the moment I decided, all of that weight lifted. I could stop circling and start planning. We had months to reimagine the experience, make thoughtful decisions, and build something that could actually work well online.
And it turned out to be exactly the right call. By November, live events still weren’t happening. Because I had made the decision early, I wasn’t scrambling or reacting. I had the space to create a very successful virtual Ignite.
I think about that experience often because the hardest part wasn’t necessarily the decision itself. It was the energy I spent before I made it.
That’s what indecision can do. It keeps us suspended. We revisit the same question over and over, carrying the weight of every possible outcome.
And often, once the decision is made, even if there is still work to do, we can finally move.
That experience came back to me recently as I sat with my Movement Maker Mastermind clients at our Business Alchemy Retreat. We were looking ahead at the businesses these women are building and asking a bigger question: What is your business asking of you in this season?
Because every season asks something different of us. There are seasons to imagine and seasons to build. Seasons to simplify, release, and lead. The wisdom is recognizing which season we’re actually in, rather than continuing to lead from the one we’ve just left.
And that requires decisions. Leadership is the discipline of making intentional decisions.
In the early years of business, so much of our growth comes from learning. As our businesses mature, more of our growth comes from our ability to make better decisions, drawing on the experience and wisdom we’ve accumulated along the way.
I see five kinds of decisions showing up again and again in the businesses I work with: Focus, Boundaries, Leadership, Voice, and Momentum.
These aren’t five decisions to make all at once. Think of them as five lenses that can help us recognize the decision that matters most for the season we’re entering.
Focus: What deserves my attention?
This one sounds simple until you think about how many things are competing for our attention at any given moment.
Every exciting idea, new offer, potential partnership, client request and opportunity asks something of us. And every yes means saying no to a hundred other things. When we choose one thing to focus on for the next quarter, we’re also choosing where our time, energy, money and creativity won’t go. That clarity helps guide all the smaller decisions that follow. That’s why focus is so much more than productivity. It’s a leadership decision.
As you look at the next quarter, what deserves your focused attention? What could change if you truly gave it your focus?
Boundaries: What am I no longer available for?
I love this question because sometimes the future becomes clearer when we decide what isn’t coming with us.
Businesses accumulate things. Offers. Habits. Responsibilities. Clients. Ways of working. Expectations we’ve placed on ourselves. Things that once served us can quietly continue taking So often, growth can require subtraction as much as addition. A boundary creates space for what matters most.
Look ahead and ask yourself what you’re simply no longer available for. Your answer may create more possibility than adding another strategy ever could.
Leadership: Where does my leadership create the greatest impact?
This decision becomes increasingly important as a business grows.
Most successful entrepreneurs are capable of doing a lot of things. That’s often how we got here. But eventually, our value can’t be measured by how much we personally do. We have to recognize where our presence, perspective, relationships and decisions create the greatest impact.
Maybe your leadership is needed in the room with your best clients. Maybe it’s developing your team, creating intellectual property, cultivating relationships, speaking, writing, selling, or holding the larger vision.
The question is less about what you’re capable of doing and more about where you make a difference that someone else can’t.
Voice: What conversation am I choosing to lead?
There comes a point when growing our businesses also means growing the reach of our ideas.
You’ve accumulated experiences, perspective and wisdom. You’ve seen patterns. You have opinions about what needs to change. There are conversations you can contribute to in a way that no one else can because no one else has lived your exact combination of experiences.
Voice is the decision to put those ideas into motion. Your voice becomes more powerful when you contribute ideas that matter and choose to lead conversations that move people forward.
As you look into the future, what conversation has your experience prepared you to lead? There may be an idea you’re ready to give more space, visibility and conviction.
Momentum: What courageous decision creates the greatest momentum?
Sometimes we can spend months making dozens of small decisions while avoiding the one decision that would change everything.
We know the one. It’s usually the decision we keep revisiting, researching, talking about and putting back on the shelf.
Progress doesn’t always come from making more decisions. Sometimes one courageous decision unlocks everything that follows.
As you look ahead, what decision would create movement? Maybe it’s making the hire, ending something that has run its course, making the investment, claiming the new direction, raising the price, having the conversation or finally putting a date on the thing you’ve been saying you’re going to do.
You Don’t Have to Make All Five
This may be the most important part of the process.
I wasn’t asking the women at Business Alchemy to walk out with five major decisions. We were looking into the future and asking them to recognize which kind of decision their next season was asking for.
Maybe yours is Focus. Maybe you know exactly where you’re going, but a Boundary is needed to create room for it. Maybe your business is asking for more of your Leadership or your Voice. Maybe everything is already lined up and one courageous decision would create the Momentum you’ve been waiting for.
Choose the one that has your attention.
Then make a declaration about what that decision means for you and the business you’re building.
This is where I believe experience becomes wisdom, and wisdom becomes leadership. We aren’t looking outside ourselves for another formula to follow. We’re paying attention to what years of experience have taught us and allowing that wisdom to inform what comes next.
At the close of Business Alchemy, we asked another question: What decision will define your next season?
I think it’s a beautiful question for any of us to sit with.
Look out six months or a year at the business and life you want to be living. You don’t need to figure out every decision between here and there.
What is the one kind of decision you’re being called to make now?
And what becomes possible when you make it?
