Is decision making hard?
Everything you wanted is on the other side of fear — George Addair
It’s quarter to 2 in the morning. You are in the dark corner of your room with your face in your hands. The ticking clock seems like it’s striking your eardrum hard with vibrations. You are dripping with sweat down your chin. You have to convey your stance about an important thing by 8 AM.
Your decision is moving to and fro between two choices, like the pendulum of the clock moving to extremities in its path of motion.
TUNG! TUNG! You are out of time. In the end, you choose in frenzies.
Decision-making happens at every minute in your life. The surprising fact is that you don’t always feel in your conscious mind that you are involved in a process called “Decision Making”. You make thousands of decisions each day, few are inconsequential, while others have a substantial impact.
What are Decisions?
In your life, you are at the junction of roads with different routes to reach the same destination. While choosing the best option, you analyze and decide. The sequence of analyzing and picking one route from your choices and then, moving ahead in the journey of life is making a decision.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
-Robert Frost
We wish that everything was simpler like the lines from Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Less Traveled”. But, unfortunately, life isn’t an expressway with eye-catching signboards on the path. There is no spoon-fed expert guidance about the best route like your Google Maps app addressing you, which is fantastic to choose!
Your tussle for making a decision can be covered with thick thorny bushes, bearing imminent troubles. You need to clear off with a shovel and make way for you to tread on.
Types of decisions
Decisions will be regarding trivial things like deciding what to wear for the evening dinner party, what movie to watch for the Saturday evening to major life-changing decisions like what career path you should take up, or whom you should choose as your life partner.
Not every decision needs to go through the grueling process like mining thousands of kilometers deep down the earth’s crust or would every decision be as simple as water flowing effortlessly through meanders in a river flowing in full power.
Decision Type 1:
What to cook for lunch today?
What movie should I watch this weekend?
When should I sleep tonight?
How will I go to the office tomorrow?
These decisions are insignificant and the choices to make keep fizzing out like vapors in a chain reaction from time to time. You don’t have to keep your mind stirring with deep thoughts to make such decisions. All it takes is just take a fraction of seconds to decide and go ahead!
Decision Type 2:
Should I work as a Software Engineer?
Is it right to quit the job now and pursue a University major?
Is she the right person to get married to?
Is it wise to invest in those mutual funds?
Is it good to move to the West?
Decisions related to Career, Education, Family, Finances, Relationships, Relocation, etc. are crucial. They are responsible for shaping your course of life. Any mistake would have insurmountable effects on your life and leave you distressed. These decisions require being wary about what you choose and incisive analysis is a prerequisite.
How to make decisions?
“ Look before you leap”
“Analyse before you act”
These are not the thumb rules you could apply to maneuver through any problem in decision-making with effortlessness. These are just cliches you might have read about decision-making. You could incorporate them into your decision-making process.
We can’t accomplish every task in a one-size-fits-all format. On similar lines, different kinds of decisions have disparate approaches to deal with finesse, and their effects are diverse as well!
- Rational approach
A rational approach strikes everyone’s minds when we talk about decision-making. Structure, order, and reason are the central aspects that support this approach.
You map your thoughts like a flow chart explaining a complex algorithm, but the intricacies are well-known to you. Every minor detail is at your fingertips. You jot down the pros and cons for each alternative. Assign weights to your suppositions and do your math to conclude.
Where could you apply this?
You are an investor. You want to sell your current stock and purchase in a new company that you believe would reap a bumper harvest in the future.
- Intuitive approach
You evade the concept of logic and are driven by your gut feeling. Your experience or deep insights you assimilated over time power this approach. Sometimes, it is referred to as gut feeling, sixth sense, inner sense, instinct, inner voice, spiritual guide, etc. Your subconscious mind, feelings, and emotions take charge to help you arrive at a decision.
Where could you apply this?
Choosing your life partner. Can you assign scores on a band of ten for each criterion, run a machine learning algorithm and decide between individuals you have as options?
Evaluating a job. Can you gauge your feeling about your job with logic and reasoning?
- Dependent approach
You have large chunks of information at your disposal, but you are unable to remove the fluff and decide what is right for you. You either rely on someone else’s view on your decision or you completely avoid taking a decision. You delegate the responsibility of decision-making to the person who has expertise in that particular field.
Where could you apply this?
You visit a new ice cream store which came up in your locality. You are clueless about what flavor would be good to try with too many options available. Now, you ask the vendor to suggest a must-try or bestseller ice cream flavor for you, basing on your predilection for certain kinds of flavors.
Your friend is a petrol head. You don’t have the faintest idea about automobiles and you ask your friend for the best two-wheeler under your set budget.
- Avoidant approach
You procrastinate taking the decision. Finally, as you run out of time, you muster up the courage to make a decision and move ahead expeditiously.
Where you could apply this?
When deciding on taking a job that possesses both financial gain and prestige, but also contains a great deal of stress and long hours.
- Spontaneous approach
This approach is characterized by immediacy and spurt to take the decision as soon as possible. Though facts are absent, the decision is taken hastily. And in most cases, there is a feeling of regret when things go either way.
Where you could apply this?
You decide to buy a new car without thinking about your other financial commitments.
Problems with decision making
Decisions aren’t carved on sheets of precious metals, with a glossy gold ribbon tied around, that glistens in your eyes. With the gargantuan of information and the limitless options that make you feel puzzled to choose from, decision-making is exhausting and demanding!
- Preparing what is appropriate to do
You have meager information and with the deficit, you talk like your throat is coated with sandpaper. On the other hand, there is copious information for you to roar like bass thumping from a 10,000-watt speaker system. Whether the information is paltry or surplus, it leads to choice overload problems and causes decision fatigue.
- Timing
We can only understand backward and we can only live forwards.
Experience is the best teacher because we never know how things would be in the future. We have to understand things from our past and plan about our future based on our views and opinions.
- Regretting
Regretting is a post-decision feeling. How much ever circumspect you were in making your decisions, these questions erupt from your neurons and push you into feelings of remorse.
Maybe I didn’t know enough at that time?
Is it the right moment for the decision?
Could there be a better decision?
- Too many people
People are end products with experiences and their learnings as ingredients over time. Each person is different and their opinions or thoughts would be as diverse as the spectrum of colors. When too many people are involved in your decision-making process, it causes chaos and arises complexities.
Strategies for decision making
- Set goals
Goals are the guiding lights in life. They set direction and nourish you with confidence, clarity, and motivation. Objectives regarding personal growth, work, social, finance, education, spirituality, and relationships should be engraved in your mind. When you are crystal clear about what you want in life, isn’t decision-making smooth sailing?
- Available Options
Discerning minute details and important aspects of the available options or alternatives makes you ready to take the right decision. If you are oblivious of knowing about the options, it is no less than picking a random choice blindfolded.
- Potential Outcomes and Consequences
Anticipating the results and repercussions of the choices you make is always a good idea. It helps you to steady your ship according to the high tides and low tides in the ocean of life.
- Compromises
You can’t be stern that you wouldn’t compromise under any circumstances. That is hardly impossible. Would the compromises you make, affect you greatly or are they trifling? Never compromise on your principles, beliefs, and values. It is a clear red flag when you have to trade-off on them.
- Visualize how you feel when you don't do it
Would not take a particular decision to leave you lacking?
Visualize in your mind how things would be different if you don’t take up that choice. What impacts would it have on you and your future? Does it form the crux of dreams you aspired for?
For instance, you want to major in a subject that you are passionate about and made it to the top university. But, you are scratching your head, if it’s wise enough to make a career shift and pursue the course. Envision how you would feel when you don’t pursue it! And, after some time, it is the defining moment for you!
- Write down how you feel
Penning down your feelings has abundant benefits and it causes a surprisingly calming effect. You become clear about your thoughts and make decisions with laser focus.
- Look from different angles
Perspectives are everything! When you look to solve a problem it might seem to be a conundrum. Move your viewing direction, it would be a trifling problem.
- Decide when you are clear-headed and peaceful
Decisions should be made neither when you are upbeat nor gloomy. Do it when you feel calm and composed because there are high chances that a sudden surge of emotions might drive your decisions.
- Leave your comfort zone
There might be certain invisible yardsticks set by your peers, family, friends, or society when choosing something. Shun them and leave your comfort zone to make the best choices for yourselves.
- Perfection prevents action
You have done extensive research about your decision and you have 80% of the information related to it. However, you are dawdling for more information to make amazing plans and then leap steadfast. But, the fact is you are building castles in the air and procrastinating your actions. Instead, you could begin with the understanding you have and deal with the minor quandaries at ease during the process.
The Takeaway
Decision-making is a cardinal skill that needs to be honed to live a life filled with bliss, clarity, and purpose. It isn’t a tough task to the extent it is scaremongered. In the beginning, you might feel like an intellectual marathon but, over time you develop an iota of thought to deal with everything like a walk in the park. Begin today! Start actively making decisions!
