Definition of decision making – The Business Dictionary: ˮThe thought process of selecting a logical choice from the available options. When trying to make a good decision, a person must weight the positives and negatives of each option, and consider all the alternatives. For decision making, a person must be able to forecast outcome of each option as well, and based on all these items, determine which option is the best for that particular situation.ˮ
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the decision making, as ˮby chanceˮ or not, I have been recently attending a Workshop on the topic of decision making. The aim of the Workshop was to improve individual and group decision making at work. Very often, in my personal and work life I was not making decisions intentionally. It was almost as I was pushed to make decisions from enrolling to a university, to getting a job, a title or kids. I have often felt that my decisions have not originated from my true soul desires and choices. By using available information, given the alternatives I have at the moment, I would eventually make up my mind on what to do. My decisions were based on the rationality and intellect not intuition, as using intuition was abstract to me. It always seamed like the things I liked doing by ˮfollowing my intuition and blissˮ, as some call it, was too enjoyable to earn me an income. How can I get paid for something I like doing for free, kind of thinking. That is how I ended up doing the things I like doing as hobbies, while making a living from those I like doing less. However, now in forties I am reexamining my decisions and choices. All spiritual masters and truly successful business people talk of the importance of liking your job and following passions. The notion of being pulled by an idea, instead of pushing yourself to earn a paycheck i.e. put food on the table, sounds very attractive to me. In this article, I will examine what may help us with making better decisions. Its never too late to become better at decision making after all.
IMPORTANCE OF RISK TAKING AND COMMITMENT
First let me share tips by the internationally known business coach, Brendon Buchard, on ˮHow to make good decisions?ˮ:
- Accept the fear as part of decision making. The best advice to bring a right decision, is to take fear out of the equation as much as possible. Simply ask yourself, would I make this decision if I was not scared. Thus, Burchard advises make decision sooner then later as crucial. Namely, the excessive analysis – paralysis comes out of our natural fear of change[1]. Thus, Burchard emphasizes that avoidance may be a good strategy in a short run, but brings a lot of suffering in a long term. Of course, overweight person needs to bring a decision to lose weight as soon as possible.
2. Fail early, fail often, fail forward! – do not give a failure negative connotation
The fear of change could make us stagnate in bed habits, exhausting jobs or abusive relationships for ever. In my case I have often felt like I have settled for mediocracy, because of my enormous fear of failure. After a few job rejections, I have settled in a job that was not full expression of me, nor was feeding my soul. Recently, I came to a logical conclusion that the only way for me to counteract failures and rejections is not to give a failure negative connotation, as we often do. Adopting positive attitude that there are no failures, but just lessons to be learned is of utmost importance. Author Neale Donald Walsh talks that there are no rights and wrongs, but only what works or not. The failure has a negative connotation, unjustifiably, as the most successful people are those who fail more often than others.
3. Estimating the decision: Is my decision good for me, my family and society
Burdhard lectures that there are three perspectives to consider when looking at decisions: – a) how will this decision effect me and family? b) how my decision will effect wider society /would I be proud of my choice in case my story is published, for instance? c) how can I collect as much information as possible from the experts and the right people, to add multiple perspectives to my decision. Maybe there are more options to the issue than we may know. Einstain said that the definition of a problem is often more important than a solution. Seeing a problem from multiple perspectives is of utmost importance.
4. Commitment and following through
Once you make a decision, it is crucial to stick to the decision with commitment. Giving up after few setbacks should not be an option. There is importance of ˮfollowing through and completing a projectˮ, if nothing to see whether something is a worth doing. Nothing worth doing is possible without a true commitment, otherwise we would give up with first obstacles arising (author Cheryl Richardson).
USING INTUITION IN DECISION MAKING PROCESS
A successful entrepreneur and a life coach Marie Forlio advises to listen to our inner voice and body sensations about a decision we are about the take. Ms. Forlio advises us to check our body, whether it is expending or contracting when we are about to do something. Similarly, the entrepreneur and millionaire Suzi Batiz proposes few tips on how to know which ideas to act upon. She says that, *If an idea keeps recurring in your head and want let go of you, that is a decision that needs to be taken. You are practically drawn / pulled towards the idea, not the other way around. *Likewise, the best selling author Alan Cohen argues that there are simple two types of decisions, the fear based and love based decisions, and that intellect is insufficient guide for good decision making. For instance, when buying a property or choosing a job, the love based decision would feel comforting and homecoming to our being.
In a decision making process there is no absence of fear as the fear is a normal part of the process. Some even say the bigger the fear, the bigger the opportunity. Luckily, the fear diminishes after we start acting upon our decisions. There is never enough information to be secure whether a decision is right for us or not. Eventually, a moment comes when we just need to take a leap and move forward with the decision.
[1] Burchard talks about the ˮprocess fearˮ and ˮthe fear of outcomes ˮ when it comes to decisions. For instance, looking for a new job may expose us to the efforts of resume writing, interview failures, job rejections, etc. This is the fear of the process in itself. Also, there is a fear of the outcome such as— What is a grass is not greener of the other side?