How do you make the right decision? To make the right decision, you need a decision-making process that works. It may be that up until now you have relied on only intuition for making your decisions and the results you got have not been amazing. So, what should you do and what should you not do? For that, we have made researches and garnered human experiences in decision making and all are revealed in this article. Open your mind to it!.
What is decision making?
Let’s start with the definition – decision-making is a process during which a choice must be made between 2 or more alternatives. What can we deduce from this?
What we can deduce from the definition are that:
a) Decision making is a process. Even when we rely on intuition, we are actually relying on a very fast and automatic process, but still a process.
b) Choice – You have the option to choose. If a certain option is forced on you, it is not decision-making.
c) 2 or more alternatives. If you have one option – it is not a decision-making process. It is an ultimatum. Therefore, one of the emphases in decision-making is to first open up as many options as possible.
Read also: Mastering the Art of Decision Making
How do you make the right decision?
How to make a decision according to Daniel Kahneman, in his book “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow,” is that we actually first “choose” which system to use(usually not consciously). Let’s look at the systems:
a) Using Intuition System
This is a fast system that operates on previous experience, learning, sensations and emotions, and is designed to help us make decisions quickly. Along with its many advantages, Daniel Kahneman shows many mistakes that this system makes without us noticing.
When to use it? It is used for simple decisions, for decisions under pressure when there is no time to make a more informed decision
What does the decision maker use as a basis? Previous experience, previous experiences, information absorbed in the past, learning from watching (from parents, society, on television), norms, etc.
b) Using Logic System
This is a slower system, which incorporates complex thinking, requires effort, investment, and is designed to help us make informed or the right decisions. While it helps us make a decision more rationally, it requires more resources, more time, and more effort. And as with any decision, it is not certain that it will make us choose the best or the right decision.
When to use it? It is used for complex decisions. When we have time, and can consider different options, reasons, and motives.
What is it based on? It allows us to use prior knowledge, but also to look at the problem from different perspectives and gather additional material that was not available.
When we talk about decision-making or making the right decision, we are actually talking about a topic that affects everyone of us in every area of life. Decisions in the field of career, in the field of hobbies, in the field of fitness and health, in the field of proper financial management and so on and so forth. These decisions affect our self-confidence , goal setting , mental resilience , social, economic, health status and so on.
Read also: Mastering the Art of Making Smart Choices Using Anti-luck Decision Making Framework
Decision-making tips(Tips on making the right decision)
At this point, let us talk about decision-making tips
a) Listen to your intuition – but…
Intuition has incredible value. It tells us a whole world through “gut feeling”. It is a fast and amazing process that is based on so much knowledge that we have collected. However, keep in mind that it can definitely be misleading some times. Intuition can make us blind to another story that is happening. For instance, if an advertisement creates a super fun and illusory feeling for us, intuition can tell us a whole story about why we should trust that seller and buy a product that we don’t even need.
So what can you do here? When making a complex decision, you can start with intuition. Ask yourself, “what do we feel/think about this?” But don’t stop there. After feelings and thoughts have arisen, ask yourself why, and detail the reasons.
And then – ask ourselves the other way around. What are the arguments against, if someone were to oppose it, what would they say? That way we get a perspective from both sides.
b) There is always more than one option!
There is nothing that creates more stress than the feeling that we only have one option, or even only two each time we are trying to make the right decision. Either I stay at work and suffer, or I quit, or I exercise seven times a week or I eat junk food all day or I start my dream business or I continue to work for someone and live from pay cheque to pay cheque.
But are there really only two options? Almost always not. There are almost always other options in between, but because of the stress, we don’t see them.
Therefore, just before making a decision, try to think about all the available options, both those that sound far-fetched and those that currently seem irrelevant. You’ll be surprised how, by raising them, you might discover that there are additional options you hadn’t considered which could help you in making the right decision.
For example – start your own business or remain stuck in a paid employment?
Exercise to open up options: make a move to start that business or stick to a paid employment, go learn a skill, make plans on how to transition from paid employment to starting your own business, form partnership, talk to a business coach about your intention to start your own business, look for funding, consult your family and friends, move to another city, change jobs, etc., etc.
c) The process of asking questions to make the right decision
You are invited to take a piece of paper and a pen, and answer the following questions, because questions have power. A good question is 50% of the answer.
- What is the question I want to answer? Notice the differences here: “What is the fastest way to get rich?”. “What is the safest way to get rich?”. “What is the most stable way to get rich?”. The question has power! It directs us to a certain point of view.
- What is important to me in making this decision? What values, parameters are important to me?
- Are there any other things I haven’t thought of?
- Who can I turn to for help in making a decision?
- How will I know I made the right decision? What will it look like? How will it feel and what results will I want to get?
- What are my options? Are there other options that I haven’t thought of?
- For each of the options, which parameters are addressed and which are not?
- Each time we imagine that we have chosen a certain option. We imagine what life looks like a year later, how it feels, what happened?
And finally, we will always remember that even if we chose the best decision-making process in our quest for making the right decision, there are things, circumstances, and events that are beyond our control. Because in the end, we did our best to make the right decision for ourselves at this moment, and hence, we will accept that things will not always work out exactly the way we want them to. And that’s okay!
