THE ABILITY TO MAKE DECISIONS IS INVALUABLE

Living on Purpose is done through making decisions.  Seeing where you want to go and then making a decision to deliberately move yourself in that direction.  To take initiative in life you have to make decisions.  To figure out whether to cook dinner or eat out, requires making a decision. 

It is often said that, “we are, right now, the sum total of the decisions we have made up until this point.”  That statement is very true.  The decisions we make or don’t make affect the course of our lives. 

How are you at making decisions?  Are you able to quickly decide what you are going to do or do you consider all the options and then stall out?  Do you have a tendency to pass off the decision making to someone else, or do you take the lead?  

Making a decision is defined as, the act of making up one’s mind; a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration. 

Decision making is all about picking a direction. Choosing between options and different possibilities and then moving in that specific direction.  

Indecision is created when we get distracted by the options.  This is when we hold two opposing feelings about the same idea. The internal thought process goes something like this, “I want to do this……, but I don’t know if I should.”  

Indecision creates frustration.  It produces procrastination.  It creates the environment for fear.  Indecision passes the buck of responsibility.  And can easily become a habit, and becomes the process in which you deal with problems or just exist in them.   

Making decisions frees up the mind.  It creates momentum in life and develops good leadership.  It causes you to take greater responsibility for your life and its outcome.  It develops the strength of your understanding and your ability to assess the situation, determine the right direction, and then act quickly.    

It’s been said that successful people make decisions very quickly and change them very slowly, if they change them at all.  Where unsuccessful people make decisions very slowly and change them very quickly.

Successful people become successful because they make decisions.  They have an idea, consider the idea and then make a decision and execute.  What makes people not so successful is not so much lacking an idea (although that can definitely be the case), but lacking a committed decision. Remaining in a state of constantly counting the cost but never willing to pay the price.  

DEVELOP YOUR DECISION MAKING MUSCLES

So how do we get better at making decisions?  We make decisions.  In order to grow in skill and ability in anything, you have to practice.  By deliberately making decisions and refusing to “leave it for later”, you are exercising your decision making muscles, which causes you to grow in experience.  You will become better at making decisions by making decisions – good and bad ones.  

We have to stop being afraid of making a bad decision.  Bad decisions help us learn valuable lessons.  But there is nothing to be gained from indecision.  

3 LEVELS OF DECISIONS

BOB PROCTOR TALKS ABOUT 3 LEVELS OF DECISIONS:

1: The Best decision you can make is the right decision

2: The 2nd Best decision you can make is the wrong decision

3: The Absolute Worst, Most Horrific, Most Terrible decision you could ever make – is not making a decision    

When you look at making the wrong decision as the “2nd Best Option” it doesn’t seem so bad.  But why is making a wrong decision better than indecision? It’s all about movement.  

If you are sitting behind the wheel of your car in the driveway with the engine off, you can turn the steering wheel back and forth all you want but it won’t get you anywhere.  Just like indecision, you can run the options over and over and over in your mind, weighing all the pros and cons, seeing all the pitfalls and worst case scenarios, but at the end of the day you haven’t made it anywhere.  Steering only works when the car is moving.  Making decisions gets you moving.  And if you find you made the wrong decision, you can just make another one and course correct.

Get better at making decisions by not putting it off.  Make the decision.  Take control of your life.  Feel the freedom to be wrong.  And get moving.