Life is all about making choices. You choose how to behave, what to eat, how to live and who to be friends with.
Sometimes you have to make some big decisions that have will a huge impact on your life. This is when the fear can kick in. If I choose this path what will happen? Will I have regrets later on? Are there any better options?
Sometimes the range of choice is too big. It overwhelms and pushes you into inactivity. You lose focus and either start to drift between performing inconsequential acts, persistently procrastinate any decision making, start looking for excuses or obstacles or end up doing nothing at all.
There are several ways to deal with decision making. The key thing is to take action. Even if that action is to initially analyse the situation and make some reasoned judgments about your options.
The first step is to work on fine tuning your options into a small list. Try not to have more than four or five choices as the process will become overwhelming in itself.
Taking your list, for each list item write down its pros and cons. Then, if some of those pros and cons have a different impact on yourself give them a weighting out of ten. For example, if one of your pros is a huge problem to you mark it an 8 or 9 out of 10; if it is virtually irrelevant score it a 1 or a 2. Where your attitude is ambivalent score it a 5. Deduct your total cons from your pro points to get your final score.
You will now have a personal and reasoned score for each option. The highest scoring option will be the option you should be considering following. Before you go with this consider if it ‘feels’ right. If not re-examine your lists and your scoring as it is possible you have missed something. If some options score the same or very closely consider your instincts again or examine your lists and weightings to see if you can define a clearer gap.
If you worry that once you have made a decision there is no going back think about what you have to lose if you do nothing – but remember doing nothing is an option that should be considered too!
