Why You Keep Making Decisions You Later Regret

We make decisions every day. As humans, it is practically unavoidable to make decisions on a consistent basis.

Every day we make at least a handful of decisions to get the day running. This includes routine decisions like when to wake up, what to do first in the morning and later in the day.

Others can be less a routine: the course we choose to read, the career path we took, where we choose to live, who we decide to marry, who we choose to make our friends, the school we want our kids to attend. The list goes on and on.

It is worthy to note that every decision has a consequence.

While we have the freedom to make these decisions, we can’t avoid the consequences of those decisions. We can broadly subdivide the eventual outcome or consequence of a decision into two types:

• desirable and
• undesirable.

When the outcome of a decision is beneficial, we say it is desirable. For a loss instead, we say it is undesirable.

The decisions we end up not proud of are classed under undesirable outcomes. This is because we wished we never made them in the first place. If the circumstances were replayed, we would have explored the alternative.

But the question is, are there factors we can control that can increase our odds of making these decisions, or are they just entirely outside our control?

Here is the answer: every outcome has variables. And some of these variables are controllable while others are not. But to a large extent, the controllable factors are more.

Meaning we can significantly increase the gross odd that a decision becomes desirable.

I have highlighted three controllable factors so that the next time you have a decision before you, you can tactfully boost the odds in your favor.

. . .

Time

Time is a factor in everything we do. There is hardly any aspect of your life that time does not influence. It affects your earnings, your success, and failure, your health wellbeing, your belief, and lifestyle.

The availability of time significantly influences the outcomes of our decision.

With sufficient time to consider the facts and figures around a situation, the mind can come up with more logical conclusions about the future outcomes of the decisions options we can make in the light of the issue at hand.

The reverse is also true. With less time to ruminate over the situation, it handicaps the mind to come up with informed conclusions to base our decisions on.

To point therefore is to learn to consider the probability of situations well ahead of time instead of waiting until the injury time when due to time pressure the mind switches to autopilot mode.

. . .

Knowledge

Knowledge is power. If I may add, knowledge empowers your ability to make an excellent decision.

Sufficient knowledge of a situation at hand is a prophylaxis against disaster.

Most poor decisions are because of a lack of sufficient knowledge by the individual about the situation at hand.

The more you know about a situation, that is its nature, and factors affecting it, the better the chances you will make decisions that lead to desirable outcomes.

For example, if you knew a drug addict who is also an alcoholic was a risk marital partner, you wouldn’t need a guru to tell you to slow down rushing to the altar with him. Because that individual is an abusive partner about to explode.

Instead, after advising him to stop and all effort ending in failure, the best thing to do is to quit the relationship. Else, you may end up suffering some disability later in life due to intimate partner violence.

Good knowledge of the situation is indeed prophylaxis against disaster.

So before deciding on a deal or situation, research its tendencies and read about factors that tend towards possible outcomes. It will save you a lot of loss.

. . .

Emotions

A decision that seems correct during an emotional high usually turns grossly lacking in judgement when emotions settle.

You have probably heard that making a decision when the tide of emotions goes up almost always never ends well when they settle. It is true.

Most seemingly Dextro rotated decisions turn Levo rotated because when emotions rise, logic is suppressed. And so your judgment at that moment is comprised leading to improperly thought out decisions. And you can tell where those decisions lead to.

I read a little fiction a few years ago. A man just bought a new car that was in vogue at their time. He cleaned the car every morning, not allowing dust to settle on the surface.

One day his little son took a pebble and was scribbling at the surface of the door on the driver’s side.

Noticing the child from the window, he rushed out and beat the hell out of him.

A few hours later, he checked to examine the door. Tears started rolling from his eyes on reading the inscription which says, “Daddy, I love you.” His heart melted and knelt there sobbing. He has never been so heartbroken.

The best action when emotion rise is to do nothing, allow it to settle, then take action. There is no better prescription.

Conclusion

The outcomes of our decisions are not entirely outside our influence. In many significant ways, we can determine the direction of our decision.

Time, knowledge of the situation, and emotional state are variables that can help boost the odds of arriving at desirable outcomes we can be proud of after which.

A bad decision can be expensive, learning how to minimize them as an adult is really a great skill in our self-improvement skill box.

Cheers to making better decisions.

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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.

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