Swiping is simple in concept: if you like someone, you swipe right. If you don’t like them, you swipe left. And yet it’s a lot more complex and difficult in practice, particularly when you start questioning yourself in the process. The internal dialogue can look something like this: “I kind of like this person, but I’m not sure. But I’m not sure why I’m not sure. Should I swipe right? I could, but what if I end up hating this person? Then I’m stuck dealing with someone I don’t like. Maybe it’s best to swipe left. But what if they’re actually great and I end up missing out? If I don’t choose though, then I can’t get to the rest of my matches. Maybe I’ll close out the app and see if it resets. Yes! It reset. Damn it. It only reset for two new matches.”

If you’re exhausted just reading that, then you’re probably a thousand times more exhausted when actually experiencing it.

I think most women would love an equation, formula, or algorithm that they could follow when swiping. Do X, Y, or Z, and voila, here are your perfect matches. And who knows, maybe with the development of AI, we’ll have a version of that at some point in the future. But for now, we’re left without a perfect process for swiping. We’re left having to make these decisions on our own, without any other feedback.

To top it off, many of us aren’t very aware of HOW we make decisions in the first place. We all tend to lean a certain way in our decision making approach, yet because it’s our norm, we don’t think much about it. However, there are a few different places we might turn when making decisions:

• Thoughts, Logic, and Reason: Cognitive decision makers tend to give the most weight to their thoughts. These are the individuals that you might find making pros and cons lists or creating spreadsheets.

• Emotions and Feelings: Emotional decision makers are most aware of their feelings when making decisions. If they come across a profile and have a strong negative feeling, they’re likely to swipe left more quickly, without thinking about why they had a negative reaction to the profile.

• Body and Physical Sensations: Most of us aren’t great at tuning into our bodies, but they are a great source of data. If you notice that your muscles suddenly tense up when looking at someone’s profile, that’s information that you might have stumbled across a not-so-great match for yourself.

• Intuition and Gut Reactions: Feelings can change fairly rapidly, but intuition and gut reactions tend to have more of a steadfastness to them. While we tend to experience feelings at a more accessible level, intuition tends to happen at a deeper level.

When we’re stuck in our decision making, it’s usually for two different reasons:

• We’re only focused on one source of information.

• Whatever source of information we chose, it’s not giving us a clear answer.
  

The solution? To use all four sources of information when making decisions.

I remember seeing a post on Facebook once, a cartoon drawing of a man behind bars, screaming at the jail staff to let him out. What he didn’t notice was that there were only bars in front of him, none on the sides or behind him. All he had to do to not be jailed was to walk around the side of the bars. This is what it can feel like when we’re only focused on one source of information in our decision making. We can feel locked in, trapped, stuck, as if there’s no clear pathway ahead of us.

It can also lead us to make decisions that aren’t best for us when we only use one source of data. Have you ever found yourself saying, “Well, he’s kind and funny, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with him. I’m not quite feeling the sparks, but I should give him another chance because he’s a nice guy.” That’s using logic as your primary data point. Your feelings are ignored here, and yet they could be crucial in helping you to figure out what’s missing in the connection. Instead, you might find yourself trudging along in something you’re not really feeling, because logic is telling you to keep pushing through.

Even worse, ignoring our feelings and our bodies can lead us to put ourselves in potentially dangerous situations. If you’re on a date and your body keeps tensing up, telling you that something’s not right, that’s worth listening to. Yet it’s all too easy to rationalize these things away, telling ourselves that we’re overreacting, that the person hasn’t actually done anything wrong, that it’s in our heads.

In contrast, when you give yourself permission to explore all of your reactions. There’s a freedom that can come from having different pathways to explore, perspectives to look at, and options for making your decisions. For example, if logic is causing your brain to have a never-ending debate with itself, your feelings, body, or intuition might help your brain put its endless arguing to rest.

We’re also more likely to make decisions that are best for us. If you’re a logical decision maker, it can be all too easy for others’ opinions, suggestions, and perspectives to sway your decision making. And yet what’s best for your friend or sibling might not necessarily be the best for you. By tuning into your feelings, YOU get to be in the driver’s seat. And vice versa, if you’re an emotional decision maker, tuning into your thoughts will likely help you to better understand your feelings, providing a larger context and narrative in making your decisions.

Looking at all of your data sources is also a much more empowering experience. It leads to greater trust in yourself in making decisions. You’re less likely to tolerate poor behavior from others, knowing that you’re making the best decisions for yourself, even if you’re getting pushback from someone else. Your date is giving you a hard time because you won’t come over to his place on the first date? It’s much easier to walk away when you trust your gut reaction saying not to go, easier to recognize that you deserve better than someone who is pushing you into something that you’re not comfortable with.

So how do you create a richer data set for yourself? How do you tune into all of this information at the same time?

If you’re a cognitive decision maker, it means giving value to your feelings and allowing room for them in your decision making. More times than not, women fall into this category. We’re taught to not trust ourselves, to suppress our feelings, to put others’ needs and wants before our own. So we default to using our thoughts and logic to make our decisions. And yet our feelings, our bodies, and our intuition carry so much weight. So see if you can allow more room for these other pieces when swiping. When you look at your matches, which ones do you get excited about? Which ones light you up and make you want to get to know them? And vice versa: which ones make you feel down, demoralized, like you just had a twenty pound weight added to your body? You don’t have to get rid of the logic, but see if you can also allow room for your feelings, your body, and your intuition.

If you’re an emotional or intuitive decision maker, try to allow room for your thoughts. Can you take a step back from your feelings and intuition and look at them in a non-critical way? Why is it that you’re excited about someone? Is it a fit in terms of interests or values? Is there something about this person's personality that you really like? When you take a closer look at your feelings and examine why you might be feeling certain ways, it provides you with a larger context. Think about cooking or baking. Your feelings are the individual ingredients. When you add in your thoughts, you get to see the final product of what you’re making.

If you’re someone who is great at tuning into their body when making decisions, then good for you. Most of us struggle with this, and yet with practice, it can become easier. Try to start noticing what’s coming up in your body at times when you’re not stressed or actively dating. Do you notice any muscle tension? If so, where? What other sensations do you notice? What do you notice in your body when you feel relaxed? Stressed? Joyful? Anxious? Learn more about your body and the way that it responds to different thoughts and feelings.

With all of that said, this entire process is trial and error for everyone. It takes time to figure out what works for you, what combination of tuning into your thoughts, feelings, and your body works for you. For me, I’ve always been a logical decision maker (I had an embarrassingly long spreadsheet of relationship must-haves at one point), so I’ve had to learn to lean into my feelings. It didn’t matter so much if someone checked off all my boxes, if my feelings were saying “this isn’t it.”

There’s no perfect formula for decision making. The important part is giving yourself permission to find a way of making decisions that works for you.

*Don’t forget to grab my free Red Flags Checklist! You’ll learn everything you need to know to scan for red flags in your swiping, conversations, and dates.