Some of us are naturally better at making decisions whereas some of us find ourselves in a state of flux on a daily basis, often over the seemingly mundane and easy decisions. Overwhelm sets in and we flit between options, not really knowing what to do for the best and feeling out of control. So, how can we help ourselves to make better decisions?
#1: Start with ascertaining your core foundation
Having a clear sense of the life you want to lead and the person you want to be acts as your guiding compass. In his book "The Purposeful Decision Maker", serial entrepreneur Padraig O'Céidigh discusses the concept of your safe harbour and your boundaries.
Your safe harbour serves as your anchor, composed of the people, places, principles and purposes that ground you - who can you rely on? What values shape your life? Where do you find santuary?
Your boundaries protect your time, energy and focus while creating space for intentional growth. The stability of your safe harbour ensure that you can recover from what life throws at you, reassess and make decisions that reflect your authentic self.
#2: Understand what you want to achieve and why it matters
Are your choices supporting your values and purpose? Each decision leads you down a particular path and ideally you want that path to be heading in the right direction. There will be inevitable twists and turns and maybe even some u-turns along the way but as long as you feel secure in knowing that you are progressing to where you want to go, each decision you make will feel in alignment with your values and purpose.
#3:Focus
Sounds overly simple but FOCUS. We've become so accustomed to multi-tasking that we rarely give one thing all of our attention at any one time. We're constantly feeling overwhelmed and flustered because we have too many tabs open in our brain! Mindfully shut down all of those tabs, take some deep calming breathes and concentrate on the matter in hand.
#4: Be conscious of your biases
The human brain plays lots of tricks on us, one of which is leading us to believe that particular thoughts are truths when in actual fact they're biases.
Confirmation bias distorts the way we seek and interpret information - we put blinkers on and seek evidence that supports our existing beliefs. Our brains can be quite lazy and the path of least resistance is the most appealing one.
Be mindful of seeking facts and being open-minded. Question assumptions and filter out unreliable or irrelevant information.
#5: Embrace a growth mindset
Metacognition refers to self-awareness; understanding your own cognitive processes and strategies - 'thinking about thinking' - in order to monitor, regulate and improve your learning and problem-solving.
In order to make better decisions, reflect on your own thought patterns and how these have impacted previous mistakes that you've made and look at how you can adapt and develop better ways of dealing with things moving forwards.
#6: Trust your gut
Naturally, we have a fear of 'extinct by instinct' - making the wrong gut decision that leads to disastrous consequences. However, that gut feeling is your subsconscious quickly processing and integrating data from environmental information, bodily signals and emotional cues far quicker than your 'logical, thinking' brain can.
Trusting your gut will often lead you back to your moral compass so together with analytical thinking, our instincts and intuition naturally evolve to help us make better decisions.
#7: Prevent analysis-paralysis
When tackling a decision with lots of variables we can fall pray to overthinking and not actually progressing to take action, instead we anxiously go back and forth and stress ourselves out! Here are some tips to help prevent this:
- Set a time limit to reach a decision by
- Break the decision down into smaller components
- Keep calm and focus
- Aim for a step in the right direction - think progress over perfection
- Seek guidance from trusted parties
- Have confidence in yourself
#8: Have contingency plans in place
A lot of the stress that we feel stems from the "what if.... ?" scenarios and not being prepared for them.
Contingency plans enable us to handle unexpected events by having well thought out strategies that allow for swift and effective responses. We can try to mitigate stressful situations by being prepared for them.
#9: Simplify your life
Choice overload makes decision-making hard. Get rid of what you don't need and what doesn't serve you.
Look at ways to simplify things and streamline processes to what really matters.
The less clutter (whether that be physical, mental or emotional) that you have in your life, the more clarity you will have in order to make better decisions.
#10: Plan ahead, take control
Prior Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance - the old adage still holds true. Planning ahead will make future decision making much easier.
You can't control what may happen, but when you are aware of your limits and have a sound sense of self awareness, you are better equiped to tackle life and make better decisions.
