Decision-making: A guide for those who can’t decide whether they want to read this article or not

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to decision-making, if you ask the internet, ChatGPT, or other forms of AI, they will want you to believe that decision-making is a complicated, complex, multifaceted process.

I’m not saying decisions are easy. All I’m saying is it doesn’t have to be this hard.

Good and bad

Between a bad and a good decision is no difference. They both feel equally right at the right time.

With hindsight we convince ourselves, and others, that every bad decision was caused by something bad in turn. But when we pay attention to the road ahead, we accept that we will never know what’s up around the bend or behind a new horizon.

Therefore, relax. Had you ever made a bad decision on your journey between birth and death before, you wouldn’t be here.

Take a deep breath and let’s dive right in.

The good news

The good news is that we can get better at our decisions. All it takes is more bad decisions. If you make enough bad decisions, it is inevitable that some good decisions will slip through which isn’t known to ever have failed yet.

Learn from mistakes

Wrong decisions are an inevitable part of the get-it-right process. Remember you learned to walk by falling.

Dwelling on the falls will only wear you out in the long run.

Big vs small

All decisions are not the same. On the contrary, the vital few are a few and far between, and the majority of decisions are small and unimportant.

If that reminds you of the Pareto principle which states that the vital few outcomes will always come from a few causes, great! If not, “Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections, and you can keep your sterile truths for yourself” (Vilfredo Pareto).

What

Your vital few outcomes will always come from a vital few decisions.

These are your BIG decisions from atop the pyramid.

BIG decisions are about the WHAT and about the long term (as opposed to the cursed HOW and the short term).

Unless you want to start with the HOW decisions at the bottom of the pyramid, let’s begin with your WHAT decisions first.

Know what you want

For that it helps knowing that you’ve responded to your most pressing wants since before you were born. And you respond as we speak — whether you know it, are aware of it, or like it, or not.

In other words, to get your BIG decisions made, all you must do is figure out your most pressing wants for the later part of your journey. Not because it will be later, but because the only way to influence your later is by your decisions now.

When you know WHAT you want, many HOW down the road are already decided before they show up.

What YOU want

What YOU want is the BIGgest decision atop the pyramid.

Everything you want to imagine is on a permanent buffet free for the taking far beyond anything you can imagine.

It’s permanent because it’s got nothing to do with whether you and me exist or not.

What’s temporary is your existence, hence your decisions. You only exist once and there’s no freedom in whether you decide or not. Every time you don’t decide, you’ve already made a decision anyway. You can ask why of course, because that’s the beauty of no freedom.

This explains, among other things, why you’ve decided your most pressing wants since before you were born, and why you’ve been doing it ever since, 100% of the time.

At the risk of repetition, you are not free to not decide, and that’s whether you love it, know it, or are aware of it, or not. There’s nothing you can do about it, or you wouldn’t be here.

What YOU want: Part 2

You may want to…

• Own it all (where would you put it?)
• Know it all (knowing there’s always more to know)
• Have everything money can buy
• Be somebody else (they’ve got to walk in their own shoes)
• Be certain in an uncertain world
• Be free
• Make the world a better place
• Make you a better you
• ________________________ (fill the blank)

Nobody said it would be easy. But it doesn’t have to be this hard.

All you’ve got to do is decide once and for all.

The common mistake

The common mistake word-users make with decisions is deciding them over and over again. If that’s you, then your decision-making process looks like the one on the right.

I don’t know you. I don’t know how long it will last. But the graph on the right will wear you out in the long run.

Freedom

There is a space between the demand for a decision and your response. In this space you are free to decide your decision. That is where your freedom is.

Feel

To take advantage of your freedom, trust your feelings.

Your feelings decide what you go after and what you avoid. That’s because when we must decide between feelings and logic, feelings almost always win.

Heart

To be free, also embrace your heart.

“Where is fancy bred… in the heart or in the head?” – Shakespeare

What about in crisis mode?

Is a fresh crisis brewing? Good!

You have survived every crisis to-date, with a 100% success rate to boot, or you wouldn’t be reading this.

In crisis mode – with your back against the wall – you don’t decide based on what you know. In a crisis, you decide based on what you re-member only.

The best thing about crises is they are devastating only if you believe they will last forever and you know from personal experience they never do.

Why wait for a next crisis? You can focus on a small sphere and achieve a 100% success rate anytime. If that’s what you want.

Seek advice

When faced with a difficult decision, don’t be afraid to seek advice from friends within and without your family, but be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt. That said, even the internet can offer fresh perspectives you may have overlooked.

Most important

When it’s decision time, it’s all up to you. No other word and no other person can decide for you.

At decision time there’s no candle in the window. You’ve got to find your own way home.

Takeaway

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of this decision-making guide for those who couldn’t decide, a couple of minutes ago whether they wanted to read this article or not.

With words I can help, after all that’s what im here for, but the decision of what you do with them is all up to you.

Whether you’ve gained any useful insights or are now even more confused than before, remember that no other word nor other person can make decisions for you.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. The most important is to have fun along the way.

There’s more

To get even better a decision-making, consider taking part in my seminar that will also be offered as an online webinar in the not too-distant future.