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Making decisions and how to become a better decision maker
Submitted by RagsToRich on Wed, 2009-12-02 12:07
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Decision making is a skill which is invaluable in anyone’s life, and if it’s not a skill which you have then it’s one you will want to acquire. This article explains the benefits of a good decision making ability and how to begin developing one.
Life is packed with windows of opportunity.
Literally every day you will experience these windows – and they will often shut in less than a couple of seconds. If you have not yet developed the ability to make a strong quick decision then these windows are nothing more than life teasing you – a glimpse of the reality you could have flashing quickly by your eyes.
Being indecisive is often the worst choice you can make. Making decisions is absolutely necessary for you to enact your intention upon the world.
In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Sometimes it is necessary to force yourself to make a decision quickly without having conclusive information available. Making a mistake and taking responsibility for it is preferable to making no decision at all.
This is not to say that some decisions do not require more careful consideration and longer deliberation – in-fact there are certainly cases when it is necessary to get all the information together and take some time to think on a decision.
When a decision is very important, you have a lot of information to consider, and you have the luxury of time available then it is appropriate to take some time committing to a decision. If you have the luxury of time it is prudent to use that time to your advantage, do not force snap decisions when they are not necessary.
However, in the vast majority of cases decisions, particularly important ones, are best suited to an almost instantaneous commitment.
Making decisions and taking responsibility for your life
Making decisions quickly and sticking with them is not just the trait of a good leader, it’s a necessary trait for anyone who is taking their life seriously.
A common trait of successful people is that they tend to make decisions fast, and alter them slowly. It is very rare a powerful decision making to ever u-turn on an issue unless a great deal evidence suggests to them that they should.
When you adapt this strategy, over-time you’ll definitely make some mistakes. Good, mistakes are actually a good thing.
Making your own mistakes is about a thousand times better than having someone else make your mistakes for you.
Whenever a decision turns out to be bad, take it on the chin. It was your responsibility, you accept the consequences as much as is reasonable given the information you had – then you move on. As a decision maker it is unavoidable you will make many thousands of mistakes.
At worst you will have made a quick decision rather than remaining indecisive and losing your ability to choose at all, at best you will have learned something valuable which you otherwise would not have.
If you have made a decision which you still have the opportunity to change and you are beginning to have doubts; rather than u-turning and risking your integrity on flip-flopping between two extremes, you should instead consider making only small adjustments in your decision to compensate.
As a good friend of mine regularly talks about, often making small subtle changes to your strategy can cause a vast improvement in your situation.
In unusual circumstances over-time a series of small subtle adjustments could potentially end-up closer to the decision you did not make, than the decision you did. But the overall process will still have been much more benefit than u-turning at the first sign of trouble.
Making u-turns
Is there ever a time to make a u-turn? Of course. When the degree of certainty that the correct decision to make is not the one you made and is such that one of the other decisions is almost definitely the better choice – then it is time to change your mind.
In that situation you swap sides, and accept that you didn’t have the best information available at the time to make the correct decision but now you do. However these circumstances are rare.
Finding more effective solutions
Sometimes you will come upon a situation in which you are required to make the same decision a repetitive number of times. To some extent there is an argument that you should stick with what works.
However, I prefer to find what’s better.
If you come upon a decision you’ve made many times before, where you have made the same choice, and it’s always worked, but you’ve never even tried the other choices.
Maybe it’s time to see what they are like too. Take a step into the unknown, test out the other options. Take responsibility for the consequences, and later assess if your new decision was more powerful, more effective, or more pleasant.
Being known as decisive
Once it is clear to the people around you that you are a decisive person you will find that people often look to you to make the decisions, or at least offer your opinion.
This is all part of taking control of the direction of your life, and taking responsibility for all the things which happen in it. In my opinion this ability is absolutely crucial.
Challenging yourself to become a decision maker
Set yourself a challenge that for the next week when ever someone offers you a choice you will make a decision on it within two seconds.
You could be at a restaurant making your final choice on which main course to have with the waiter standing at the table, or you could be in the office deciding if you want in on the tea round. You have three seconds, make a decision, stick with it.
If you do not feel completely comfortable with this at first, remember that you’re only trialing it for a week to see how it goes. Just see what happens…
If you don’t feel you have considered the options enough and it feels like a 50/50 split, choose randomly. Do it. Stick with it. Wait and see where your decision takes you.
If it’s a decision which needs to be made fast, do it with serious decisions too. It is much more desirable to make a decision fast which could possibly be wrong, than to be indecisive; especially in the most vital and serious of circumstance.
Your ability to make the best decision will improve naturally over time – but on top of that you will occasionally allow some time for reflection and appraisal of the choices you’ve made in order to further refine your ability to make decisions.
The time for this reflection is not while you are still awaiting the results of your decisions. It is a time when you are outside of the system in which you made the decisions and you can now clearly see the choice you made and the results which that choice produced.
Reflection is not about second guessing yourself – it is a process which it is healthy to undertake when the issue is concluded and you are able to assess the entire effect which was caused by the path you took.
By practicing making quick decisions, you actually become better at making the right choice at the right time with or without reflection. What you will find is that you quite quickly become good at quickly making excellent decisions. This process is entirely enjoyable, and every step up as a decision maker offers opportunity and liberation.
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Re: Making decisions and how to become a better decision maker
Re: Making decisions and how to become a better decision maker
It sounds like she does not know what she wants.
My advice to you is to make your own decision and do what you want. If you allow someone who is unsure of themselves to consistantly rock your boat then the both of you will end up getting no-where.
The fact is that there is definately a problem somewhere and either that needs to come out clearly so that you can both work on it, or you need to just move out regardless and let her know this will be better for both of you long term.
Whichever decision you make and even if it turns out to be right or wrong - make it with the conviction that you will accept responsibility for whatever comes of it. You can't know if you're going to make the right decision, but you can always know if you're taking full responsibility for it.
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