How To Make The Right Decision Every Time
Here are some strategies to consider
Posted on 10-08-2019, Read Time: Min
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Decision: The act or process of deciding; a determination arrived at after consideration; a report of a conclusion; promptness and firmness in deciding
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices you have to make—or the copious options that are available to you?
If you answered Yes to the above question, you are not alone.
Do you know a very successful individual who is indecisive?
Likely not. As a rule, successful people are decisive.
If you want to realize your potential, you must be decisive and make the right decisions specific for you.
Your environment is continually expanding your options and possibilities—requiring you to make even more decisions. Change is pervasive in all parts of your life, from personal, home and family to work. Make no mistake: You cannot avoid that natural law.
In my past 30 years of assisting individuals and business to succeed, several have hired me to help them in the decision-making process. They had become “stuck.” (And I have hired coaches to help me.)
It was never my job to make decisions for them—rather, I asked critical questions to help them filter through the layers of information and make their own informed decision.
For those of you who have avoided or delayed making a decision, that in itself is a decision.
I want to encourage everyone that no matter your situation, there is hope when it comes to making the right decisions.
So how do you make the right decision every time?
Simply be prepared and explicit about what you want. Confusion and indecision come from not being crystal clear about your desires and outcomes.
As the opening quote states, to be able to make a decision, you must know what you want. That requires that individuals and businesses take the time to identify what they want in every part of their lives/business. One portal for this is clarifying your core behavioral values (internal motivators), which you use to filter all your decisions.
There are so many potential opportunities. I have witnessed people get caught up in the excitement of the moment, then develop serious regrets about their decision—after they had given it more thought and consideration.
Here are some strategies to consider:
• This question will get you thinking about the decision-making process: If nothing changed in your life or business in the next five years, would that be okay? If you answered No, you have some decisions to make.
• Context and guidelines should drive each of your decisions. Predetermine your guidelines before the time arrives to make critical decisions.
• Prioritize what is most important and non-negotiable values in your life or business. You can have only one Number 1 value, not 10 or 20—or as many as people in your life would like you to have.
Before you make life decisions, determine your core motivating values. Then, compare the options you have in your life with your core values. From your various choices, which one, if any, aligns with your core values?
My top five values are Independence, Challenge, Spirituality, Responsibility and Variety. I always use my values as benchmarks when making decisions.
• Break down your life into its various components, understanding that they are interrelated and interdependent. Don’t try to lump everything together, because that makes it nearly impossible to make a decision.
In my book, The Quest For Purpose, I outline 12 possible areas of your life where you can predetermine your outcomes and goals.
• Over 90% of small businesses fail within 10 years, so you can see that the process of being decisive in business is just as important as being decisive in your personal life.
A prime example of decision-making in business is that many owners often can’t decide whether to keep or release a mediocre staff member. With my simple decision-making framework, your options become straightforward and simple:
1. Ask yourself these questions:
• Is the person’s work performance acceptable?
Yes / No
• If he or she were doing the job the same way a year from now, would that be okay?
Yes / No
2. If you answered No to both questions, here is one more question:
• Can the person improve his or her performance?
Yes / No
3. If you answered No, you are faced with a single choice.
• You must either replace the person or reduce your expectations and accept that individual as is.
Opportunity and decisiveness meet the prepared mind. If you spend time in advance determining what you want in all areas of your life, your subsequent decision-making will reflect your predetermined path.
Another suggestion is that when you are faced with difficult decisions, project yourself into the future as if you have already made the decision.
Pay attention to the way you feel and think as you imagine you have already made the decision. This is a far more powerful process than many people understand. Making the right decision means you must trust your intuition and feelings as much as the cognitive facts.
There is an exception to the strategies I’ve suggested. You should delay making a decision when you are in distress. Your emotions can wreak havoc with your ability to think concisely.
A few years ago, a friend lost her husband to cancer. The time from his hospitalization to his death was only 20 days. There was not much time to plan for the future.
My wife and I counseled our friend not to make any major decisions immediately after her husband’s death, but she did not heed our advice.
She sold her home and moved—and did not enjoy her new place. That launched her into a cycle of ungrounded decisions. She sold and bought five homes in less than four years. In her frame of mind, understandably, she was not thinking clearly.
Finally, you will make the right decisions when you are confident about who you are and what you want. That means your self-worth levels will be high and you won’t need someone else’s approval to make a decision.
Take responsibility for your decisions.
I wrote The Quest For Purpose to help people clarify their life’s vision. As part of the process with this journal, you can clarify what is important in your life.
2. Making the right decisions comes from being prepared and clear in all areas of your life. On a scale of 1 to 10, how clear are you in each area of your life?
3. What areas can you spend time clarifying so your future decisions have context and guidelines?
4. You can learn from your previous decisions. What happened when your decision was not the right one? What specifically do you need to consider in order to keep that sort of mistake from happening in the future?
5. With so many options, it is important to make values-based decisions, not just opportunity-driven decisions.
• What are your top non-negotiable values?
If you have not yet confirmed them, complete the Values Preference Indicator (VPI) to determine your top priorities.
As a reminder, having 10 Number 1 priorities does not work. Making the right decision always requires you to choose one thing over something else.
There are several research studies that have proven that values clarification is critical to your success in life. Here are just a few benefits to this process:
• Knowing your values lowers your stress levels.
• It improves your resilience and grit.
• You become more objective.
• You are more open to receiving negative feedback.
• Student test scores and units completed go up.
In the VPI, we at CRG get you to identify your top 7 values and ask you to rank-order them from 1 to 7. We also put you through the Values Matrix, our proprietary process to help you confirm your top values through a decision matrix.
6. To establish clarity in all areas of your life, I suggest you complete The Quest For Purpose—to help you connect your life purpose and your vision.
7. In the end, only you can make decisions for you. Certainly, seek advice and feedback, but only you can make the final decision. Sometimes, individuals seek too much feedback and get confused in the process. If this is the case in your life, back off and quietly reflect on your own choices.
8. Right decisions require confidence in yourself and your choices. Use the additional CRG resources to assist you in this process:
• Personal Style Indicator
• Stress Indication and Health Planner
• Self-Worth Inventory
9. Do not make a major decision if you are under distress and not thinking clearly, such as after the death of a family member or with another traumatic event. Take the time to recover. Then decide.
10. If you follow the above steps, you can experience the freedom that knowing that you know you made the right decision brings you.
Until next time, keep Living On Purpose!
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices you have to make—or the copious options that are available to you?
If you answered Yes to the above question, you are not alone.
Do you know a very successful individual who is indecisive?
Likely not. As a rule, successful people are decisive.
If you want to realize your potential, you must be decisive and make the right decisions specific for you.
Your environment is continually expanding your options and possibilities—requiring you to make even more decisions. Change is pervasive in all parts of your life, from personal, home and family to work. Make no mistake: You cannot avoid that natural law.
In my past 30 years of assisting individuals and business to succeed, several have hired me to help them in the decision-making process. They had become “stuck.” (And I have hired coaches to help me.)
It was never my job to make decisions for them—rather, I asked critical questions to help them filter through the layers of information and make their own informed decision.
For those of you who have avoided or delayed making a decision, that in itself is a decision.
I want to encourage everyone that no matter your situation, there is hope when it comes to making the right decisions.
So how do you make the right decision every time?
Simply be prepared and explicit about what you want. Confusion and indecision come from not being crystal clear about your desires and outcomes.
As the opening quote states, to be able to make a decision, you must know what you want. That requires that individuals and businesses take the time to identify what they want in every part of their lives/business. One portal for this is clarifying your core behavioral values (internal motivators), which you use to filter all your decisions.
There are so many potential opportunities. I have witnessed people get caught up in the excitement of the moment, then develop serious regrets about their decision—after they had given it more thought and consideration.
Here are some strategies to consider:
• This question will get you thinking about the decision-making process: If nothing changed in your life or business in the next five years, would that be okay? If you answered No, you have some decisions to make.
• Context and guidelines should drive each of your decisions. Predetermine your guidelines before the time arrives to make critical decisions.
• Prioritize what is most important and non-negotiable values in your life or business. You can have only one Number 1 value, not 10 or 20—or as many as people in your life would like you to have.
Before you make life decisions, determine your core motivating values. Then, compare the options you have in your life with your core values. From your various choices, which one, if any, aligns with your core values?
My top five values are Independence, Challenge, Spirituality, Responsibility and Variety. I always use my values as benchmarks when making decisions.
• Break down your life into its various components, understanding that they are interrelated and interdependent. Don’t try to lump everything together, because that makes it nearly impossible to make a decision.
In my book, The Quest For Purpose, I outline 12 possible areas of your life where you can predetermine your outcomes and goals.
• Over 90% of small businesses fail within 10 years, so you can see that the process of being decisive in business is just as important as being decisive in your personal life.
A prime example of decision-making in business is that many owners often can’t decide whether to keep or release a mediocre staff member. With my simple decision-making framework, your options become straightforward and simple:
1. Ask yourself these questions:
• Is the person’s work performance acceptable?
Yes / No
• If he or she were doing the job the same way a year from now, would that be okay?
Yes / No
2. If you answered No to both questions, here is one more question:
• Can the person improve his or her performance?
Yes / No
3. If you answered No, you are faced with a single choice.
• You must either replace the person or reduce your expectations and accept that individual as is.
Opportunity and decisiveness meet the prepared mind. If you spend time in advance determining what you want in all areas of your life, your subsequent decision-making will reflect your predetermined path.
Another suggestion is that when you are faced with difficult decisions, project yourself into the future as if you have already made the decision.
Pay attention to the way you feel and think as you imagine you have already made the decision. This is a far more powerful process than many people understand. Making the right decision means you must trust your intuition and feelings as much as the cognitive facts.
There is an exception to the strategies I’ve suggested. You should delay making a decision when you are in distress. Your emotions can wreak havoc with your ability to think concisely.
A few years ago, a friend lost her husband to cancer. The time from his hospitalization to his death was only 20 days. There was not much time to plan for the future.
My wife and I counseled our friend not to make any major decisions immediately after her husband’s death, but she did not heed our advice.
She sold her home and moved—and did not enjoy her new place. That launched her into a cycle of ungrounded decisions. She sold and bought five homes in less than four years. In her frame of mind, understandably, she was not thinking clearly.
Finally, you will make the right decisions when you are confident about who you are and what you want. That means your self-worth levels will be high and you won’t need someone else’s approval to make a decision.
Take responsibility for your decisions.
I wrote The Quest For Purpose to help people clarify their life’s vision. As part of the process with this journal, you can clarify what is important in your life.
Action Steps
How to Make the Right Decision Every Time
1. Yes, you can make the right decision (almost) every time!2. Making the right decisions comes from being prepared and clear in all areas of your life. On a scale of 1 to 10, how clear are you in each area of your life?
3. What areas can you spend time clarifying so your future decisions have context and guidelines?
4. You can learn from your previous decisions. What happened when your decision was not the right one? What specifically do you need to consider in order to keep that sort of mistake from happening in the future?
5. With so many options, it is important to make values-based decisions, not just opportunity-driven decisions.
• What are your top non-negotiable values?
If you have not yet confirmed them, complete the Values Preference Indicator (VPI) to determine your top priorities.
As a reminder, having 10 Number 1 priorities does not work. Making the right decision always requires you to choose one thing over something else.
There are several research studies that have proven that values clarification is critical to your success in life. Here are just a few benefits to this process:
• Knowing your values lowers your stress levels.
• It improves your resilience and grit.
• You become more objective.
• You are more open to receiving negative feedback.
• Student test scores and units completed go up.
In the VPI, we at CRG get you to identify your top 7 values and ask you to rank-order them from 1 to 7. We also put you through the Values Matrix, our proprietary process to help you confirm your top values through a decision matrix.
6. To establish clarity in all areas of your life, I suggest you complete The Quest For Purpose—to help you connect your life purpose and your vision.
7. In the end, only you can make decisions for you. Certainly, seek advice and feedback, but only you can make the final decision. Sometimes, individuals seek too much feedback and get confused in the process. If this is the case in your life, back off and quietly reflect on your own choices.
8. Right decisions require confidence in yourself and your choices. Use the additional CRG resources to assist you in this process:
• Personal Style Indicator
• Stress Indication and Health Planner
• Self-Worth Inventory
9. Do not make a major decision if you are under distress and not thinking clearly, such as after the death of a family member or with another traumatic event. Take the time to recover. Then decide.
10. If you follow the above steps, you can experience the freedom that knowing that you know you made the right decision brings you.
Until next time, keep Living On Purpose!
Author Bio
| Ken Keis is a foremost global authority on behavioral assessment strategies and processes, and an expert in leadership, purpose, and wellness. He has authored over 4 million words of content, including 500 articles, 4 books, and a dozen assessments to help others realize their full potential. President and CEO of Consulting Resource Group International (CRG), Dr. Keis has worked with many high-profile companies, associations, and industry groups. In the past 30 years, Ken has conducted more than 3,000 presentations and 10,000 hours of coaching and consulting. He is a highly sought-after author, speaker, trainer, media guest and also the host of The Secrets of Success Podcast with Dr. Ken Keis. Ken’s podcast features change-makers, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and experts at the top of their industries who share their thought-provoking stories and transparent insights on how they became successful! Visit www.kenkeis.com and www.crgleader.com Connect Ken Keis Follow @crgleader |
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