Decision making can be one of the biggest challenges in life. Getting stuck in indecision leads to lost opportunities, leadership failure, damaged relationships, and tremendous anxiety.
Few things bring as much relief as getting decisions made. With practice, you can improve your ability to make quality choices. Here are 17 tools to start using today.
17 Decision-Making Tools
Tool #1: List Out All The Facts
I find this tool crucial to sorting through the confusion. List out all the facts and details. Things are fuzzy in your head and much clearer on paper. List all the details and the right direction might become clear.
Tool #2: Own Your Emotions
Come to terms with how you feel about this situation. View your fears as a blessing because they reveal the specific work you can do to grow. Ask yourself these questions for clarity. 1. Am I acting out of self-protection or out of a desire to help others? 2. Am I acting in a way that is helpful to others in the long run or more for short term comfort? 3. Am I acting out of fear or out of concern?
Tool #3: Analyze Your “Not so Great” Decisions
Make a list of a few life choices you consider mistakes. Then list some reasons behind why you made these decisions. Was it made out of FEAR or a desire to please others? Did self-sabotage, running from opportunities due to feeling unworthy (i.e., shame) contribute? Did you ignore your intuition? These choices may have much to teach you.
Tool #4: Set a Deadline
If there isn’t already a deadline, set one right away. Deadlines channel your creative problem-solving abilities. They force productivity which eliminates indecision.
Tool #5: Error on the Side of Courage
Good decisions come from avoiding the easy. Take a risk. This might mean saying “no” or it might mean saying “yes”. Sometimes quitting is the most courageous decision. What’s the most courageous decision in your current situation?
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Tool #6: Talk to Emotionally Mature Friends and Family
Get the opinions of your emotionally mature friends and family. People with enough distance from the issue to give good counsel. Sometimes family is too close to the issue, and to you, to be objective. Sometimes they are the best people to ask because they know you so well.
Tool #7: How Would Your Advise a Close Friend
I’ve witnessed many people make major decisions right after a loss (e.g. Retirement, divorce, death of a loved one, etc.). We don’t make our best choices during major life transitions, while depressed, or while grieving. True friends dare to tell us the truth at these times. Be a good friend to yourself. If a close friend came to you for advice on this issue, what would you tell them?
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tool #8: Create & Use Filters
Uncovering and clarifying your core values, life purpose, mission, and vision for your future is an incredibly valuable investment in yourself. They serve as filters for making decisions. Say “no” to decisions that don’t align.
Tool #9: Worst Possible Outcome
Write down the disaster scenario for making a specific choice. “If I take this new job/position, I could be miserable and leave within a year.” Then describe how you think you’ll successfully handle this realistically worst possible outcome. This can give you confidence in your choice, or help you identify that it’s a very bad one.
“Decision is risk rooted in the courage to be free.” – Paul Tillich
Tool #10: Deal with Your Past
Unresolved past trauma keeps people stuck. Living immobilized, often subconsciously, believing that will keep them from getting hurt again. Many only make reactive decisions or continually let others decide. Gaining awareness of how your past impacts you today can clarify the right path.
Tool #11: Listen to Experts
Accountants and attorneys have saved me from costly mistakes. Utilize trusted experts for direction. Many experts have laid out steps to follow. Buy their books, listen to their podcasts, and read their blogs. Here’s a list of my favorite books, many with expert advice.
Tool #12: 5 Minutes, 5 days, 5 months & 5 Years
Image you made a specific decision. Write down how you think you’ll feel about this choice in 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months, and then years later. I discovered this great tool in an excellent book called Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip & Dan Heath.
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Tool #13: Trust Yourself!
Intuition is the most crucial decision-making tool of all. This unexplainable thing inside that’s much wiser than the voice in your head. Your intuition won’t lead you astray, but anxiety will. Slow down, get space, and follow your instincts.
“Intuition is more powerful than intellect” – Steve Jobs
Tool #14: Detach
Do something to detach from thinking about the decision. Go on a walk, listen to your favorite music, or engage in a favorite hobby. Prayer and mediation are ways of “letting go” of the outcome. Detaching gets you in touch with your intuition.
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing” – Theodore Roosevelt
Tool #15: Fight Perfectionism
Is wanting to make a perfect decision holding you back? Perfectionists won’t decide unless they can do it perfectly. Fight this tendency! On a scale of 1 to 10, be satisfied with a 7. Permit yourself to make the best choice possible, fail, and learn.
Tool #16: Listen to Procrastination
Don’t view procrastination as bad, rather view it as trying to tell you something. Maybe you are not the right personal to execute on this deision or that you need to hash out this choice more with your team and your procrastination is telling you to reach out and get help.
Tool #17: See Failure as growth
Reflect on how you’ve grown from decisions that didn’t end up with the results you hoped for. The only bad failure is one you didn’t learn from. Failure means you tried, learned, and you’re growing. This mindset toward failure takes away the pressure.
“My greatest concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” – Abraham Lincoln
All decisions have consequences. Mistakes are inevitable and a part of growing, as long as you don’t keep making the same bad choices over and over. Don’t beat yourself up when taking a risk and realize you could have made a better decision. Be gracious with yourself. Step back and intentionally apply these tools and your choices will improve.
Take action now! What’s a choice you’re struggling to make? You now have 17 tools to use to determine your course of action. Make a decision and GROW.
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