When people share the worst decisions they have made in their lives, they often cite the fact that the choice was made in a fit of instinctive emotions: passion, fear, greed.
Our life would be completely different if Ctrl+Z operated in life, which would cancel decisions made.
But we are not slaves to our mood. Instinctive emotions tend to dull or disappear altogether. Therefore, folk wisdom recommends that when you need to make an important decision, it is better to go to bed. Good advice, by the way. It wouldn't hurt to take note! Although for many decisions, sleep alone is not enough. A special strategy is needed.
One of the effective tools that we would like to offer you is strategy for success at work and in life from Susie Welch(Suzy Welch) - former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review, popular author, television commentator and journalist. It is called 10/10/10 and involves making decisions through the prism of three different time frames:
- How will you feel about it 10 minutes later?
- How will you feel about this decision 10 months from now?
- What will your reaction be to this in 10 years?
By focusing our attention on these deadlines, we distance ourselves some distance from the problem of making an important decision.
Now let's look at the effect of this rule using an example.
Situation: Veronica has a boyfriend, Kirill. They have been dating for 9 months, but their relationship can hardly be called ideal. Veronica claims that Kirill is a wonderful person, and in many ways he is exactly what she has been looking for throughout her life. However, she is very worried that their relationship is not moving forward. She is 30, she wants a family and... She doesn’t have an endless amount of time to develop her relationship with Kirill, who is approaching 40. During these 9 months, she never met Kirill’s daughter from her first marriage, and the cherished “I love you” was never heard in their couple from either side.
The divorce from my wife was terrible. After this, Kirill decided to avoid serious relationships. Moreover, he keeps his daughter out of his personal life. Veronica understands that he is hurt, but she is also offended that such an important part of her loved one’s life is closed to her.
Veronica knows that Kirill does not like to rush into making decisions. But should she then take the step herself and say “I love you” first?
The girl was advised to use the 10/10/10 rule, and this is what came out of it. Veronica was asked to imagine that right now she had to decide whether she would confess her love to Kirill over the weekend or not.
Question 1: How will you feel about this decision 10 minutes later?
Answer:“I think I would be worried, but at the same time proud of myself for taking a risk and saying it first.”
Question 2: How would you feel about your decision if 10 months had passed?
Answer:“I don’t think I’ll regret it 10 months from now. No, I will not. I sincerely want everything to work out. Those who don’t take risks don’t drink champagne!”
Question 3: How will you feel about your decision 10 years later?
Answer:“No matter how Kirill reacts, in 10 years the decision to confess your love first is unlikely to matter. By this time, either we will be happy together, or I will be in a relationship with someone else."
Note that the 10/10/10 rule works! As a result we have quite a simple solution:
Veronica must take the lead. She will be proud of herself if she does this, and sincerely believes that she will not regret what she did, even if nothing works out with Kirill in the end. But without consciously analyzing the situation according to the 10/10/10 rule, making an important decision seemed extremely difficult to her. Short-term emotions—fear, nervousness, and fear of rejection—were distracting and limiting factors.
What happened to Veronica after that, you are probably wondering. She still said “I love you” first. In addition, she tried to do everything to change the situation and stop feeling in limbo. Kirill did not confess his love to her. But progress was evident: he became closer to Veronica. The girl believes that he loves her, that he just needs a little more time to overcome his own and admit that the feelings are reciprocated. In her opinion, the chances that they will be together reach 80%.
Eventually
The 10/10/10 rule helps you win the emotional game. The feelings that you are experiencing now, at this moment, seem intense and sharp, and the future, on the contrary, is vague. Therefore, emotions experienced in the present are always in the foreground.
The 10/10/10 strategy forces you to change your perspective: consider a moment in the future (for example, in 10 months) from the same point that you look at in the present.
This technique puts your short-term emotions into perspective. This is not to say that you should ignore them. Often they even help you get what you want in a given situation. But you shouldn't let your emotions get the better of you.
It is necessary to remember the contrast of emotions not only in life, but also at work. For example, if you deliberately avoid having a serious conversation with your boss, you are allowing your emotions to get the better of you. If you imagine the possibility of having a conversation, then after 10 minutes you will be just as nervous, but after 10 months, will you be glad that you decided to have this conversation? Will you breathe a sigh of relief? Or will you feel proud?
What if you want to reward the work of an excellent employee and are going to offer him a promotion: will you doubt the correctness of your decision after 10 minutes, will you regret what you did 10 months later (what if other employees feel left out), and will it Does the promotion make any difference to your business 10 years from now?
As you can see, short-term emotions are not always harmful. The 10/10/10 rule suggests that looking at emotions in the long term is not the only correct one. It only proves that the short-term feelings you experience cannot be at the head of the table when you make important and responsible decisions.
Our whole life largely depends on our decisions. Everyone understands this, but not everyone manages to make the right choice.
At times we feel like we are at a crossroads and don’t know how to make the right decision. In some situations, intuition helps, but in most cases you have to be guided by cold reason and common sense.
A few simple but effective tips will help you learn to make decisions even in the midst of the most complex and seemingly insoluble problems.
So how do you make a decision when in doubt?
1. Expand your boundaries.
One of the main mistakes that prevents you from making a choice in favor of one option or another is. We set rigid boundaries ourselves, and then try to get out of them. What are we talking about, and how to learn to make decisions?
For example, you live with your parents and decided to buy a separate apartment, but at the moment you do not have enough funds to buy a two-story mansion. Two main options immediately arise in your head: buy a mansion on credit, or stay with your parents and continue to collect the required amount.
But there is another way to make a decision - a possible alternative. For example, buy cheaper housing, move there and save for a more expensive option. This way, you will avoid problems associated with credit and living with relatives.
The first thing you need to do to learn how to make a decision is to expand the boundaries without focusing on extremes.
Even the wise Solomon once said:
“He who is hasty will stumble.”
How many times have we made the wrong choice in a hurry and then regretted it?
Before you make the right decision, calm down as much as possible and carefully weigh the pros and cons. If your phone is literally ringing off the hook with calls, and the interlocutor is simply pushing you in the back to do this or that act, be careful: you may very soon regret your rash actions. Take a timeout, ask for a delay, and don’t worry - there are not many situations in life in which delay is like death. You will see that after a short time you will clearly understand how to decide to take this or that step.
3. Get as much information as possible.
Those who want to know how to make the right choice in a given situation would do well to learn one more truth: don’t be shy to ask.
You will save money if, before an important purchase, you shake out of the seller everything he can know about this product, especially about its shortcomings. You will avoid problems if, before going to the doctor, ask your friends about the results of his work. By reading product reviews, comments, or at least short summaries of films, you will save time and nerves and learn to make a decision by asking yourself whether you need it at all or not.
4. Don't get emotional.
There is nothing worse when, in a fit of anger, spouses file for divorce, or, conversely, in euphoria or an attempt to “annoy” someone, they get married and regret it a week later. - a dangerous enemy for making the right choice. At the most inopportune moment, when common sense says one thing, emotions can lead astray and ruin all plans.
How to learn to make decisions? Without giving in to emotions.
Ask yourself a question: how will my action affect my future life, and how will I look at all this in 15 minutes, in a month, in a year?
5. Stay in the dark.
There is one good way to make a decision by weakening the influence of emotions - dimming the lights.
Science has proven that lighting affects how a person reacts to various situations, and the results of these experiments are skillfully used in marketing today.
For example, most jewelry stores have very bright lighting, not only so that the buyer can clearly see the product, but also in order to provoke him to make a quick purchase. Therefore, if you are wondering how to decide to take an important step, turn on soft, dim lights in the room and be alone with your thoughts, getting rid of excessive emotions.
6. Try and make mistakes.
Yes, that's not a typo. Anyone who wants to know how to make a decision when in doubt must be prepared to make mistakes. We will not quote the great classics now, but experience comes precisely through trial and error.
How to make the right choice without getting a single bump? No way. Everyone has their own “rake”, and in this article we only tried to warn how not to step on someone else’s.
Throughout his adult life, every person makes many decisions. Every day he faces the choice of what to do correctly in any situation, what to buy in a store, where to go to study or work, what to wear to an important or not so important event, how to distribute his finances. Often, decision-making is accompanied by stress, which, as is known, negatively affects our psyche. How to make a decision to minimize negative consequences?
“Debriefing” using a simple example
The longer we hesitate, not knowing how to make the right decision, the more negative emotions we experience, the faster we lose the ability to correctly and quickly choose the right option.
It’s good, of course, to think about the past and analyze your already committed actions. But when we, say, occupy our thoughts for a week with only one question that is related to making a decision, this is no longer beneficial, but rather harmful. The longer we think, the more possible solutions pop up in our heads. If each of these options is not bad, we cease to perceive the task adequately, since we are in a limbo that does not allow us to look at things soberly. There is no time for the right decision.
Psychologists have developed a number of rules that will make it easier to make a decision, regardless of the essence of the issue. Whether you're thinking about what to wear to a party or deciding whether to continue dating a man or whether it's better to break up with him, take these rules into account.
to contents to contentsDon't rely only on yourself
When making a difficult decision, discuss it with loved ones. There is a good chance that you will get good advice from them. This is the first thing. Secondly, a problem that has been voiced several times ceases to be a problem, but takes on the clear outlines of a situation from which there are at least two ways out. But we want to warn you: don’t go overboard and don’t ask everyone around you for advice. Trust only the people closest to you. After all, anyone can give advice, but it will be of no use - an abundance of advice, especially from strangers who are unfamiliar with your situation, will simply confuse you.
Don't decide from the moment of emotional stress
Postpone making any decision until you are no longer overwhelmed by emotions and feelings. They do not have the best influence on the correctness of the decision. If you take it at a time of emotional stress, the consequences may be undesirable. Wait until everything boils over inside you, take a sober look at the situation and try to make the right decision.
to contentsThink about it tomorrow
Remember what the unforgettable Scarlett O'Hara said from the novel Gone with the Wind? Correct: “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” And it’s not without reason that people say that the morning is wiser than the evening. Psychologists are sure: our subconscious knows the answers to all questions. During the day, the brain is overloaded with information; it cannot decipher the signals sent by the subconscious. Therefore, do not make an important decision during the day or evening. It’s better to ask yourself a question that worries you before going to bed; quite possibly, in the morning you will already know what to do. In such a case, it is recommended to place a sheet of paper and a pen or voice recorder on the nightstand near the bed. The solution to the problem may come to you even when you are half asleep, and you will need to record it so as not to forget.
No matter how much sensible advice you are given, remember that you must make the decision yourself. After all, this is your life, you should not trust even very close people to manage it. After all, each person, assessing the situation, proceeds from his own considerations. What works for this person may not work for you. Consider outside opinions, but without fanaticism.
to contentsListen to your heart and trust your intuition
Remember the joke when an inner voice said to an avid gambler who bet his entire fortune: “God, how wrong I was!” The inner voice is often wrong, so you need to trust either your body or your intuition (it’s different for everyone). One man, while signing an important contract, felt an unpleasant tingling sensation in his chest. The contract, as it turned out later, was unprofitable. Another felt a headache, a third felt slightly dizzy. All these are signals that the body sends us, and this is its request to delay the decision. In this case, we call intuition not the inner voice, which can be mistaken, but hints from the outside world - peculiar signs. Phrases dropped by someone in our presence, posters, objects, signs, etc. Often the world around us helps our thoughts concentrate in the right direction. The main thing is to notice the signs sent by fate.
Don't repeat past steps
Many people, when making decisions, are guided by analogies: this, they say, has already happened before, it was necessary to do this and that, and this is exactly what we will do now. Of course, experience is good, and it also needs to be included when making an important decision. But do not forget that life is not a swamp, but a river, which, as you know, cannot be entered twice. Try to find a new way to solve the problem.
to contentsConsider and plan for the future
There are decisions that affect our future. And there are those who can radically change our path in life. These are very important decisions in which you need to consider all possible options. So, changing your place of residence may make you lonely, and leaving your job will deprive you of the opportunity for career growth.
to contentsPositive thoughts will help
Books on popular psychology related to positive thinking are of great interest to readers. If you have heard about the methods of N. Pravdina, A. Sviyash, V. Levi, N. Kozlov, then you know that any of our desires materialize and come true. Dreams turn into reality. Therefore, when making a decision, it is better to present a positive picture of fulfilled desires. This helps not only to make the right decision, but also not to go astray. Is it difficult to break off a relationship with a married man? Don’t think about loneliness, but imagine yourself free and dream of meeting great love. Can't you avoid eating after six? Imagine how your figure becomes ideal. Are you afraid to leave a low-paid and unloved job? Save some money as a financial cushion and look for a new activity. Imagine the joy with which you will do something you love.
The ability to make decisions is the most important skill, without which you will not be able to effectively manage your life or take responsibility for your actions. Ideally, we learn it from childhood, and gradually, with experience, we find the optimal way to do it. But sometimes the situation is so complex that the process of choosing from possible courses of action becomes painful. In this case, how to make the right decision?
It is impossible to accurately predict future events. Therefore, deciding what to do in a given situation is so difficult. But the more often you make decisions (by the way, both right and wrong), the easier you feel about this process, and what you should rely on first.
What prevents you from making decisions
Fears, complexes, self-doubt - these are the main factors standing between you and the right decision. The imagination paints colorful pictures of the terrifying consequences of changing jobs or moving to a new home. The burden of responsibility for their actions, from which many parents today try to protect their children, seems unbearable to many.
After all, until you make a decision, you (seemingly) have nothing to do with the consequences. You can say “Circumstances turned out this way,” instead of “I didn’t succeed.” We want assurance that whatever we do will get us where we want to be. The trouble is that it is simply impossible to obtain such guarantees.
That’s why so many people, in fact, don’t make any decisions - they’ve been in unsatisfying, empty relationships for years (after all, who knows how everything will turn out if they break up), they’re doing uninteresting things they don’t like (you have to make a living somehow), and if “ stuck,” and you need to make a decision, or it has already been made by someone for you - they continue to hope that everything will somehow resolve.
How we act when faced with the need to make a decision
Over the course of their lives, most people eventually lean towards one or another strategy of behavior in a difficult life situation, when they need to decide how to proceed. Fatalists rely on fate, chance, karma, and are convinced that no matter what option they choose, everything is predetermined, and in any case everything will be as it will be.
Decision making is a process in which you use logic, the ability to analyze existing experience, a sense of self-preservation, as well as courage and the ability to take risks. Knowing how to put it all together increases the likelihood that the chosen course of action will be the right one for you.
How to make a decision
Let's take a closer look at each element of decision-making, see what ways there are to systematize this process and improve each of its components.
Weigh all the pros and cons
By appealing to logic, a person organizes the possible positive and negative consequences of the decision made. You can use two criteria - pros and cons, you can complicate the system and use the so-called “Descartes square”. In this case, you will get not two columns, but a square of four sections entitled:
- Benefits from positive consequences;
- Disadvantages from positive consequences;
- Pros from negative consequences;
- Cons from negative consequences.
For example, you choose between a more profitable and a more promising position, and lean towards the future. Write down all the pros and cons of it. that you will earn less, and all the pros and cons of being able to occupy a prestigious position in the future.
The Cartesian method helps to expand the angle of view on the situation, to look at it from four different sides. But after you do this, minimize the number of significant factors, leaving in the columns one, the most significant argument for each option. Because the next important point when making a decision is to simplify the choice as much as possible
Keep it simple
To make the right decision, it is very important not to overwhelm yourself. Do not build multi-stage schemes, make the choice as simple as possible, remove the unnecessary, leaving only the truly important. In the job example above, you ultimately need to decide whether you are willing to trade off today's financial stability and prosperity for future prospects.
This leads to another important point. To make decisions easier, you need to clearly understand what you want, what is important to you, what are your priorities in life. If you don't know what to strive for, where you are going and who you are - how can you decide how to act? As Lewis Carroll wrote, “If you don’t care where you go, then you don’t care where you go, you’ll end up somewhere.”
Eliminate the Fear of Mistakes
People who are afraid of making a mistake often have difficulty making decisions. It is necessary, often growing from childhood. We are used to thinking about mistakes as bad grades (for example), because of which we will not be accepted into college, and our future will be ruined.
But there is another way of looking at an error and any of its consequences. Everything that happens to us, including wrong decisions, is the experience we need. In a sense, for the development of decision-making skill, mistakes and subsequent experiences are more important or as important as correct decisions. Without making a mistake (failed relationship, wrong career choice), how will you know what is right for you and what is not?
Every wrong decision brings you closer to the right one. Any experience is essentially neutral, positive or negative, only our emotional reaction makes it. What seems like a disaster to you today may turn out to be a great blessing in a couple of months or years. You can't know this, and no one can.
Therefore, it is stupid to be afraid of mistakes. Who knows. Where would you be now if not for all those events (including those that you evaluate as mistakes) that happened in your life. Therefore, to make a decision, it is important not to dramatize, but rather to calm down, simplify the situation as much as possible, and take a step forward.
What does the right decision mean?
And in conclusion, a little about what the “right” solution is and whether it exists. What criteria of correctness should we focus on, since there are many coordinate systems? What seems right to some is complete nonsense to others.
Only you yourself, unless of course you are an adult, responsible and independent person (and not an over-aged child), can choose an internal assessment system. And you still won’t know for sure whether you did the right thing by abandoning one in favor of the other.
Practice meaningful decision making every day, in the small things. What will you eat for breakfast, what will you wear to work, what will you do in the evening? After all, it’s not that difficult, you’ll agree. Serious decisions, such as choosing a place to live or a vocation, are not so different from everyday, intermediate ones, as we are used to thinking about them. “I don’t want to eat porridge today, but I want cottage cheese” is almost the same as “I never want to eat cottage cheese again, but I want to become a vegetarian.”
Think about it for a moment. Choosing the main things in life begins with choosing the simple ones. When you understand what you want, you gradually begin to understand how to get there. And then there are almost no wrong decisions left in your life, or rather, their correctness loses its hyper-significance, and it becomes much easier to make them.
If you want to be with the man you love, you need to figure out whether you are compatible according to your zodiac sign?
