Making Decisions
These past 4 years, I have been fortunate to face numerous critical decision-making situations. Most of the time, these decisions would impact not just my life, but that of others as well. I have come to realise how scared we all are of making decisions, and observed these 2 very strong behaviours:
- People were often scared of the impact of my decisions and projected that anxiety to me
- There were may deciders in theory, always prompt to recommend me what call to make, but very few stepped up when given a chance to be in my shoes
- No matter how consensual I tried to be, there always was unhappy people about my decisions
- Advices matter
One of my favourites books ever, Decision Points by Georges W. Bush, validates these behaviours and highlights what it means and takes to make decisions often. I have read it countless times to keep a key learning in my mind whenever I have a critical decision to make: no matter how critical a decision is, it is less about being right or wrong than moving forward. Indeed, some decisions have greater consequences than others, but that fundamental principle applies to all of them.
To me, what matters most is the momentum, because you can iterate on every single decision.
Decisions are everywhere. They are quintessential of one's life. Everything we do is the result of a decision, either from ourselves or someone else. Decisions shape who we are, what we believe in and what we do, as Creflo Dollar quite rightly states: "a decision is the open door into reality". After all, who likes being wrong?
The more we make decisions and acknowledge their impact, the more we are able to discern the patterns of what makes a good decision. Like everything in life, making good decisions requires practice. First, practising how to state what the direction we want to go is. Next, practising how to embrace the consequences of that very direction. Then, practising how to learn from these consequences. And finally, practising how to integrate these learnings in the next decision we make.
Making decisions regularly is a great way to train ourselves to agility, empathy and boldness. Because nobody can escape making decisions, let's embrace the process to keep moving forward.
