How To Effectively Make “Big Decisions”

What happens when you are faced with making a decision? Does it come easily, just another part of the day? Or does it become a BIG DEAL, leading to stress and overwhelm?

If you’re like me, it probably depends on the scope of the decision. We make all sorts of decisions throughout the day – from “what am I going to have for breakfast?”, to “which car should I buy?”, to, “should I quit my job?”. The numbers of exactly how many decisions we make in a day varies widely depending on the source, but we are going to focus on those we consciously engage with on any given day.

Notice that the “bigger” the decision feels (read: more important to you), the more we approach it as if there’s a “right” decision and a “wrong” decision.

And once we do… even thinking about the “big” decision has a physiological impact. Stress increases: our bodies are readying for a challenge, and adrenaline and cortisol start flowing – increasing heart rate and blood pressure and breathing to boost energy. Your heart starts racing, as well as your mind. You may start sweating; you may feel fear.

[insert stressful, panicked feeling here!] 😨😱

Now…

Fast forward, the decision is made… how did it go?

In the world of “right” and “wrong” decisions, we’ve limited it to two reactions.

With a “right” decision, typically at best, we feel like we’ve dodged a bullet – we are relieved, our stress may decrease – at least not increase any further – and often we are mentally exhausted. Since we avoided the “wrong” one, we don’t feel the impact of it, and so it’s hard to celebrate our “right” decision as a “win”.

With a “wrong” decision, however, the dreaded “voice in our head” kicks in. It might look like this:

• Beating ourselves up – “I’m so stupid! I can’t believe I did that!”

• Backing off – “Why did I think I could do this? I’m going to stop trying.”

• Looking for someone/something else to blame – “If only [that] didn’t happen! I’m so unlucky!”

• Doubling Down – “Well, I’m committed to this path now, there’s no going back.”

Notice none leave us feeling very empowered!

Not only that, because our confidence is shaken, it makes the NEXT decision all the harder, and we are more likely to avoid deciding altogether.

And we wonder why we don’t feel motivated to do the things we say we want to do!

What if we shift our mindset… rather than approaching decisions as “big” and “right/wrong”, what if there’s simply a decision to make?

If you think of it, we make decisions every day, many of which we don’t sweat about. Am I having toast and peanut butter for breakfast, or an omlette?

What if EVERY decision could be broken down into breakfast choices?

What’s the smallest decision that you NEED to make right now?

In the right/wrong approach, we tend to think of decision making as splitting into two (equal) branches), like in the image below.

Either/or approach to decision making

What if we think of decision making like a tree, with multiple branches? You start at the trunk, and you make your first decision. You branch off. Now you have another decision to make. And so on. By the time you’re done, you have made 50 incremental decisions and it’s given you a general direction you ended up taking. You might have gone another way entirely if you only had choice A or B. You may have missed a lot of nuances in between that weren’t visible from where you started.

Making incremental choices along the way

So what’s the benefit?

• The decisions are “smaller”, and you feel like you have a better handle on them.

• The decisions expose other choices that weren’t clearly visible from where you started.

• There are many opportunities to shift direction based on what you learned.

• The more decisions you make, the more confident you are of the next decision to make.

It feels a lot easier to make decisions when you know you have plenty of opportunities to shift gears – which means you are taking actions sooner. And acting is the only way to produce results.

So, taking action sooner actually INCREASES confidence, and INCREASES motivation.

What’s the SMALLEST NEXT ACTION you can take RIGHT NOW towards that thing you’ve been avoiding, stressing over, or wanting but were afraid of getting wrong?