Chicken or Fish? How to Use Decision-making to Create Your Dream Life
Chicken or fish?
Aisle or window seat?
Pursue that promotion now or later?
Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.
Whether it's managing a career, maintaining relationships, or pursuing personal goals, the ability to make a decision can significantly impact how well you can optimize your time, reduce stress, and will directly impact your ability to create the life you want.
Decisions play an important role in what many of us strive for every day, such as:
Achieving your goals
Feeling in control
Solving problems
Improving critical thinking
Building confidence
Learning and growing
Basically, decision-making is a skill worth getting good at.
Even still, many of us fall short when it comes to strengthening this decision-making muscle.
The impact of avoiding decisions
“I’ll figure that out tomorrow or next week or anytime other than this moment.”
Decision procrastination.
Whether we realize it or not, choosing not to make a decision is…a decision. But one that can have a negative impact.
We leave our brains in limbo. Without giving ourselves a clear goal to work towards, based on a clear decision, we go nowhere.
Instead, we constantly think back to the topic we’re avoiding making a decision about. This likely happens at inopportune times, pulling focus and attention away in order to rehash the decision to not decide.
This loop will play on repeat reminding us we have a loose end to tie up. Leaving no chance to rest or focus on more important things.
These indecisive habits can lead to wasted time, missed opportunities, and increased stress levels.
Analysis Paralysis
If we’re not just avoiding the decision completely, many of us fall into analysis paralysis.
You know the feeling. You’re so overwhelmed by the amount of information or choices or the crushing feeling of just being unsure. So you stew. You contemplate. You research. You question.
You make endless pro and con lists and seek opinions and validation. You stay lost in a sea of options, afraid to make a move for fear of making the "wrong" choice.
The only thing you don’t do is…decide.
This process may leave you feeling like you’re actively working on a decision and moving towards some goal. But, in reality, analysis paralysis keeps the mind working on overdrive, not actually focused on how to achieve a goal. So despite all the exhausting effort, you get nowhere.
Analysis paralysis can be fueled by seeking perfection or a by a lack of confidence and self-doubt. You may be hesitant to make a choice or take an action because you’re afraid of being judged, either by yourself or by others.
Where can you leverage your decision-making powers
It’s time to start building the decision-making habit. Get really good at it. And use these decisions as the fuel to drive you toward your dream life.
So how can you start building this decision-making superpower?
Decisions about your priorities
How many times have we heard this advice: pick your top priorities and just work on those!
Okay, great! But…what should my top priorities be? How do I win at life? Where’s the manual and the rulebook to help me decide?!
Good news, I have the answer!
It doesn’t matter.
There is no wrong priority.
Trust me on this! Let’s say you do pick a top priority project that you throw everything into only to find you’re no longer really passionate about it or the company decides to pivot in a different direction.
You must have chosen the wrong priority, right? Wrong!
You chose exactly right.
You learned and you experienced and you now have more knowledge to take to your next project. And best of all, you got in reps making decisions. You took action and will be that much more prepared to make the next priority decision.
The truth is, prioritizing is all about using your intuition and gut. There is no secret formula.
When you can get in the habit of making decisions about your priorities, it gets easier and easier to quickly pick the next thing, start making progress, and pivot if needed. That is the formula for building momentum toward your dreams.
Don’t wait for meetings to make a decision
Much of corporate America operates in a culture of managing employees through scheduled meetings.
Just take a look at your calendar. You decide if that rings true…
I won’t derail us on a tangent about the pitfalls of our current meeting pandemic, but I will focus on how this relates to decisions.
Because of this meeting culture, we often wait to make decisions until a meeting occurs.
We don’t feel empowered to make decisions based on the objectives we’ve been given to start marching toward a specific end game. So we wait.
This delay in decision-making has a cost. We rob ourselves of not only getting better at decisions but also at finding learnings that could benefit personal growth and progress as well as help to achieve company goals.
So the next time you’re waiting for a meeting to make a decision, catch yourself. Tap into that brilliant brain of yours, find a little trust in yourself, and make an educated decision. Start moving forward.
Then, use the meeting time to discuss the results you’ve already seen to get feedback that will fuel your next decision.
Decide what to work on ahead of time
I love those pre-planned pre-scheduled weeks.
Feel the control!
While you can seek out my multiple articles preaching the benefits of pre-planning to supercharge your time management, productivity, and life satisfaction, I’ll again keep us focused on decisions!
One of the big wins of planning your schedule is making the decisions of what you’re going to work on ahead of time before you’re in the muck of the day feeling pulled in fifty different directions.
Deciding what you want your week to look like, deciding what you will work on, and deciding when you will work on each task can save you from some day-to-day overwhelm.
When your day starts, you don’t have to experience that mental anguish of which project you will be able to make time for in the day, you’ve already decided. Check your calendar and get to work.
Decisions about what to eat
Now, this one may seem a little out of left field.
Did you accidentally scroll to a health and wellness blog?
No, we’re still all about time management here. But think about it, on average, we eat maybe 2-3 meals per day, plus snacks. These are meals that need to be planned for, prepared, eaten, and cleaned up. That takes a lot of time every day.
And not only does the action itself take up time, but it is riddled with decisions.
When am I going to eat? What am I going to eat? Do I need to go shopping? Are these food choices aligned with my health goals?
These distractions and flood of decisions can all be easily avoided by deciding what you’ll eat ahead of time using a tool like meal planning.
Meal planning goes beyond the prefilled Tupperware stuffed into the freezer (a method I choose, but recognize may not be for everyone). Meal planning decisions should include the when you’ll eat, the what you’ll eat, and the why you’ll eat it (fuel or pleasure).
Planning your meals in this way can free you from constant interruptions of decisions so you can use your brain for more powerful work.
Health and Wellness Bonus (because I can’t help myself): If you do have health goals to feel better in your body, planning your meals ahead can keep you on track with those goals by providing nutritious food without overthinking. This can save you from your brain convincing you in the moment that the fuel your body needs is that tempting box of donuts your coworker snuck in this morning. Nope, decision already made. Donuts were not part of that decision. Time to focus mental energy on more important things.
Being a good decision-maker truly is a superpower and can play a pivotal role in your quest for effective time management and productivity.
And don’t forget, you can always redecide something different later on. Nothing is set in stone. But by making a solid decision you can move forward with now, you can feel a little dose of relief.
When a decision has been made, you’ve given yourself permission to act. To move forward. To stop questioning your every move and stop micromanaging yourself. Feel the 100 lb weight lifted off your back. Feel the freedom.
Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed? Do you feel like there are always important tasks left undone, hanging over your head? It's time to take control of your productivity and prove to yourself you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.
Check out the 7 Days: Consider it Done! guide to transform the way you approach your to-do list.
Say goodbye to procrastination and unfulfilled goals and hello to a sense of control and reignited passion for life. Consider it done!
