10 steps to making great decisions

Welcome

Here you'll find my infrequent musings and reflections on all things that impact our beliefs and potential.

8 February 2022

Our decisions have such big impact on our lives. Yet so many people make decisions that impact them negatively. How do you choose something like a career, say, that’s right for you? And that’s one of the bigger decisions we might have to make. What about the thousands of daily decisions to be made? Hmm…chocolate or a satsuma?

Your life is largely defined by the quality of your decisions. What’s going to happen if we consistently pick chocolate over the fruit? How then, do we avoid choosing poorly?

To make good decisions we need a good decision-making process.

Try these steps to make decisions that work for you:

1. What’s your objective? Think about what you want to achieve. What outcome do you want from your decision?
2. What do you value? Our decisions can connect with our values, and things like what career we choose, or what we want to eat can be guided by them. If you’re unsure of your values, try and get clear on them before making a decision.
3. What are your options? List them out and you’ll find there are more options than you thought. Often, you’ll find the best choice was one staring right at you that wasn’t considered.
4. What are the benefits? List out the pros of the options.
5. What are the downfalls? Now list out the downfalls. What are the negatives? What are the risks? Get them all down on paper.
6. Sleep on it. If you don’t have to make an immediate decision, sleep on it. A night of sleep will give you new perspectives. You might be surprised how much it’s changed (or not) in the morning.
7. Make the decision. This might feel tricky now you’ve got lots of different options, but if you’re stuck it probably means all the options are good for you. Compare all the pros and cons and keep your values in mind, then choose what feels best to you. This can feel scary because it’s a place of growth. Sitting in procrastination might well be more comfortable. But it’s a stress response from fear of the changes that may come from your decision.
8. What’s the worst that could happen? When you prepare for the worst, you’ll be ready if it happens. This brings confidence because you have a plan. And if you can handle the worst, you can handle anything else that comes from your decision.
9. Stick it out. It’s so easy to back out and change our mind because we’re scared. You’ve done the hard part. Only if you see an obvious mistake that it won’t work for you or isn’t right for you should you change your mind and make a different decision.
10. What have you learnt? There are lessons to be learnt from all our decisions. What worked, what didn’t? How can you refine your decision-making process next time?

Decisions are important and we make them every single day. The quality of your decisions determines the quality of your life.

How do you currently make decisions? Do you have a process or just shoot from the hip?

It’s really in your gift to influence the impact either way.

Share this post:

Créer une ligne verticale en HTML