This week I had to opportunity to speak with two groups about making great decisions. Better, stronger, more powerful, maybe faster, maybe slower decisions.
There are some tried and true ways to make decisions and I am here to remind you of a few and maybe some others you might not think of.
- Strengths: Both of the groups I worked with this week are familiar with the VIA Character Strengths, have taken the assessment and learned about their strengths. (VIACharacter.org) Knowing your strengths and applying them to a decision you are trying to make might not be something you have thought of. If you don’t have a report that tells you your strengths then take a moment to write down 5 strengths you know you have. Then apply each of the five to your decision asking- How can this strength help me to make the right decision about this? Be open and see what answers come up.
- Get a coach to ask you amazing questions leading to your right answer. (Had to squeak that one in here!)
- Ask yourself “what’s the worst that could happen?” And then “if that happened what would I, could I do to work with that situation?” “Is is real?” “Is it actually true?” “What’s my real fear?” “How likely is that to actually happen?”
- Make sure you are in a calm state. Most decisions do not need to be made in the moment. Pause, breath, give yourself some space and time to gather evidence and check in on your intuition- and to do steps 1-3 above!
- Write each possible decision you could make on separate small pieces of paper and put them in a hat or bag. Pull one out- how do you feel when you see the decision you pulled out- uplifted or did your heart sink? This is important information!
- Zoom out and look at the big picture to the next thing that happens when you make the decision one way or another. What does that tell you? Gain perspective.
There are so many decisions to be made right now. Maybe knock a bunch off from your list and create a sequence of decisions to be made. (I am liking the use of sequence over priority right now, thank you Nadya Z- The Reinvention Academy) Take a breath and focus on one at a time. Which ones have the highest impact? Of those which are you most prepared for.
Learn to have a mindset around decision making that there is no bad decision- whatever happens, it will lead you to the next right thing and you will learn something.
Subscribe to my newsletter at KimberlyDuBrul.com to get books, a video with ideas and other resources on this subject and something different each Sunday!