Making the right decisions

Everyone has been in a situation where they’ve had to make a decision that is best for them, but not necessarily the best for others.

Telling someone to think about the long-term consequences of their actions and not worry about their feelings today can come across as insensitive and unfeeling. But from experience, those seemingly harsh words are sometimes the only thing that can get through to someone to snap them out of the negative patterns in their life and make decisive choices that would help their lives.

You might be thinking, “But that doesn’t seem fair at all! Why should I have to suffer, so they can learn a lesson?” Fair doesn’t have anything to do with it. In fact, we often have to keep things fair and balanced just so we don’t fall into our own holes. That requires a very self-aware approach to life.

Most people want to make choices that are best for everyone involved, but that’s not always reality. It’s one thing to want something; it’s another to get it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate selfishness. In fact, I believe the opposite. Using the right tools can help you make decisions that are best for you as long as you consider others as well. And is there anything we love more than getting exactly what we want?

For example, my business partner and I had a situation where one of our employees wasn’t performing at the level we had hoped for. If it made sense for us to continue working with him, we would have done so, despite the fact that he wasn’t a great fit for the company. But since it didn’t make sense to keep him no make how much we liked him, we let him go. 

Sometimes, in life, you have to make choices that make you uncomfortable, sad and unhappy. Sometimes you need to change, sometimes it’s others who need to change, and sometimes it’s about choosing the best for everyone, even if it’s not the best for you.
Decisions can be a Herculean task sometimes. It's not just the big decisions. It's the little ones too. Like what's on my schedule for the day, which movie should I watch, which book should I read, or who should I call.

The hard part is that decision-making is hard work. It takes time, energy and an investment in mental power. How can we make decision-making a little less taxing?

The answer is to follow our instincts.

We do it all the time. We trust our instincts when we're about to cross the street. We trust our instincts when we're about to make an important life choice. We trust them so much that we almost always follow our instincts, even though we don't know what they are!

Decision-making is a form of problem-solving. The goal of decision-making is to pick the alternative that maximizes the achievement of objectives. For the most part, decision-making is an important part of our everyday lives, and we make hundreds of them per day. Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values underlying the choices. It involves making choices based on your beliefs and goals. In order to make good decisions, you'll need to understand what your options are and how each can help you accomplish your goals. You also will need to choose your priorities wisely, knowing which objectives are most important, which are less important and how each option helps achieve them.

Making the right decisions for myself

A few months ago, I had to make a choice. I could either continue working at my current job where I had a title even though I was an IT trainee or continue going after what I wanted. I’m not going to lie, it was very difficult for me to make that choice, especially when it came down to money. The thing is, I knew what I wanted and more importantly, I knew what I didn’t want. My life became more beautiful when I stopped making decisions based on what others wanted and more on what I wanted.

I stopped listening to the naysayers in my life who kept telling me that this wouldn’t work. I stopped listening to the people who would tell me not to go back to school because the loans would be overwhelming. This decision wasn’t easy, and it took a lot of sacrifice, but it was totally worth it.

I am not so sure if it is ever possible to make a perfect decision. Because no matter what you do, there are always going to be consequences that will follow after your decision. A lot of times, the decision you make isn't necessarily the one you want. In fact, sometimes the decision or choice you want is the opposite of the one you make. We are very good at making a decision, but when the situation arises to make a good decision it is not easy. You may have done your homework and done all the necessary things to make that decision, but you may have a feeling that you did not make the right choice.

When the right decision is to be made it is best that you know how to make it. The first thing to do is to list down every choice you have. It does not matter if you have list 10 or 15 choices as long as you have a choice to choose from. What you need is to have some options. After that, compare each of them with one another and list down their Pros and Cons. At this stage, it is best if you have the help of a person that you trust so that he or she can help you see whether any of them is better for you than the others.

Conclusively, There are so many choices that we are having to make every single day that sometimes it is hard to get it right. Maybe there is not a perfect decision that we can make, instead we just have to hope that whatever choice we make will be the right one.