We make decisions every minute, hour and day, from what we eat for lunch to whether or not to call a friend to say hi.
When it comes to tough decisions, this may vary from person to person. What you consider a tough decision may be a no-brainer for somebody else.
Regardless of how and what you qualify as tough, here are some trusted tips to help you prepare for making tough decisions in your life.
1. Determine Your Desired Outcomes
Think about what you want at the end of the day. The end goal should help you make a decision. If a particular line of action would take you steps back instead of a step forward in realising your set objectives, then you might want to think again. Your preferred outcome should guide your decision-making process.
2. What are your Options?
You’ll be left to struggle if you’re only focusing on just one choice. Instead, figure out all the alternatives and the paths of each choice. Check to see the path that each way would lead you to.
3. Consider Others’ Opinions
Talk to people who’ve been down this road before. Have conversations with family, friends, spiritual leaders, colleagues, and mentors. Not only will they give you great insight, but they can also serve as a pillar of support and will help solidify that you are not alone in the process.
4. Be willing to change course
If at first, you fail, try, try again. No one is perfect—you are human and mistakes will happen. But when you own your mistake, it is much more likely that others will support you if you need to correct your course.
Don’t play the blame game. Be proud of the work that you did to get this. And remember, you’ve already outlined choices, paths, and outcomes that you can try the second time around. And since you’ve already planned for course correction, this should provide you with a level of confidence, not self doubt.
5. Make the tough decision
It’s okay to be stressed about a tough decision but not to the point where it detracts from your abilities to make tough decisions.
Tough decisions in life are not easy to make, but you will feel the weight lifted off you once the decision has been made. Now it’s time to commit and take action.
Conclusion
We will be faced with making tough decisions throughout our lives, but by walking through these steps, we’ll find the decision process much easier. It’s acceptable to make mistakes and change course in this journey but we will eventually make a decision that will drive us to our purpose and aspirations!
