Decision-Making Is A Fine Art — Here’s How To Make Better Decisions For Your Growth

Could you imagine how much faster you would achieve your goals if you could make better decisions?

 

It would be a game-changer, right? Well, I am here to tell you it absolutely is possible. I will share with you the steps to making better decisions and it’s easier than you think. A good decision is one that helps you achieve your goals. If you’re unable to make decisions, you’ll get nowhere in life.

 

Before we even talk about how to make good decisions, let’s look at the opposite. A poor decision is one that leads to failure. Failure comes in different forms. It could mean not getting a job or a promotion, or it could mean losing money on a business venture.

 

You can fail by making mistakes in your personal life, too. Decisions are like dominoes: each one knocks down the next one and leads to failure, if not handled correctly. So what makes a good decision? If we can identify the attributes of a good decision and practice them, we’ll be able to take this skill and apply it to almost every area of our lives.

 

A good decision is one that identifies problems, solves them, and leads us closer to our goals.

 

The 5 best decision-making skills

 

Here are five of the most important factors needed for good decision making:

 

1. The ability to prioritize tasks.

 

2. The ability to make decisions without getting overwhelmed by uncertainty.

 

3. The ability to identify the pros and cons of your options.

 

4. The ability to see the decision from other perspectives.

 

5. The ability to take action, even if your decision is wrong.

 

 

Why it’s hard to make good decisions for your life

 

Making a decision is never easy. There are too many options, and all of them have pros and cons, which makes it hard to make a choice.

 

And that’s true not only with business decisions but also with personal ones.

 

Trying to decide what to do or what to buy can easily become a source of stress. And when you’re stressed, you might even avoid making decisions at all.

 

But there are things you can do to help you make better decisions for your business and yourself.

 

 

 

 

Tips to help you overcome your decision-making difficulties

 

Understand that making decisions is difficult for everyone. You might be concerned about the outcome of a decision, but the only way to find out what will happen is to make it. When you’re in the throes of indecision, ask yourself the following questions:

 

• What’s the cost of not deciding?

• What’s the cost of making a wrong choice?

 

Give yourself time to think through your options before making a choice. Don’t let fear drive your decision-making process. If you’re afraid of choosing option A because it might fail, ask yourself how much more likely it is that option B will succeed if you choose it instead.

 

Don’t get caught up in perfectionism, which only leads to overwhelm and burnout.

 

Taking charge of our lives may not be an easy task. As the years go by, we find ourselves with increasingly complex situations, and while there are irrelevant decisions such as choosing what to wear each day or the vacation destination each summer, there are others much more important, such as choosing the professional career we will study, the place of residence or even a break.

 

Being human, we don’t like to feel uncertain and we certainly don’t like to feel bad about our decisions. We want to feel good about our choices and want others to think we made a good decision.

 

So in order for us to make a decision that we’re comfortable with and that feels right in our gut, we look for something concrete that will convince us that one decision is better than another.

 

That thing could be anything from the advice of a friend to reading an article discussing the pros and cons of different choices. Once we find it, we’re convinced it was the right decision and move on with life, feeling good about ourselves and our decision-making abilities.

 

Decision-making examples

 

Are you still unclear on how to make decisions? Still bouncing back and forth? Trying to decide what the best decisions are for your business can be a challenge. You may try to make decisions when you’re too tired, or when you’re with people who persuade you to take different directions.

 

The key is to learn how to make good decisions.

 

Decision-making plays a vital role in the success of any business organization. The decisions  taken by the management, the departmental heads, the workers, and even the owner play an important role in determining whether or not a business will be successful.

 

Tons of successful books are written on decision-making strategies that can help managers to figure out how to make the right decisions at the right time.

 

Key points to help you learn how to make better decisions

 

1- Identify all the available choices

 

The first step is to identify all your options and relevant information. You should gather whatever information is required before making a decision so that you can avoid being stuck with an inadequate choice later on.

 

2. Analyze alternatives

 

You should evaluate each alternative against your goals and objectives. You should also analyze them according to their feasibility, cost, time and risks involved along with ease of implementation, etc.

 

 

3. Create a timeline for evaluation

 

It is best to list down the alternatives and give a score based on your evaluation criteria. It is crucial to have an objective way of scoring each option so that your decision is fair and balanced in this step itself. You can use any system such as “five-star” or “dollar value” etc.

 

How to make decisions faster

 

Making decisions quickly, accurately and with little stress doesn’t come naturally to everyone.

 

Some people agonize over choices and can’t make a decision until the last possible minute. Others make snap judgments without considering all the options.

 

Treating your decision-making process as a skill that can be improved will help you make better decisions more quickly and confidently.

 

By watching for common decision-making patterns, you can develop an approach that is comfortable for you and improves your results.

 

 

 

4 steps to help you make decisions quickly, easily, and without stress

 

1. Keep it simple

 

Focus on only the most important factors in your decision so that you’re not comparing apples to oranges or being distracted by extraneous information. Eliminate information that is irrelevant to your decision — irrelevant information can skew your thinking or distract you from the facts that matter most.

 

2. Be clear about what you want — and don’t want — from the decision before you start making choices.

 

If possible, state what outcome you are trying to achieve before beginning the process of evaluating options.

 

That way, if one option has an undesirable attribute, it’s eliminated immediately rather than distracting you from other possibilities that may be more suitable in other ways.

 

3- Evaluate each option for its strengths and weaknesses

 

Once you have identified what you want, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Consider how realistic each option is, as well as how well it will fit into your overall plan for the future. Don’t be afraid to give yourself some time to think about this part of the process before making your final decision. In fact, taking some time off from making the decision may help you see things from a different perspective later on.

 

4- Make a decision quickly after fully considering all of your options while keeping your emotions in check.

 

The final step is more straightforward than it sounds but requires discipline and self-control to achieve. Once you have evaluated all of your options and chosen one over the others, take action. Don’t stall. The worst you could do is wait. Your mind will quickly come up with excuses for you not to take action.

 

Conclusion

 

Decision-making is something you want to learn, a skill that’ll take your life to the next level. There are people constantly distressed and unsatisfied with the decisions they have taken or intend to take.

 

Deciding something is not thinking about it and leaving the idea in the air. Instead, decisions are acts of stating, acting, and developing with the faith that it is possible.