Do you have an important decision to make and are you somewhat undecided? If so, you are in the right place.
Every day we make a vast number of decisions. Most of them are simple, such as deciding which way to go to work, what to eat, what to do in the afternoon, etc. What you choose about these aspects may not generate such significant changes in your life, but there are decisions that do have a greater impact on our lives and it is important not to take them lightly.
Although there is no perfect formula that is 100% correct to make decisions, the truth is that there are a series of aspects that help us to think things better from a logical and rational level.
Nor is it about feeling bad about what we have decided, rather, about assuming some responsibility because from the moment we accept that almost everything that happens in our life is the result of our decisions, we assume the power to change it , which It’s transformative, don’t you think?
There is a very interesting research by Moran Cerf , professor at Northwestern University in Illinois, in which it is concluded that happiness has little to do with what you have, what you live or what you think. Cerf explains that it all comes down to a series of decisions that must be made at some key moments in our lives.
That is why in this article we will address 5 key questions that will help you make more accurate and informed decisions that will have a greater chance of giving you the best results.
The worst decision you can make … is not to make any and leave it all to chance because even assuming you made the wrong decision, at least you tried and learned something about it.
“Often any decision, even the wrong decision, is better than no decision.” –Bishop TD Jakes
To do this journaling exercise. Grab a sheet or a notebook and write down in your handwriting the answers to these 5 questions that will help you make important decisions.
In this question, what we seek to analyze are the priorities you have for a certain area of your life, not so much to delve into the available options, as we will do in the next point.
For example, if you are looking to buy a new house and there are three houses that you like and you have not been able to choose which one to go, at this point what you would analyze is which aspects are most important to you in the formation of a home or a family .
Are you interested in making it a spacious place? What has common areas and amenities? What is in an area that is close to your other family and friends?
What we want to understand is what aspects are most important to you in that specific area of your life.
In the love aspect, you would ask yourself what you are looking for in a life partner and then with that we can evaluate each specific alternative based on those priority criteria, can I explain?
Likewise, if you were offered two jobs at the same time and both seemed like a good option and you don’t know which way to go, at this point you would ask yourself: What are your priorities in the professional field? Is something that I do more important to you? happy or that it gives you more money? Is it close to your house? Which of these aspects weighs more for you?
Once you have it clear, you will see if any of the options between which you are deciding is more attached to the result you want in that dimension of your life.
List all the possible options between which you have to decide.
Do not close yourself to the most logical and obvious possibilities that you find because many times there is more than one way to reach a certain destination. We have to think outside the box !
Most of the time people make bad decisions because they thought they had to decide between A or B, when it could also have been C. You know?
I am going to tell you a personal case to exemplify this. I wanted to go live in Ireland, a country that I loved from the first time I visited. Since I set foot on the island, I have made it my goal to return to live there for a while.
I thought that my only options to make this dream come true were A) come to study a master’s degree and then get a job there, or B) as my compatriots say, go “wet” and work even illegally. Definitely, my decision was to opt for the safest, the first option.
But unfortunately, despite the fact that I did everything in my power, not to tell you a long story, nothing else did not happen about the master’s degree … So I forgot my dream and continued working for a few years in my home country.
But one day I realized that it didn’t have to be A or B and that there might be more ways I could settle in Ireland. So I brainstormed and investigated what other ways would lead me to accomplish that same goal.
How did the story end? I applied for a job there, they offered me a position, and I went through the entire legal process to be able to work in that country where I lived for almost two years.
So don’t shut down or try to decide between the first options that come to mind. Try to think outside the box first and expand this whole world of possibilities. And until then, make up your mind.
Now what you will do is evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each of the alternatives that you mentioned in the previous question.
For each option, list all the pros and cons you can think of.
Be careful: this does not mean that, if one option has more advantages than the other, that should be the most convenient. You must weigh which pros are the most important to you. Perhaps a certain alternative does not have so many pros, but it is the only one that has those that really matter to you, can I explain?
The same applies to the cons: there may be an option with only one against, but that counter is so strong that that option is totally out of the question for you, even if it only had one disadvantage.
Now, for each option ask yourself: “What is the worst that can happen?”
You will see that, in many cases, it is not as serious as you thought … And in cases where it is, it is to rethink and see how you could face such a situation if it happened …
Asking yourself this question is helpful because you deal with any feelings of fear or uncertainty you have beforehand and see things from a more accurate perspective.
What usually happens is that many times we focus on ourselves and ignore the people in our close circle that we can impact, both positively and negatively.
Therefore, this point is fundamental, since when we look back we think that perhaps we would have done things differently if we had known that a third party would come into play.
So think about who or who are you involving in your decision.
What does intuition tell you?: Although a decision may look good on paper and seem the most prudent for reason, there are exceptions in which you have to heed those hunches as I explain in this article on intuition that will serve as a guide. There I will tell you how you can visualize yourself in each option and feel if it gives you that feeling of fullness that you feel at the body level.
But without a doubt, these five questions will help you see things more clearly and take into account important factors that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Remember that almost everything that happens in your life is the result of your decisions and through these you have the power to create the reality you want to live.
“I am not a product of my circumstances, I am a product of my decisions.” –Stephen Covey
