Decisions, Decisions . . .
Article By
Joe Anselmo, Co-Owner & CEO of Turning Point Real Estate
Reading, writing and arithmetic. That was in elementary school. In High School it was expanded to foreign language, arts, literature, sports, etc... Then for those who choose higher education, we were taught all sorts of different subjects, some relevant and some not so relevant to what we wanted to learn, but all necessary to get the needed credits to graduate. It's amazing what you are taught in seventeen years (more or less) of schooling. But more amazing is what's not part of our learning curriculum.
Some of the most basic, and important skills necessary to navigate through life are never even discussed. One of those is making decisions (I'll save some of the other for future articles so I don't exhaust all my topics).
That's right; we do it every day probably hundreds of times. Some are really little decisions like where to get dinner, but some are really huge, like for some women, what to wear (OMG!). Come on guys, you know what I'm talking about here... "Honey, you look great (5th outfit). Can we just go now before we're late?" Before you start laughing men, we have our issues to. Just ask anyone in my family about the painful process I put them through while placing my order when eating out. I can never decide!
A simple decision for one person may be extremely difficult for someone else and vice versa, but here's the thing . . . life is full of decisions and the vast majority of us are never trained in decision-making. Now I'm not saying that every decision is earth shattering, in fact most of the decisions we make are minor in nature, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't learn how to make decisions.
Understanding the significance of how vital making decisions are to leading a successful life, Author Napoleon Hill devoted an entire chapter to Decisions in his classis Think and Grow Rich. In his book, he describes what he refers to as "the greatest decision of all time as far as American citizens are concerned." It was reached inPhiladelphia on July 4th 1776 when Fifty-Six men, Our Fore Fathers, signed a document that would even bring freedom to all Americans or bring them death.
So why don't we make decisions. Well, for lots of reasons, first understand that the opposite of decision is procrastination. So if you have a tough time making decisions, you are in the habit of procrastinating.That's right, habit. Indecision is just a habit we've fallen into. But that's the good news because habits can easily be changed! How do we do that?
Before we get into that, one more quick note. Particularly for major decisions, I believe they are the two main reasons the majority of people fail to make decisions;
First, they are easily influenced by others. In other words they let the opinion's of others do their thinking for them. This includes the news, co-workers, friends, and family, etc . . .Most are well intended, but sometimes they can handicap your decisions when not meaning to do so. If you want advice before making and important decision, especially life changing decisions, just make sure you seek it selectively. You have a marvelous mind of your own...use it!
Second, is fear. Fear can be very paralyzing especially when making decisions. Typically we project our current circumstances into the future outcome when trying to make decisions. So unless we get some kind of assurance that the outcome of our decision will fix our problem, we're reluctant to make it. This presents only one problem...we cannot predict the future! Instead, we should realize that it's most likely our current circumstances that are motivating our decision. So even if your decision doesn't work out exactly as planned, it's better then staying stuck. That may be hard to accept now, but just think for a minute about something wonderful in your life that's the result of a difficult past decision. Now image the outcome if you didn't overcome the fear and go for it. That's scary. I shiver to think how close I was to backing away from some of my hardest decisions.
Here's what's kind of crazy, in the end we already know the reason, and the answer, as to why were making our decision. It's referred to as listening to your gut or your gut-instinct.
We just have to learn to listen...and to trust that voice inside us. In the end, it's really the only opinion that counts because it's our life.
Well, I hope this helps next time you're struggling with a decision, but if you still need some further inspiration, remember this advice from Yogi Berra-
"When you come to a fork in the road...take it"
Make it your best week, Joe
