06-10-2022

How To Know You Are Making the right Decisions in Business and Life

If you are anything like me, you’ve had a history of What If’s. The first time I had to make a major decision in my life, was which College to go to. I still think back at whether I would have been a different person had I gone to Middlebury College versus where I ended up - at University of Chicago. Would I have changed my major, occupation, the friendships I made, the cities I lived in?

We know that our decisions have consequences and ultimately shape who we are and where we end up in life. So if you’ve had any regret in your life about past decisions you’ve made, chances are you are going to have a difficult time making decisions in the future, because you don’t want to repeat the trauma of taking an action which ultimately brought you pain or negative results.

So, maybe you delay making the decision all together, and then you’re anxious because the opportunity could pass you by, or it’s “too late.” And then we live on with the What If’s in our psyche and it weighs us down.

Does this sound familiar?

So instead, let’s try to think about it as there are no “wrong” decisions. Whatever choice we make, is going to come with the beautiful lessons we are here to learn. If we treated this more as the “Game of Life,” where every choice is just an exploration, just a virtual reality show, then there is really nothing to fear…

Because at any point in time, we can decide to change our mind…Or, we can recover, heal, and become wiser the next time a similar choice is presented to us.

But in the meantime, here are some things you can do to lessen the burden of decision making:

1. Depending on your human design inner authority type, you may want to wait, collect all the information and then make a decision. Sometimes what our reptilian or ego mind thinks is a good idea because it will get us quick money, power, fame etc. actually makes us overcommit ourselves, burn out or derails us from our higher goals. Yet for others, who are designed to make decisions based on their instincts, the truth sits in your gut or solar plexus and if you learn to listen to that, it becomes very clear what to do.

2. Start to practice tuning into your body. When you visualize the opportunity, on a scale of 1-10 how excited are you, really, about it? Not just your initial reaction but when you really sit with it? Do meditations like heart math to synchronize your mind and heart so they can make decisions in coherence and you’re not just approaching it from the “logic” side of your brain.

3. If you had to give yourself advice from an outside perspective, as if you were your own coach or you were your higher self, what would they likely say to you? If you were to take all fear aside? Have you defined your goals and values and is this decision taking you closer or further away?

4. Ask yourself why this decision is stirring up difficult feelings? If needed, speak to an advisor, healer, psychologist on what the origin of your fears are and perhaps what patterns this scenario is really bringing up. Is this the universe testing you on whether you have learned your lesson? Is there an underlying subconscious belief that is causing your resistance? Why don’t you feel like you have the authority and confidence to make good decisions?

5. If you have to make a difficult decision (such as about your health or a breakup or a challenging conversation), visualize the best case outcome from that. You can just assume and make a prayer command that it goes really smoothly, and better than you ever imagined. That way, no matter what happens, you know you are safe.

6. Are there other key people you need to inform about your decisions? How does this affect you and those around you? What will be the outcome for them and is there a solution that benefits the whole?

7. If you want to approach your decisions in a logical way, you can use business decision matrix tools, but I don’t recommend just doing them on their own without also consulting with your spirit, body and heart. Because sometimes it’s not as simple as pros and cons and a strengths and weaknesses analysis. There could be external factors that we can feel, like as if something is off, but we don’t have logical explanation or all the information about it to add to our matrix. I would only use these if you don’t have a lot of emotions attached to the outcome of your decision and then you can test and iterate and change your strategy based on the results.

Was this useful? As always get in touch if you are in a real dilemma and need to better understand how to create your unique strategies and techniques for decision making.