There's a decision you've been avoiding.

You know the one. It's been sitting in the back of your mind for weeks — maybe months. It comes up in the shower, on the drive home, at 11pm when you should be asleep. You've thought about it from every angle. You probably even know what you're going to decide.

You just haven't said it out loud yet.

Maybe it's a hire who isn't working out, but they're a good person and you keep hoping things will turn around. Maybe it's a program that's been limping along for two years because someone you care about built it and you don't want to be the one who ends it. Maybe it's a conversation with a board member, a vendor you need to cut ties with, or a structural change you know is right but keep telling yourself isn't "urgent enough" yet.

Whatever it is — you know.

Here's the thing about decisions like this: the cost of avoiding them is rarely zero. It just doesn't show up on a balance sheet. It shows up in the team member who's quietly checked out because they're waiting on you. In the meeting where everyone tiptoes around the obvious. In the slow erosion of trust that happens when people sense their leader knows something needs to change but isn't acting on it.

Delay feels like patience. Often, it's just postponement with better PR.

So here's what I want you to do today. Not this week — today.

First, name it. Write down, in one sentence, the decision you've been avoiding. Be specific. Not "I need to think about staffing" but "I need to have the conversation with [name] about whether this role is still the right fit."

Second, write the email. Not the whole resolution — just the email that starts the process. This might be:

- A note to a board member: "I'd like to put [topic] on the agenda for our next meeting — I think it's time we made a decision."

- A message to a staff member: "Can we find 30 minutes this week? I want to talk through how things are going in your role."

- A note to yourself, copied to a trusted colleague: "By [date], I'm going to make a decision about [issue]. I'm telling you so I have a deadline."

Third, send it. Today. Before the moment passes and the decision goes back into the holding pattern it's been in for months.

You don't have to solve the whole thing today. You don't even have to know exactly what the right answer is yet. You just have to stop letting it sit.

One email. One sentence. One deadline.

That's enough to turn avoidance into momentum — and momentum is usually all a stuck decision needs.

What's the decision you've been sitting on? You already know. Go write the email.

Bryan

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