Decision Making 101
You are confronted with a big decision and you do not know what to do. You’ve analyzed the positives and negatives, conducted an entire…
You are confronted with a big decision and you do not know what to do. You’ve analyzed the positives and negatives, conducted an entire cost-benefit analysis, and consulted with 1000 different people, but you’re stuck. What do you do?! How do you make the right decision?
What is the right decision? The “right” decision makes you feel comfortable, but it also the one that makes you uncomfortable. The “right” decision prevents conflict, but it also creates conflict. The “right decision” makes you happy, but also makes you sad. The bottom line is 99.99% of the time there is no right answer!
Odds are if you are taking a while to decide on something, you’ve thought of every possible outcome already. You’ve done your due diligence. You’ve come to the point where the simple act of deciding is giving you more anxiety than the ramifications of a “poor” decision.
Save yourself the anxiety and make decisions quickly. Yes, think about the outcomes of what you are doing, but make your decision and move on. Here’s a good decision-making process. Keep reading.
Analyze
The first step to decision making is to analyze your options. You have a problem, and there are a few different ways you can go about solving it. Think about the problem and brainstorm your options. Let your mind wander. Don’t think about the pros and cons of each solution yet, just get all your options down on paper.
Pros and cons
You have a problem and now you have a list of possible solutions. Now, look at each individual solution. What are the benefits of the solution? What are the ramifications of the solution?
Decide
After writing down the pros and cons of each solution, it’s time to decide. By now, you are probably leaning in one direction, but if you are not, this is what you can do.
If you are between two solutions, flip a coin. Assign tails to one decision, heads for the other, and flip. At the moment you flip the coin, you are going to think to yourself which side you want the coin to be on — your mind is going to be in favor of one side over the other. Now you have your decision.
If you are between multiple solutions, this is what you can do. Assign a number to each one of your solutions and ask a friend to choose between the numbers. Prior to your friend saying anything, there is one solution that you hope your friend is going to choose.
You now have your decision. Whatever you are favoring is what you should go with! If you’re comfortable with it, go for it.
Write it down
You’ve made a decision and it 100% makes sense, but you’re still not comfortable with it. WRITE IT DOWN. Write down your solution and explain to yourself why you made that decision. Justify your reasoning for what you are choosing to do and move on. Dwelling on your decision does you no good. Move on. Reap the benefits and deal with the ramifications later.
You HATE decision making because you overthink every possible thing that could happen. When you begin to overthink things, you start to get anxious and it just makes it more and more difficult. To avoid overthinking, make decisions quickly and efficiently — then move one and deal with what could happen later!