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It can be very stressful when we are called upon to make a big decision. Whether we are under pressure from ourselves or from others, there will eventually come a time when we realize that we have to commit and decide one way or another. Making no decision is also a decision, but is one that removes our power and can slowly erode our confidence.
Get Professional Advice
This can be valuable but may well be expensive. And sometimes we may need several sessions or to see more than one professional. However, there are some effective ways of getting free, helpful advice. Many professionals offer free thirty-minute clinics that can give useful insights into the important aspects of a decision.
Ask Our Family or Friends
The people who know us best often appreciate how we are feeling, reacting. They understand our fears and concerns. But they may also have their own ulterior reasons for advising our decision. They may want to maintain the status quo and keep everything the same. We can choose to listen to their viewpoints, but the decision ultimately has to be ours. If it doesn’t work out well it is unfair to be in a position where we feel compelled to blame others.
Network
Do it to see if we know someone who has been in a similar situation. Clearly everyone’s stories are different but if we can chat with someone in a similar situation it can help us understand what may be involved. We may realize that there are facts that we are still unclear about or things that we had not considered. It can be useful to learn about someone else’s experiences.
Work on Our Confidence Levels
We may resist making decisions out of uncertainty or lack of confidence. There can be fear at making the wrong decision, missing out on something, making a fool of ourselves. Undertaking counseling and hypnotherapy can be a positive way to heal past experiences where we learned to feel incapable of doing anything right or felt less intelligent than others. By improving those underlying fears and concerns we can become more confident in our abilities, trust our instincts and feel better able to make valid decisions.
Make a List
Pros and cons are useful to list, but sometimes one item may carry a lot more weight than all the others combined. It can be valuable to see all our thoughts and concerns down on paper. It helps them gain a better perspective and clarifies their relevance to us.
Can It Be Done in Stages?
We can sometimes have a trial run before making an absolute decision. There may be an opportunity to practice or gain confidence and expertise in the various stages of our potential new situation before we make our final commitment.
Have a Plan B
That way, there is an alternative option en route that can ensure some benefit is gained from the experience if it doesn’t go to plan. It is always important to remind ourselves that no situation is a wasted experience. We learn from everything that happens in our lives. And it is always better to learn from something that we tried but didn’t work out, than to regret not having had a go at all.
Go with It
There are some situations where we can procrastinate indefinitely. Eventually, we have to make a decision and go with it. At the end of the day we have to commit to a decision and then live with the consequences. And in truth, things do have a habit of working out well in the end. Once we commit to a decision we have to decide not to look back, wasting time and energy, wondering what might have been.
Making the best of what we decide and committing to it positively ensures that the choice becomes viable. Once we have worked through the various options this is the best way to make an important decision.
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