FCLP 39 | The 3 Questions That Make Any Decision Faster

In this clarifying leadership episode of the Female Church Leaders Podcast, Kadi Cole tackles why some decisions come easily while others – even small ones – leave us stuck. She walks through three common traps that stall decision-making, then introduces a simple three-question tool called 10-10-10 to help you move forward with clarity instead of circling.

You'll gain a way to tell how much time any decision actually deserves, a look at the three traps most likely to be slowing you down, and what James 1 says about the difference between wisdom and indecision.

This week I'm teaching The Competency Gap Live Training live - register here:  https://www.kadicole.com/clglivewebinar

TIMESTAMPS

01:14 – The 3 decision-making traps 

01:29 – Trap 1: Overthinking 

03:18 – Trap 2: Avoiding risk 

04:21 – Trap 3: Relational complexity 

05:32 – The 10/10/10 decision tool

09:01 – This week's action step

Resources mentioned:

Make Your Stewardship Case; https://www.kadicole.com/stewardship

Next Steps and Resources:

• Take the Quiz: Identify your growth gap with our Sticky Floor Quiz at www.femalechurchleaders.com.
• Join a Cohort: Be part of our next Closing the Leadership Gap cohort for guided coaching and monthly Q&A with Kadi. Visit www.closingtheleadershipgap.com to learn more.
• Stay Connected: Follow us on Instagram @femalechurchleaders for daily encouragement and leadership tools.
• Spread the Word: If you found this episode helpful, please follow, rate, and share the podcast to help us reach more female church leaders.

Tune in and get ready to lead with clarity, strength, and joy. Your calling matters, and we're here to support you every step of the way!

Transcript

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Welcome to the Female Church Leaders Podcast, a weekly resource for women who love God, love the church, and are called to lead. I'm your host, Katie Cole, church leader, author, and executive coach. After more than 30 years in full-time ministry, Open as the only woman at the table, I understand how meaningful yet challenging your calling can be. That's why I created this podcast, to remind you that you're not leading alone. Each week, I'll share practical tools, biblical insights, and honest encouragement for the real challenges female leaders face in ministry. So you can grow your skills, strengthen your faith, and lead with more confidence and joy without burning out or striving to prove yourself. We drop a new episode every Monday because Sunday is coming and you are going to be ready for it. Sometimes I am shocked at my ability to make a complicated decision at work that has long-term implications, yet get completely stuck trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Or I can see so clearly what someone else should do as their next move to reach their goal, but I can't see my own situation clearly at all. Getting stuck in decision making is normal and very common. And if it does cost us time, energy, and frustration, for sure. So I want to talk today through the three traps that get us stuck in making confident and clear decisions and a simple formula to help you unlock your thinking so you can move forward with more clarity and less circling. So see if you can find your tendency in any one of these three traps. The first trap is overthinking, and it shows up in some familiar ways. Sometimes it's too many options. We actually, as people, naturally split into two types of information gatherers. Some of us are maximizers who need all the information and are driven to make the best choice possible. And then on the other hand, there are satisfiers who are pretty much fine with good enough. In the research, maximizers do tend to make slightly better choices, but they feel far less satisfied and exhausted afterwards, and it takes them a lot longer to make the decision. Satisfiers, on the other hand, decide, move on, and rarely look back. For most of the decisions we make in life, the more information we have actually makes the decision-making process harder. Sometimes overthinking is what's known as decision fatigue. Just the act of making a decision uses up a limited amount of energy, which is why a lot of high-level marketplace leaders actually try to minimize their choices as much as possible. Maybe you've seen stories about them. They wear the same thing every day or eat the exact same breakfast. To them, it's not boring, it's protecting their energy and capacity for more important decisions later in the day. I know for me, by 2 p.m. on a Sunday, after what feels like a hundred small ministry decisions, I should not be making any major life choices. And sometimes it's just old-fashioned perfectionism dressed up as thoroughness. High capacity leaders, especially women, are notorious for over-preparing, making sure we've thought through every little detail, that we can justify every debatable point, and that everything is spiffy and lined up just right before we proceed forward. Now, all of this ends us up in the same place. More thinking, more information, more details, but less clarity and we feel stuck. The second trap is about avoiding risk. And avoiding risk shows up as loss aversion and the pull to stay put. Now, what's interesting is in the research, when we lose something, like we've had something that we value and we lose it, that actually feels roughly twice as painful as if we gained something equivalent, feels good. Now, that's not just who we are, it's how we're wired. For a leader, the loss we're most afraid of usually isn't about money. It's about how we'll be perceived or whether a decision costs us credibility, we've worked hard to build. So instead of taking the risk, we stay small. And staying put often feels safer than choosing, even when staying put is its own choice with its own set of consequences. I don't know if you've noticed this, but making no decision is not actually neutral. It is actually making a decision, just a passive one. If you've ever worked for a leader who couldn't decide, you already know this. You end up living out the decision of no decision, whether you agreed to it or not, and whether it's working or not. And the third trap is relational. And this is actually the one I see affecting ministry leaders especially hard. When a decision only affects us, we weigh the merits and it's easier to move on. But when someone we're relationally invested in is a part of the situation and a part of the consequences of the decision, now we're not just weighing it about ourselves. We're weighing the relationship too, whether we realize it or not. And leading in a local church is unique when it comes to relationship. We not only have people to consider under our decision making like anyone else, we actually have multiple layers of relationships affecting it. Our direct reports, our staff and team members, our volunteers, but then we also have general people in the congregation. And many of our decisions actually affect our own family and our close friends who we love being at church with. And it often happens that we affect all of these layers at one time. So figuring out all the layers to consider is not simple indecision. It's genuine complexity. And sometimes there just simply isn't a good answer to such complex challenges. But I do have a decision-making tool that I've used for over 30 years that really helps cut through all three of these traps. It's called 10, 10, 10. Now, 1010 10 are three simple questions. The first is, will this decision matter in 10 days? The second, will it matter in 10 months? And the third, will it matter in 10 years? Now I know it seems super simple, but here's what these questions actually do. They don't just speed you up, they actually tell you how much time a decision deserves. If it's genuinely a decision that will have an impact for 10 years from now, by all means, give it the time, the information, and the prayer it deserves. But if the decision won't matter even in 10 days, dragging it out isn't wisdom. It's likely overthinking, fatigue, and fear that's keeping you stuck. Once you know which category a decision is in, you stop treating every choice with the same weight. You stop giving an office supply order the same emotional energy as you are a really complicated staff change. Changing this focus is what actually can move you forward at a healthier and steady pace. Not speed for the sake of its own sake. Fast decision making isn't any better than slower decision making if it's not the right amount of time. But the right amount of time for the right decisions is the way to go. Let me give you an example. Say you're deciding whether to say yes to leading a new outreach initiative your pastor just brought to you. Here's the 10-day check. Is this something you'd still feel good about in a week and a half from now? Or is it just the initial excitement of a new project and the honor of being asked what's really feeding your decision? The 10-month check. Will this still feel meaningful once the routine of it sets in, including combining it with all your current responsibilities? Or will it just feel like one more thing on your already full plate? And the 10-year check. Does saying yes move you toward the kind of leader in life you are actually building long term? Does this move you forward in your calling or just create a distraction from it? Same three questions work whether you are buying a car or whether you're trying to decide if you should host Thanksgiving dinner or figuring out a major career move. And it especially works on whether to finally have that overdue conversation with a leader who's been showing up late for the last two months. Ten days, an awkward meeting for a couple of minutes. Ten months, a team that actually starts on time. Ten years. Nobody remembers the conversation happened. They just see a highly functional team that you are leading well. James 1 speaks actually directly to this. Verse 5 through 8 say, If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. I love that promise. It will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt. Because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. Double-minded, blown and tossed. That's exactly what getting stuck in decision making feels like. James doesn't say gather more information. He says ask for help. Believe God has a clear answer and start up wavering in indecision. Staying stuck in the waves isn't humility and it's definitely not honorable. It's simply instability with better manners. So here's your action step for this week. Pick one decision you've been stalling on. It can be big or small, it doesn't really matter. And ask the three questions and maybe even write them down. Will this matter in 10 days? Will this matter in 10 months? And will this matter in 10 years? Then set yourself an actual deadline to decide. It could be today, this week, Friday at five, or maybe you actually need to give it enough time to make a decision like a month. And then hold yourself to it the same way you'd hold anyone else accountable to their commitment. Now, if you're stuck as a team, discuss these same three questions, but do it together. It actually works even faster in a group because honestly, nobody butts to be the one person stuck on the 10-day question when everyone else has moved on to the 10-year one. Hey, if getting unstuck faster sounds like something you want more of, I've got two opportunities for you. First, our female church leaders live training this month walks through more tools like this one, built specifically for the decisions female church leaders face. And if you're ready to go deeper in your development, our closing the leadership gap coaching cohort starts October the 1st. You'll find both links in the show notes. And by the way, that dinner decision from earlier, I ran it through the three questions. Ten days. Will anyone remember what we ate? No. In ten months? No. In ten years, absolutely not. So we all circled up and had a bowl of cereal and everybody survived. Remember to give the big decisions the time they've earned and give yourself permission to move fast on the rest. Remember, we are here to cheer you on every step of the way. I'm so glad we got to spend this time together on the Female Church Leaders Podcast. I hope you're walking away encouraged, equipped, and reminded that your calling truly matters. To keep growing, join us for our next Closing the Leadership Gap cohort at ClosingThe Leadership Gap.com. It's a guided coaching experience, including live QA with me, designed to accelerate your leadership journey. If this podcast has been helpful to you, would you please take a moment to follow, rate, and share it? Your engagement helps the algorithms suggest our resources to female church leaders we haven't had a chance to meet yet. And don't forget to follow at female church leaders on Instagram for encouragement and leadership tools designed just for you. You can also follow my personal feed at Katie Cole spelled K A D I C O L E. Keep leading faithfully, keep growing your leadership gifts, and I'll see you next Monday because Sunday is coming and you are going to be ready for it.