I don’t know about you, but everyday I am bombarded with decisions.

What to eat? What do I make for supper? Do I have time to run to the store before my next commitment? Who’s driving the kids to practice? What do I do first on my to do list? What needs to be on my to do list today?

Then the kids- What’s for supper? Can you drive me to the store? Do we have plans next Friday? What are we doing for Christmas? Do we have any plans March 18th? What are we doing Sept. 2nd 2026?

Then there’s the big decisions – Do we pay to fix the car or buy a new one? When can we fit fixing the roof into our budget? Should we go on vacation?

I feel like the questions requiring my answer are lurking around every corner, behind every door, standing by my bed watching me sleep and waiting for me to wake up.

Sometimes it feels so urgent,

and sooooo overwhelming.

It’s no wonder that some of our major life decisions are made with one simple phrase:

‘That’s just what we do’

Have you ever said that? I know I have, and since I became aware of it, I notice just how often I do – and how often it comes up in conversation with others. My clients have said it more than once. Friends say it all the time in one way or another.

One example of this in my personal life was when my oldest child was turning 5. Without giving it much thought, it was time to register him in Kindergarten, and send him off to school. We didn’t discuss it much, other than that it was inevitable. Where we live there wasn’t even much choice as to where he would go to school. In our town at the time there were 2 elementary schools, and your address determined which school your kids went to. If asked we could come up with a hundred reasons why sending him to school was a good idea, but we didn’t really think about it.

That first day we took him to school, walked to his classroom with excitement (and a little fear), and said goodbye with teary eyes to our little boy for the day.

Then came almost 4 years of struggle. Boredom and complaints through Kindergarten. Then dragging him literally kicking and screaming to school twice a day, both in the morning and at lunch, in Grade 1. Then, over the next 2 years, his behavior at home became increasingly worse, and there were several incidents at school that made me uncomfortable and worried about what the next 9 years would bring. During all of this time I could still come up with many reasons why we needed to stick it out with school. I met with the teachers and the Principles, only to be told my child was great at school and I was just an overprotective parent. Until he was acting out at school too. But I was still overprotective and worried about nothing.

Then came a point where my husband and I sat down and said ‘How much worse is this going to get?’

This was the first time, 4 years after initially sending our child to school, that we sat down and had an actual discussion about whether this was the best place for our child. This was when we weighed the pros and cons about school, locations, the impact on our family, and homeschooling as an option.

We didn’t have this discussion 4 years earlier when we knew our son was already past the kindergarten level in his learning. We did what was expected. We did what was normal. We just ‘did what you do’ at that point in time. And we reasoned it away with logic, probably, looking back, to convince ourselves we were doing the right thing.

Ultimately we made the decision to homeschool, which wasn’t easy and came with many other subsequent choices and sacrifices for us. It was, however, the best decision we ever made for our son. Part of me wishes we would have kept him home from the beginning, but we had to be pushed into making an actual, conscious choice for our family and our children.

It is so much easier to go through life on auto pilot, than it is to weigh every decision.

But sometimes it can be so much harder too.

So, how many major life decisions have you made because ‘That’s just what we do?’. How many small decisions have you made for that same reason? Do you have a hundred reasons why you are making the right decision, even if your gut is telling you different? Is your reasoning to convince others, or yourself?

Don’t get me wrong, I still make decisions by doing what is expected and normal, without thinking too much about it. But I have become more aware, trying to consciously think about what I’m doing and why. I want to be sure to make the best decisions for me, and my family, and teach my kids to do the same. It’s not always about what is expected, or what everyone else is doing.

Ultimately it is about you.

*The opinions expressed in this blog are based solely on my own experiences and lessons. Please take only what resonates with you, and leave the rest.