Deciding on Decisions
Decision-Making Basics: Decision-making involves identifying choices, reviewing available information, weighing known pros & cons, evaluating potential outcomes & selecting the current best option.
Good Decision-Makers Basic Attributes:
Clear Goals & Values
Defined priorities
Adequate, Reliable Information
Personal Confidence
Time to Reflect on Past Decisions
Support from Resources (e.g. People, Books)
Bad Decision-Makers Basic Attributes:
Ambiguity of Outcome
Lack Understanding of the Purpose of the Decision
Lack Reliable Information
Emotional Stress & Fatigue
Unclear Goals & Values
Emotional Biases
External Pressure
Ignorance, the Blessing: If we don’t know something, we don’t know that we don’t know it. We can even say that we are ignorant of our ignorance. This mindset stops us from making any decisions & leaves us only to react to the world around us.
When we become aware of our ignorance, we need to acknowledge this awareness as a blessing. This acknowledgment is the first step in making better decisions for all areas of our life (Mind-Body-Spirit-Social-Finance-Work).
Ignorance awareness opens the door of opportunities to see things differently, to learn different things & to do things differently.
We can challenge our mindset by reading how others have taken the steps to make improvement in their lives. Then, we can create a plan to widen our view to make better life decisions that will influence our health & happiness.
Circling Decision: When you can’t make a decision, listen to your thoughts. If you can’t decide, focus on what is holding you back. In doing so, you will break the circling decision-making thoughts that creates indecisiveness.
Some factors to ponder are:
Fear of Making the Wrong Choice: This creates uncertainty & second-guessing.
Uncertainty of Lack of Clarity: Available options or outcomes are unknown.
Overthinking: This drives us towards perfectionism to find the ‘perfect’ solution.
Outcome Prediction: Considering all possible scenarios assumes that we can predict the exact outcome.
Value/Goal Conflict: This creates inner mental tension & misalignment to what truly matters.
External Pressure: Social expectations cloud judgment of one’s own opinions.
After we identify what is creating our indecisiveness, we need to pause & reflect on why we are allowing our minds to continue with this mental circling. Then, reset your thinking by applying the good decision-making attributes mentioned above.
Decision Reversal: As life is filled with decisions that did not work out as planned, we need to practice and get better correcting their outcomes.
Think of a decision outcome that did not go as planned and then, apply one of the following:
Reflect on the Outcome Without Judgment Towards Self & Others
Identify Missing Factors (e.g. Goals, Values, Priorities, Information)
Stay Flexible & Ready to Adjust to the Unexpected Outcome
Seek Objective & Constructive Feedback
Apply Lessons Learned Thinking (e.g. Skill Development, Knowledge Development)
Don’t Beat Yourself Up & Allow Yourself Time to Grow from the Decision
The more we practice these decision-making reversal skills, the freer we will become in making decisions. Many of our everyday decisions can be reversed. Take time to think differently about the outcome & look at it as a new problem to solve.
Paralysis By Analysis: Negative thinking makes decision making harder. It clouds our judgment & increases doubt. It amplifies our fears & potential worse case scenarios. This negative thinking causes us to overthink potential outcomes.
This thinking lends itself to lower self-confidence as one might start to question & doubt one’s ability to make a sound decision. If done frequently, this overly analytical thinking may become pessimistic & only consider anticipated failures. This failure-forward thinking makes it even harder for a person to make a decision and narrows one’s perspective to only see a negative outcome.
To break this paralysis by analysis thinking, please refer to the above “Decision Reversal”.
Growth versus Fixed Decision-Making Mindsets:
Growth Decision-Making Mindset: If you believe that you can learn from any decision, you have a growth decision-making mindset. These decision makers see every decision as an opportunity to learn. Taking risks & challenges become experiences & experiments to which they can grow. They see setbacks as temporary & use them as feedback for better & future decision making. This flexibility & openness allows them to adapt more easily when decisions do not work out as planned.
Fixed Decision-Making Mindset: Fixed decision-making mindsets often fear making mistakes because they believe their abilities & intelligence are static. They avoid decisions that are challenging in fear of failure & judgment. When faced with a setback from a decision, they tend to interpret it as a reflection of their limitation which leads to hesitation, indecision or unwillingness to try again.
What kind of decision-maker are you?
Which kind of decision-maker do you want to be?