Tips for Better Decision Making
Just like many things in life, making good decisions is a practice. It’s an art that is uniquely yours to craft. Knowing what’s right for you given who you are and where you are in life is invaluable to respect and honor what you want. Good decision making will greatly influence your ability to follow "your unique truth" and live a life that’s authentic to who you truly are.
It could feel really hard to make good decisions if you weren’t brought up to do so. If you weren’t exposed to others who made good choices or taught how to evaluate and decide, it could be a stressful and overwhelming task.
If this speaks to you, you’re not alone in feeling this way.
If you align with decisions being scary and overwhelming, this post is for you.
To say it simply, decision making is a learned skill. Good news: It’s something that you can practice and get better at. All that is required is intention, effort and the belief that you can improve.
A higher level of self trust combined with a history of making choices that serve you well will create your more confident ability to decide.
It's common to struggle with making decisions, especially when you have a habit of looking for answers outside of yourself. Meaning asking others for your answers or looking for external things to make decisions for you. When we avoid making any decision because of indifference or an inability to choose, usually that means that the decision gets made for us. If it’s not made for us, then we might not even realize that we, very passively, just made a decision.
After all, No decision is a decision.
Here are some tips to explore in order to help you clear distractions and, therefore, see with more clarity the self serving decisions that are waiting for you beneath all the noise.
Tips for better decision making
Get clear on your priorities / values. Clearly knowing what’s important to you will help you see the opportunities and people that align with your priorities. When you’re clear on your values, decision making becomes much less confusing. Your priorities act as your unique guidance system. Priorities and values clarify. They help you to see what is for you and what to pass up on when it comes to making decisions.
*exercise: Journal and list your top 5 priorities. Example: I value my health, my family, getting enough sleep, my integrity, continued learning, etc. When an opportunity comes your way that would be compromising one or several of your values, you can than decide if “it’s worth it” for you to compromise a specific value(s). Ultimately, you are the only one who could possibly decide what tips the mark if it’s a yes or no.
Increase your level of self trust/self worth One major reason why we might struggle when it comes to decision making is due to a lack of self trust. If we don’t trust and believe that we make good choices, that’s a huge block toward healthy decision making. If we have a shaky sense of self our meter of what’s “the right choice” will be difficult, if not impossible, to see. Increasing your amount of self awareness and self love will help you identify and zone in on what’s a good fit for you.
Spending time intentionally working on your relationship with yourself by taking care of your physical and emotional needs with healthy self care practices will allow you to feel better and more confident. Overtime, a wellness practice will help you gain more inner peace and an overall better relationship with yourself. This will help you to make better individual choices generally.
This tip is not a quick fix. As we have heard, like most things of value, they don’t appear overnight. It’s a commitment to embark on your self discovery journey. It could never fail you to invest time to grow, heal and expand yourself. This is not to deny that the journey requires radical honesty, courage and vulnerability. Needless to say, working on increasing your self worth will benefit you way beyond decision making. To say it simply, you will see the positive impact via how you make smart decisions for you once you begin your self healing journey.
This is such an important topic and if you want to deep dive into it further, check out my blog post on the topic HERE.
Practice tuning into your intuition. Our intuition gets clouded with a habit of looking outward for our own answers. Our intuition is muffled with noise, distraction, overly doing in any way, shape or form and by being busy. When you don’t have space to hear your own inner voice, a barrier has been created that silences your inner knowing. (Yes, you have an inner knowing. It’s in there even if you’re convinced nobody is home.) Sometimes we’ve been so pulled away from our intuitive self that work is required to rediscover it’s whisper. With the intention, want and continuous commitment to tap back into your sense of intuition, the whisper will become louder and louder overtime. truth.
Here are 6 tips on how to reestablish your relationship with your intuition:
spend time alone.
meditate.
Spend time in nature.
Develop a journaling practice.
Tap into your creative side.
Clear the clutter in your external & internal space.
Tapping into your intuition is another HUGE topic where there’s so much more to expand on. If you’re curious to go further into this topic, check out my blog on the topic HERE.
Be intentional about looking inward vs. outward for your own answers. Nobody can possibly know what’s best for you other than you. The problem comes when you’ve detached so much from your sense of self that you have lost all sense of direction of what’s “right” for you. This is a moment to realize that there’s two ways to proceed:
1. You can continue to roll the dice and ask for answers outside yourself.
OR
2. You can start to do the work to get back “in tune” with yourself so you will trust yourself to make your own decisions for your life.
(Obviously, number 2 is the choice that I’m pointing you toward. That’s the long term answer that will allow you to live out your dreams, desires and wants. NOT the dreams, desires and wants of others.)
There's a difference between getting support from friends and trusted family members vs asking others for your answers. There’s a time and place to bounce ideas off others and get feedback from a reliable source. However, being in a habit of looking to others for your answers will take you further and further away from yourself.
An intentional practice of refraining from looking outside yourself when faced with a decision is a practice that will build on itself. Chances are that you will have to sit in a space of “not knowing what to do” if you’re looking to learn how to make decisions from the core of who you are. This is a space that you can’t continue to avoid if you want to make good decisions for yourself. It’s just part of the process.
My best feedback is to let you know that it’s okay to not know. “Not knowing” is not the problem. The problem is often created when we panic and become anxious within the “not knowing” space. The problem arises within what happens when we allow our fear, panic and anxiety to lead. Making choices from a fear based, anxious place is what leads to unproductive problem solving and decision making.
Sometimes decisions need time, space, reflection and events to pan out for a decision to get clear. The right decision for you will not always be obvious. On another note, sometimes what you want to choose is obvious, but may be hard to execute for other reasons. Like I stated in the beginning, decision making is an art. It’s an unknown journey, which is neutral unless you judge it otherwise.
Sometimes, making choices that honor your truth could and will be hard. Although, in the long run, it will benefit you overtime.
Hang in there and continue to learn about how you tick, what you want and how to skillfully decide for yourself. With energy going toward practicing the skills to increase your level of self awareness, overtime you will improve your decision making. It’s a sure thing that decisions will become more clear with a higher sense of awareness.
This is time and energy well spent as your whole life will improve as you guide yourself to the people, places and things that align with what’s important for you.
Final thought
Remember: One size does not fit all
The "right" approach for one person may not work for another. We are all so very different. What we need at one moment can be very different from the next. What one person needs can be the complete opposite of another.
Thinking about decision making without a "right or wrong" and "black and white" context can serve you greatly. With the pressure off from thinking that there's a "right answer” you will allow more space for your “right answer” to surface. There’s only YOUR answer, based on where you are in your life’s journey; not a right answer for the collective.
Be well friends. Thank you for being here with me. I wish you well on your journey of self discovery.
*Above image by Photographer Renata Amazonas.
