This is what I tell my friends, students and management team…
Decisions are easy!
It’s easy!
Most people struggle with decision making…
Small decisions, big decisions, career decisions, personal decisions…
Let’s make them easy!
The first thing we must understand about decisions is that they are a huge mental burden when we keep them hanging in our head.
When we procrastinate making decisions we do not only miss out on opportunities that are reserved to the people who are skilled in taking rapid action.
And we don’t only pay the price of things not changing while we keep these decisions in our heads.
We also pay a massive mental price, our mind is consciously or unconsciously busy with that decision and it cannot focus on other more important questions we might want to answer.
Research has shown that quick decision makers tend to be more creative and to find better and more simple solutions to problems and challenges…
The second thing we MUST understand is that the difficulty in making decisions mostly comes from a fantasy, it comes from a way of thinking that has no grounding in reality.
But first, I want to tell you why I’m always saying that 99.9% of decisions are easy. And no. i’m not only referring to deciding what to have for lunch or dinner.
Decisions are always made out of options.
If you don’t have any options – you have no decision to make.
When you do have options – generally speaking you have only two possibilities.
Possibility number one is that one of the options are way better than every other option, or in difficult situations the least terrible option is simply not as bad as the rest.
You will probably agree that if one option is much better – that’s an easy decision – you simply take that option.
Most people struggle with the second possibility – when there are 2 or more options that seem to be just as good or just as bad.
I would argue that in these cases the descision is just as easy, because if they are just as good – or pretty much as valid options as the other – we can simply pick and it doesn’t really matter.
Which means it’s easy.
In these states people tend to think and rethink the decision for as long as they possibly can.
The funny part is that in this time, most people don’t get new information or new lines of thinking they simply think in loops. One day they think option 1 is better and then when something happens or simply a few hours or days passed – they think option 2 is better.
And this loop continues.
The first lie people who struggle with decisions tell themselves to make sure they stay crappy descision makers is that every decision is final and cannot be changed.
People can have a hard time deciding what dish they will get in a restaurant. While usually they think there are 2 or 3 great options which they will probably enjoy any option – and if once every 10 times they will make a mistake and order a dish they dislike – they can simply order another one.
It’s just the same when people make so called bigger decisions like
“Should I go to college or work and travel around the world?”
Seems like a big decision, but truthfully it isn’t.
If you decide to travel and have too much of a hard time – you can go back to school.
And in this year you’ve lost you’ve earned stories that will last a lifetime.
If you decide to go to college and hate it, you can drop out, or finish it and go traveling 3 or 4 years later.
People are scared to get into a relationship while there is probably a couple around the world breaking up every 3 milliseconds. Others are scared to break up while there are probably a couple around the world that broke up and comes back together every 6 milliseconds.
I’m not saying that changing your mind every day is a positive habit, but after acting on your decision you are so much more likely to stick to it and truthfully almost no descision is actually final.
The other thing is that most people have fear of regret, they are afraid to make a bad decision and regret it later. While the truth is that tendency for regret has almost nothing to do with your actual decisions.
Some people sink in the manipulative thinking of “if i wouldn’t do that… my life would have been better”.
It’s an incredibly manipulative thought because none of us can possibly guess what would happen if we changed even the most minor decision in our life.
Of course its ok, and can even be fun to somtimes think or fantasize how amazing life would have been if you would just avoid that stupid mistake. But it’s important to remember it’s a fantasy – and it has nothing to do with real life.
For example, almost 10 years ago I started my blog and first seminars, I used to have to send a weekly newsletter – just like the one I currently do – just that it wasn’t in english.
So every once in a while people would ask me to send an email in which I recommend their products or services – for some quick money.
And i almost always said no, unless of course i really liked the product, in these cases i would recommend it anyway.
But one day, like 7 years ago someone i didn’t know offered me a really good deal – he wanted me to promote his NLP seminar. And he had a great reputation in the area but I never heard him speak before.
And I did it. When his seminar was sold out a few hours after I sent the email with many many people who joined because of my recommendation I started having regret – so I bought a ticket and went there myself as well.
The seminar was actually really good and many people thanked me for recommending it, however, in the following month less people came to my seminar – because they already participated in another one.
So my understanding was that it was a crappy business decision. two years later, this same person invited me to a course that will in turn help me create a business that until today has made 8 figures in revenues.
So of course I’m trying my best to learn from the mistakes I make, but i’m also humble enough to know that my most fatal mistake can lead to great growth and that my best decision can lead to a major breakdown.
So my philosophy is to simply do my best in every single moment and only look back for nostalgic, funny or beautiful emotions – simply remembering that I’m so lucky to be here now, so that every single decision was perfect so far.
It doesn’t mean i’ll make the same one again – it does mean that i wouldn’t change it retroactively.
When you approach decisions with this mindset, decisions are easy, and you can get the amazing bonuses of acting fast as well as gain the advantage of having a clear, clutter free and powerful mind.
What’s a decision you should stop procrastinating?
If you would make it now – what would you decide?
If you would decide that – what would be an instant action you could take to prove to yourself that you have made a decision and you are going to go for it?
I’d love to hear about it in the comments….
