Struggling to make an Important Decision? Then Check this
Make this decision.
No, seriously. Make this decision and stop overthinking and worrying about the same topic over and over.
‘’Should I take this new job offer? Should I start my own business? Should I continue in this relationship?’’ And more and more…
And usually, you cannot decide because of one of two factors or both:
1) Because you are afraid of the consequences of making a wrong decision,
2) Or because you do not have enough information still.
And suddenly, your life stops. And you keep thinking and thinking and thinking and focusing on the same topic.
In fact, you take weeks of thinking, even though during these weeks you did not gain anything new except being busy thinking.
And if you are one of the few, who move from the stage of thinking to ''deciding'', then you keep thinking about the validity of the decision that you made each night. Because you are still not sure if this is right or wrong.
But let me tell you this: it does not matter.
It does not matter if you have an incredible amount of information or not, and it does not matter if you will fail or not. All that matters is to make a decision.
Decisions are always relevant to the time. So, it is not only about making decisions, but it is also about the timing of the decisions. A good decision at the wrong time will lead you to failure.
We were born in this life to make decisions. And some of these decisions are hard decisions. And a lot of these decisions will be wrong no matter what you do to avoid making mistakes.
Being locked in a cage of thinking will hurt you emotionally, hurt your relationship with the people around you, and will make you feel under pressure, and you will lose a lot of time that you can invest in doing something else.
You do not believe me?
Then just look around you. How many people you know took the wrong decision and did not die? How many times have you yourself taken the wrong decision and survived? How many times have you said to yourself ‘’this will be a very tough year’’ and it ended up being a great year or a normal year and it passed?
On the other hand, how many times have you taken a calculated decision where you weighed the pros and cons and ended up being unhappy or the decision ended up being the wrong one in the long term?
And here is a point that I want to make. Wrong decisions are not only relevant to actions that you take and bring you immediate loss. Actions that you take, that limit your potential and what you can do and achieve in this life are also wrong decisions even if you are earning money, or you cannot see a tangible loss.
But you can tell me ‘’Mohamed, I am delayed because I am just taking my time to gather information and to weigh the pros and cons.’’
But here is the thing. Even if you make a list of pros and cons before deciding, this will not help you a lot.
It can help you in understanding the information gaps and what information to search for, but still will not help you a lot or guarantee that you make the right decisions.
Do you want to know why?
To make the right decisions based on listing the pros and cons, you will mainly need 2 things:
1) Accurate useful information
2) And the mental resources to think rationally.
But according to the leading Psychologist Elliot Aronson, this is not always possible.
First, regarding accurate and useful information, no one has a ‘’God’s eye’’ view. A perspective that is all-knowing and free from bias.
Let us say that you want to buy a car. You do not know all the facts about cars. And even if you know facts about cars, you will know these facts from car sellers or online advertisements who would like to exaggerate the features of these cars.
And finally, you will find yourself biased towards a certain brand or how a car looks like.
Second, even if the data is reliable, we cannot conduct a full-scale analysis of each problem or decision we encounter during our day. And that’s why we tend to look for shortcuts by ignoring some information to reduce our mental load, or we overuse some information to feel that we have enough, or we just go with our intuitions.
This means that even if we have tons of information, most of the time we are not using all of them or utilizing them in the best way.
So, there is no need to keep thinking for weeks and months about decisions that you can make in a few days unless you are really expecting some major inputs that can influence your decision. And in this case, you can wait till you get this information, then make your decision directly.
Make your decision and free your mind.
Make your decision to focus on the things that really matter.
Make your decision to feel that you are living in the present moment with your friends and family members, and not only with them with your body, but not with your brain.
And no matter what the outcome will be, I promise you, life will not stop, and you will survive.
Till next time.
