Often at the start of a new year we are faced with decisions for our lives, whether they be goals to achieve, setting exercise plans, deciding on educational courses, making career moves or planning for retirement. How does one make such decisions, especially if they are life changing decisions?
We may be familiar with the steps when making a decision. These include:
Step 1. Identify the issue and the decision to be made.
Step 2. Research background and gather information to assist in the decision making.
Step 3. Consider the possible and likely options.
Step 4. Evaluate the information and see how it aligns with your decision options.
Step 5. After considering all pros and cons, select the option and decide to action it.
Step 6. Implement and take steps to ensure that the decision is followed through.
Step 7. Where and when appropriate, review, refine and reflect for future learnings.
While decision making, identified in the above 7 steps is process orientated, I believe that the process steps of ‘Evaluation and Consideration’ (Steps 4 and 5 above) are key to a successful outcome.
In virtually all the decisions we make, particularly the large ones we must consider the consequences of our decisions. All decisions we make will have varying degrees of positive or negative impacts on us individually. Notwithstanding the impacts on ourselves, many decisions we make will also have an impact on the people around us; our family and loved ones, our friends, work colleagues, and the people in our various participating communities. Potentially even our pets could be impacted.
You might think that if you were stranded on a desert island your decisions may be inconsequential. Think again! The plants you decide to eat may make you sick or even kill you. The place where you decide to sleep or make shelter may be accessible by predatory animals or be a long way from a water source. So, it is still important to consider our decisions, even on a desert island.
Every decision we make needs to be evaluated and weighed carefully.
Here are some steps to consider when deciding. If you are to achieve the best decision possible for your current situation, I believe that these six steps are crucial. While two of the steps below are specific to a faith orientated decision maker, together with the other steps mentioned, once these are reflected on, they should give you a level of comfort that all things that should be considered have been considered.
1. What do you really want out of the decision, and would it reflect your values?
If you received a job offer from an employment agency, after being in your company for five years as you work towards a dream position that your current company is offering, will you take the new job offer simply because it pays more?
C.S.Lewis said, “Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable decisions, you are slowly turning the central thing into a heavenly creature, or into a hellish creature by simply making the decisions that you make.”
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Every decision has a consequence. Although we may not realise it, every decision we make however small, has an impact on others. You may be tempted to accept a demanding job, involving travelling and late-night conference calls. While the money is awesome, you’ve been told that its going to be hectic, at least for the next three years, as the company establishes itself in the region. The con is the potential impact on your health and the negative affect that this job could have on your relationships with loved ones. How does this decision impact your values of family, relationships, work-life-balance, and materialism? Therefore be wary of decisions for the short term as quite often the new circumstances become the new and accepted norm, which could be detrimental to you and others.
Learn to consider every decision as an opportunity to keep your unseen values as underpinning all your life’s choices.
2. Seek advice and heed the wisdom of others you trust.
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Don't be afraid to ask for input into your decision making; it's not a sign of weakness, you're just getting different viewpoints on a situation, and someone may bring to light a point which you hadn't thought of. Bouncing your thoughts off a trusted friend or mentor will help you arrive at the right decision for you at that time. However, it is important to not allow other’s opinions make your decision entirely for you. You need to own your decision. The wisdom of those we trust can help in many ways in our decision making. The Book of Proverbs speaks a lot on seeking wise counsel.
Without counsel, plans go amiss, but in the multitude of counsellors they are established (Proverbs 15:22)
Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days (Proverbs 19:20)
3. Don’t rush your decision making but take time and question your motives. Be well rested and weigh up the pros and cons. It is important to ask yourself tough questions, and while it may be hard, it helps to get you to where you’re meant to be. Ask yourself the question, “Am I doing this for me or for other people?” For example, if you are from a family, whose grandfather was a doctor, both parents in the medical field and siblings practicing medicine, is your choice of enrolling into medical school your decision or one that has already been made for you? Take the time to evaluate the pros and cons of your potential choices. Even if your preferred choice has more cons than plus points, your heart may still be yearning for a particular direction. It’s worth in this situation to consider this carefully and account for it in your decision making. Peter Drucker, founder of the Drucker Institute and authority on leadership, wrote that effective executives are not overly impressed by speed in decision-making. In one of his books on leadership, Ted Engstrom advised: “Don’t make snap decisions. The spur-of-the-moment decisions are merely guesses…Before announcing a decision, it’s best to take a little time, sleep on it first. God may have other plans.”
Another trap we can often fall into is to make a rushed decision when we are drained, tired, afraid or discouraged, the outcome of which we may regret latter. When there's an important decision to make, sometimes the wisest thing to do is to wait until we are well rested. It is said that an anxious mind in an exhausted body can lead to a terrible decision.
4. Your best decisions are birthed in prayer.
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Pondering over a decision in an atmosphere of prayer, allows our heart, in other words our spirit to consider our circumstances and decisions in the context of what God’s will is for our live. Scripture says that God’s Holy Spirit uses prayer to bring conviction or new ideas.
Dr David Jeremiah, renown Bible teacher says, “Big-decision thinking recognises God as a partner in the decision-making process, and prayer is our way of acknowledging our Heavenly Father in all our ways. Prayer is our way of asking God for His proffered wisdom, given liberally and willingly to those who ask for it. Prayer is the incubator of our best ideas and the source of our freshest creativity. Prayer is our lifeline to finding and fulfilling God’s perfect will in all we say and do."
5. Pursue your dream and assess your preferred choice in the context of it supporting your dream.
Dreaming and setting goals to achieve your dreams are good things. Such dreams are usually birthed in one’s spirit. Some may call it having a sense of purpose, for example living out one’s life for a higher calling, or in achieving a landmark goal, or overcoming an obstacle, in serving the masses or discovering a cure for cancer or a technology to help humankind, etc. If the choices you have to make go to support you fulfilling your dreams and ambition, then in all likelihood such options should be carefully considered for action.
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There have been many examples of cases where people have given up on their dreams because of decisions they have made which have taken them far away from their dreams. They may be successful in what they have ended up doing but perhaps have remained unfulfilled throughout their career. On the other hand, there are stories of people who have given up a successful career to pursue another career, ambition, or venture simply because the call to pursue their dream or purpose, in other words ‘their heart's desire’ was far greater than their previously successful career.
One recent case, reported in January this year was about Australian reporter Denham Hitchcock who resigned from his illustrious career to embark on a sailing trip with his young family. Being a TV journalist for 28 years, Hitchcock worked in 7 different newsrooms in three countries. After years of reporting, often on tragic human stories, Hitchcock felt that the importance of family couldn't be neglected and as life is fleeting was quoted as saying, "There's only one lesson from them, time waits for no one, and dreams shouldn't be left on the pillow."
6. Commit your decision to God. Finally, our decisions, both big and small must be committed to God. All of us have a lot of decisions to make every day. As we are not perfect, we do make mistakes along the way. But when we earnestly base our decisions on our unseen values, pray over them, make them thoughtfully, based on wise counsel, and commit them to God, He can bless them. If we make a wrong decision, He knows how to correct our paths or redeem our mistakes. The Book of Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plan.”
In summary, to make the best decision, you should:
Ensure your decisions reflect your values.
Seek the wisdom of others, whom you trust.
Take time to make your decision, be well rested weighing up pros and cons.
Pray about the decision you are making.
Consider that your decision supports you fulfilling your dream.
Commit your decision to God.
If you have any questions I can help you with, please send me an email at steven@frommydeskathome.com
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