DECISION TIME

Yes it is that time of year! As we approach the beginning of a brand new year— it is the time to reflect and take stock of where you are, how you’re doing, and where you want to go. We talk about it as a time for New Year resolutions. The idea of a new year suggests that we can make other things new in our lives. So we think about making a decision.

Now isn’t that exciting? Of course, I’m being a bit sarcastic. That’s because, for most people, making a decision doesn’t strike them as exciting, but difficult, needless, or even futile. Many have made New Year resolution one after another and typically they are long forgotten by February, let alone in August. After years of resolutions that were not so resolute, and which never went anywhere, many simply stop making them. Why make a New Years’ resolution if you know yourself well enough that you will not follow through?

The great majority of decisions that we make in life are of the quick-decide-now version. We make decisions about what to wear, eat, and say in that way. It is a shot-from-the-hip type of decision making, usually based on how we feel in the moment. We make decisions based on a gut feeling, an intuition, a particular context, in response to someone else, etc. No wonder then that we have a lot of practice in making real authentic decisions that are life transforming.

Now unknown to most people, within smart decisions is a hidden structure. A strategic process actually governs intelligent decisions that people make and it is a strategy that you can learn. Interesting enough it is based on the most fundament process that your brain engages in— thinking. That’s because, ultimately, you can make decisions no better than you can think. Thinking and deciding are two brain processes which are highly collaborative.

This is what puts so many people off from making an authentic decision— it requires the mental effort of thinking. It requires establishing a desired outcome based on your actual values (and not your “should” values) relative to what’s realistic in terms of your competencies and environment. As you are engaged in that, you begin to do information gathering or due diligence which, in turn, allows you to face the challenges of the changes and prepare for them with some contingency planning. And all of that requires a lot of thinking.

Now there’s a part of your brain that does that kind of thinking. It occurs in the pre-frontal lobes. That’s where you do abstract thinking in terms of concepts and principles. That’s where you do consequential thinking in terms of trends, possibilities, probabilities, long-term sequencing of activities, etc. It is there also that you make executive decisions. Ah, yes, executive decisions— decisions that affect your whole system. Decisions that set up the policies and rules that, in turn, govern your life.

To escape from making executive decisions is to live in the moment and go with any wind that blows your way. It is to live your life reactively to the people and events and circumstances

around you. But you can be the CEO of your company— the company of You. You can make executive decisions about what’s important (your values), how you want to be (your personality), what you want to be engaged in (your work and career), who you want to be with (your friends and loved ones), etc.

Here’s an area of development that would do most everyone a lot of good— cultivating one’s ability to engage in truly intelligent decision-making. First and foremost this gives a sense of being in charge of your own life. It develops your confidence that you can make a decision in such a way that it becomes lifestyle— you carry it through. Your decisions are sustainable. You can make choices about things and then make those things happen. You are decisive, disciplined, and proactive.

One of the biggest problems with decisions is that we humans are notorious for making bad decisions. We all do. And just as the cognitive biases, distortions and fallacies undermine healthy and sane thinking, they undermine smart decision making. There are, in fact, lots of decision traps that are so easy to fall into. The solution? Learn the strategy within the process of robust and wise decision-making. If you’re ready, then start with a meta-decision— decide that you will learn how to make truly well-formed and intelligent decisions.