Be More Decisive
By Samantha De Bono
Are you decisive? If your answer to that question was "yes… No… um… Yes". Then you're probably not.
Decision-making is something we learn to do in childhood. As a parent we need to show our children that making mistakes, getting it wrong, making the wrong choice and messing up is all part of life.
Here's 10 tips on how to Be More Decisive:
First of all, if decisiveness is not natural to you, don't panic, you can train your brain to reject the indecision that comes naturally to make more instant choices.
Practice making instant decisions that are not life changing or serious, reducing the regret you feel if things don't go according to plan, this will also improve your ability to make long-term decisions.
1. Decision making
As strange as this may sound, you must first make decisions to become a more decisive person, being indecisive is a habit that you have got into, so you need to break that habit in the first instance, that's why it's good to start with non-serious, non-life changing decisions.
2. Visualise
Picture yourself making decisions, imagine how you would look to others when you are able to make decisions. See yourself feeling confident and pleased with your decision. Imagine a scenario where you make a spli-decision rather than defer to others. Look at how the people around you react, see how glad they are that you are making choices for yourself without making it a big deal or a trauma.
3. Stop Bad Thoughts
Don't allow yourself to fixate on the "what if it goes wrong". Think about how other people make wrong decisions, but they move on from them and make other decisions. It's okay to get it wrong, this is how we learn to get it right. Every bad decision teaches us something and learning something about our bad decisions is positive.
4. Be Bold
fear holds us all back from moving forward, this is a buggy for people who fear decision-making. Everyone makes mistakes, it's a fact! And nobody likes getting things wrong, but we all have to learn it is a fact of life that we will. We are all fallible nobody is perfect we just have to stop fearing it and train ourselves to embrace our human imperfections.
5. Understand that by not making a choice, you are making a choice
By doing nothing or not making a choice, something is going to happen anyway, you just didn't get a say in it. So, in essence, you are better off making a decision and keeping the control rather than let it slip out of your hands. If decisions are made for you, because you haven't chosen between the options open to you, you end up living your life according to others. Eg. Two jobs are offered to you, but you can't decide which to take. As a result of your indecision, one of the jobs gets withdrawn and you end up taking the only one available, when the other one may have been better for you. You have made a decision to give yourself no choice.
6. Practise, practise, practise
Get used to making decisions about small things such as what to have for dinner, which movie to see, staying in or going out, going to the party or going to dinner, going by train or going by car. Practise these every day and perfect them so that you are able to start making these decisions in under a minute. These decisions will not have long term implications and will only affect you or a small group of people, none of them are life-threatening. What's the worse it's going to happen?
7. Get braver
When you are feeling more confident about smaller choices, put yourself into situations that require you to make more daring decisions in a similarly short period of time. Again the consequences do not have to be serious, but the choices should be more daunting, for example, booking an event or buying tickets before knowing for sure you can attend or something like choosing an outfit you like and buying it without first trying it on, seeing something online you like and buying two tickets without knowing who you might invite.
8. Go For It!
When you are in a situation where you are forced to make a decision right there and then, go for it. Trust your gut. So what if you fluff it a few times, the more you do it the more you'll sharpen and improve your intuition. This part of the process is pretty important. Have faith that you are already capable of making split-second decisions. Except that sometimes they'll be good, sometimes they'll be great and sometimes they won't. It's all part of the process trust in the fact that the day will come when decision-making is no longer a sweat inducing crisis!
9. Goals & Deadlines
We are not always pressured to make an on-the-spot decision, sometimes we have time to weigh things up. In these instances give yourself a deadline for your decision don't allow this to drag on and on. If someone else has already set a deadline, create your own internal deadline that comes before theirs. The longer you allow yourself to think about the decision the greater the sense of uncertainty, so your own deadline is important here.
10. Live in the Here and Now
Even with the best laid plans, shit happens! What should you do if it goes wrong? Take a look at what went wrong, Think how you will do it the next time and move on. Feeling bad, regrets and guilt will not do you any good at all, they are useless emotions, we learn nothing from them and they cause a downward spiral. Instead, think to yourself at least you made the decision, you went with it, you did it and you learnt from it. Time to move on to the next decision!
