Not many people own the ability to make good decisions easily and quickly. There are traps on the way to making decisions:
Trap 1 – you think you need ALL the available information before you make a decision. I call this trap “information overload”.
Trap 2 is called “What if?” What if this or that happens? What if it happens as a result of a decision made? Basically, it’s a trap called “fear.”
Trap 3 is the worst of all presented – the constant lack of trust in oneself. If you do not believe yourself that you are able to make the right decision that you need, then other people really find it very difficult to trust you. After all, they see that even you do not trust yourself.
To be decisive, we must take a step back and see how our decisions fit into the big picture. If we constantly focus on the small components of the picture, i.e. one solution, it really becomes difficult for us to develop the skill of determination.
In simple words, the “cycle” of determination can be described as follows:
Get all the information you need to make a decision; make crystal clear decisions based on crystal clear explanations; take action in line with the decision on the spot (“in the heat of the moment”), this will help you approve the decision made; when observing the results, take a neutral position; close the cycle by making more and more relevant decisions.
The first part of the cycle speaks for itself. Taking a decision without the necessary information is simply not the best option. The question is as follows: “How much relevant information do you really need?” We will get to the answer a little later.
The second part is crucial. You must make a crystal clear decision. The decision is so transparent that you know exactly what you need to do next in order to start implementing your decision.
Just as important, you must be absolutely clear about the reasons for your decision. The clarity of the decision is necessary for you to be able to start acting. Clarity of reasons is necessary because with clear reasons, you light a spark that helps you put the decision into practice.
And that leads us to the third part of the cycle – the action with the heat to approve your decision. Determination/action is the two sides of the same coin. If the decision is not followed by action, then new doors open to mental traps like “Should I do it or not?
When you make a decision, there is a “spark” that occurs whenever you’re right on the spot doing what you want to do, or at least doing some necessary “here and now” if your decision requires much more time and effort to implement – in which case you really make a decision.
The next part of the series is extremely important because if you don’t do it, you will be constantly afraid of making a decision. You have to be able to go beyond “your own limits” and look at the results of your decision from the outside as if it were just results.
No more, no less. As soon as you start scolding yourself for making a “wrong” decision because you see “bad” results, all the faith you have accumulated in yourself will be taken away from you (on this topic, read How to become a happy person?). Your desire and ability to make further decisions in the future will be weakened.
Simply observe the results calmly and, more importantly, realize that you are always able to change them later if the results do not meet your expectations.
When you get the results, you get more accurate information that you can use to make your next decision. The more decisions you make, the more actions you take, the more results you get, which in turn leads again to more accurate information, which leads to more correct decisions and so on.
The cycle begins to close with benefits for you.
Realize that you REALLY need to fuck up. You need to feed more reliable information to the right decision making mechanism in your head so it knows what to do next.
If you are not aware of the need to screw up, then you will never be able to “pull the trigger,” because you will constantly focus on what can happen “wrong” because of the decision alone, instead of looking at the picture as a whole. When you look at the big picture, you’ll realize that in the future you’ll have to make a lot of decisions.
Remember to look at everything through a “big cycle” lens:
The more decisions you make, the more actions you take; the more actions, the more results; the more results, the more actual information you get; the more accurate information, the more right decisions you will be able to make; … and the cycle closes over and over again.
Most people do not see what happens behind the scenes in their decision making habits, namely:
You develop a belief that you are making the right decisions in the present situation;
You know that you can trust yourself to change the results you get along the way.
It is at this moment that you realize that you have developed the SOLUTION that the world is talking about.
