3 Places to Make Decisions From
Posted on May 12, 2017 by Lynda Fletcher, One of Thousands of Performance Coaches on Noomii.
It's easy to decide what music to listen to on the way home. On the other hand, what about the bigger decisions?
How many times a day do you make a decision? 1000? 5000? Quora.com says, “According to multiple sources on the Internet, the average amount of remotely conscious decisions an adult makes each day equals about 35,000.” (quora.com/How-many-decisions-does-a-person-make-in-an-average-day) 35,000! Even if, say only 1% consciously impact you, that’s still 350 decisions. A day.
It might not be too tough to decide where to have lunch, what to do this weekend or what music to listen to on the way home. On the other hand, what about the bigger ones? The ones that actually make a difference?
I’m talking here about the big decisions, the ones some of you never seriously consider – switch jobs, go back to school, ask him – or her – to dinner, move to a tropical island – the ones you might think about for days, months, even years without ever taking an action. What makes these decisions especially difficult is that many of you don’t have a place to decide from, a system for making decisions.
Wait a minute you say. I have a system. I make a list of pros and cons. I ask other people what they think. I flip a coin. Consider there’s a more satisfying way to make good decisions, by creating places you decide from.
Three places I like to decide from are my values, my commitments and my goals.
Google defines values as “a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.” Before I began my training as a life and performance coach, if you asked me what my values were, I could’ve given you a vague answer that went something like, “I value love, peace and honesty.” Sounds good, right?
When I actually did the work to nail down my values I came up with 10, and peace didn’t even make the list. Not that peace isn’t a good thing; it’s just that, in my world, peace isn’t more important than say, humility or resilience. Do you know what your values are?
Commitments are also a good place to look when making decisions. I love Ashbash, from urbandictionary.com who says, among other good stuff, that commitment is “the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism.” Commitment is the thing you really mean, the stuff that’s more important to you than anything. You might be committed to your partner or making partner, ending hunger, recycling or being a great parent. You can be committed to almost anything. Do you know what you’re committed to?
Finally, try looking at your goals to find a place to decide from. A goal is your desired result and different than commitment. Let’s say your goal is to lose 20 pounds. That’s what you want. Commitment, on the other hand, shows up as not eating that cookie and getting up early to hit the gym, even when you really don’t want to. It might take a little thought for some of you but I bet you can list two or three goals. I’m curious though if what immediately comes to mind are the things you really, really want. Do you know what you really, really want?
If you know your values, what you’re committed to and what you really, really want, making decisions becomes more thoughtful and satisfying. Let’s take the ones I mentioned earlier:
If you value love, courage and authenticity and you’re committed to living your best life, and your goal is to live somewhere inspiring, here’s how you might make those decisions:
Switching jobs: courage, a commitment to living your best life and even living somewhere inspiring would support a decision to change jobs.
Go back to school: again, courage plays a role, authenticity might as well as you seek to express yourself sincerely and who knows? Maybe the best school for what you want is on a beautiful tropical island.
Ask him – or her – to dinner: if you’re single and love is something you value you might be inclined to go ahead, on the other hand if authenticity is a value and you know he or she is looking for a long term commitment – and you’re not – you might decide not to move forward.
Move to a tropical island: your commitment to living your best life might highly support a yes here, and so could courage as a value as well as a goal to live somewhere inspiring.
Consider that without a clear idea of your values, commitments and goals most, if not all of those decisions might not even get serious consideration or, if they did, it would be easy to go with a quick no. Those kinds of decisions need a system, based on who you are, not on how hard it might be to decide.
Are you ready to take on creating a system for making decisions? To create places to decide from? Spend some time in the next days and weeks making lists of your values, commitments and goals. Add and subtract until you get lists that feel good, that represent you as you really are. Then take your lists for a test drive the next time there’s an important decision to make. And, oh yeah, life changes, so don’t be afraid to update your lists when needed. It’s important that they represent who you are right now, not 10 years ago.
