In life, we are making decisions all the time; what to wear for work today, what to cook tonight, and where to go on vacations (if we can afford it in this current economic climate that is). They form part of the fabric of our daily lives, so we are not consciously thinking about them.
However, there comes crossroads in life when we are stuck as we have to make potentially life-changing decisions. Option A would lead to life path A and option B would lead to life path B. Sometimes, we spend lots of time thinking about the pros and cons but then end up taking the path that we least wanted.
I have done that so many times in my life and what is left is only regrets when looking back. Decision-making is something I really focus on in my coaching as most people come to me when they are confused and need clarity on the next step. Today I am sharing with you the lessons that I have learned through trial and error, and where I have become more in tune with the decisions I make.
And the most important thing to remember is that there is no perfect decision. None. There are only good enough decisions and we can learn to be smart about the process.
Q1: What option would provide me with the most happiness and the least regrets?
Face it, you don’t know how you are going to feel when the impact of the deed is felt. But this is an opportunity to go inwards. Deep down, we know what we want, what are our values and our aspirations.
So, if we enter a state of deep reflection and project ourselves into this selected future, how do we feel? Are we happy? What regrets are coming to the surface? Now we switch to a different future, try this exercise again. Concoct mental images of each future. And make sure to include some pros and some cons. This is how you find out the good enough scenario and reverse engineer it back to the present moment where you are stuck with choices.
Q2. What option provides me the most room for pivoting?
This question was crucial for me when I was choosing to take a leap into entrepreneurship after being an employee for 13 years. This question does not only apply to career-related decisions but any important milestone in life.
The problem with blaming ourselves for past actions taken is that we dismiss the uncertainty component of life. We can have all the right information and the most optimised tools, but we can never predict the future to a T. Things are going to go haywire, some things are not just going to work out and we do not know which ones of them will be caught under fire.
As an example, one of my posts on Instagram got a lot of attention. It was not my best post, it lasted only a few seconds and I wrote a caption on top of my head. Yet, it was my best-performing post for the entire week. The one that I spent hours crafting and redesigning got only a few views. So bottom line is, you never know!
We can never fully predict how people will react, or how the world is unfolding at that time in the future. But where we have agency is the choice to find the option with the most space for pivots and shifts in strategies without breaking the main plan.
In other words, it needs to have mini plan Bs that you can resort to without ruining the whole plan. I had zero plan Bs when I quit my job cold turkey and that was a mistake. But I got lucky as the decision had room for pivot without disrupting the whole picture. I could take part-time jobs when business was down, instead of calling it quits and saying I was a failure.
So if ever you are stuck between two or three options, choose the one with the most forgiving spaces in the future.
Q3: Am I okay with taking responsibility for the circumstances of this choice?
This is my opinion and we can totally debate it if you want, but the wrong choice does not exist. At the time, it was right according to me. But then with the twists and turns of life, it turned out to be wrong. But then we blame ourselves for not choosing differently.
There is always going to be opportunity cost, whatever you do. So the real question is if it indeed turned out to be wrong or things don’t go my way then what are the repercussions going to look like and am I prepared to take responsibility for it?
As another example, my ‘wrong choice’ entailed losing the money that I saved for my downpayment for a condo. It was something I thought about in depth before starting coaching. And I did lose my downpayment and never made it back. And I took full responsibility for it. It was a gamble, I took it, and it is OK.
When you take accountability seriously, something else happens, you are no longer scared of the so-called wrong decisions and you become more prepared to deal with consequences thrown at you, even the ones that are unexpected.
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Uncertainty is the only certainty in life. We can have the brightest mind with the most efficient tool to exploit for decision-making, but it is only going to play out according to the laws of nature.
However, with a series of thoughtful questions, we can reduce the anxiety around this stressful process and come to terms with the reality of it.
Hope the questions can support your own decision-making process.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash
