How do you make decisions? Choosing ice cream flavours is pretty easy. Deciding where to spend time and money is more difficult. Determining which of my children I will save from the gas chamber (Sophie’s Choice) is something I hope never to be faced with! It’s an exercise in annoyance or delight and sometimes terror and regret.
What is it that propels you off in one direction or another? And what’s it like for you once you’ve settled on something?
Someone I know flips a coin to measure emotional response. The exercise isn’t a deciding factor but it helps her gauge what she wants in her gut for the moment. Someone else I know researches the options via the Internet and by talking with people. Someone else measures every large decision around a carefully constructed and written set of values and life philosophy. Usually people employ a combination of these.
The process of decision-making can make you crazy or it can be tremendously freeing. If you make a lot of decisions then you probably have a process that works for you. I love it when that happens. When we were considering whether or not to homeschool many years ago, we developed a system for decision-making that served us well. I felt relief once the decision was made as it gave me the freedom to move forward, for better or for worse. I still use that process today for the big stuff.
One way I like to consider the topic of decision-making is to watch how others do it. You may have gathered that. Some people consistently make good decisions – in my mind, at least. Some people continually make bad ones. The bad ones are usually made in haste without consideration for how that choice will affect others and reflect a failure to be true to the person deciding. For most of us, we’re somewhere in between. We win some, we lose some. If I can learn from my mistakes, then I don’t really consider the outcome a total loss.
I have found it helpful to ask myself:
- Where is God in this?
- Is it possible? Is it plausible?
- Does it reflect my values, priorities, convictions?
- Does it hurt/help others? How?
- What’s the cost? (what do I need, what will I risk, what will I ask my family and friends to risk?)
- What’s the benefit/return? (to myself and others)
- Why am I considering it?
- Why shouldn’t I?
- Who else do I know and respect has done this and what do they say about the experience?
- Do my circumstances lend themselves to this?
- Is there support and where will it come from? (emotional, spiritual, intellectual)
I read somewhere that the most important quality of a leader is the ability to make good decisions. We are all leaders, in a sense, because we lead ourselves. Even for those of us who believe and do our best to live in submission under God’s strong hand – we have the freedom of choice.
How’s the decision-making process for you?
