How to Make Better Decisions Every Day

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Every day we all make choices. Some are small choices, like what to eat, what to wear, whether it's going to be hot or cold water bath. Other choices are much bigger, like picking a job, confronting your boss, deciding to break out of a toxic dysfunctional relationship.

The worst time to make a choice is when you're tired, stressed or in a hurry, but sometimes life demands that you make a decision or it makes it for you. Wisdom is very much needed in these moments. But I know this strategy that can help assist you in effective decision making.

It's not my own strategy, it's what pilots use in making decisions. You don't know what it means to make a decision under extreme pressure until you're flying an aircraft about to crash land and you need to save yourself and hundreds of people. And no I'm not a pilot but imagining that situation alone is terrible.

They call it the PAVE checklist. It's an abbreviation for Pilot Aircraft Environment External pressure.

In a stressful situation, these four elements well checked can increase your chances of success in the choices you make.

The pilot. That is you. Check if you're well.
The aircraft. That is your tools. Check if your tools are operational.
The environment. That is your immediate surroundings. Check if it's safe.
External pressure. Check if there's any pressure from outside.

Believe it or not, all these elements are the biggest factors that influence our decisions. For instance, you want to make a decision or a job. If it's going to be a wise choice, you check you. Whether you'll be ok doing that job, whether your basic needs will be met by the income, whether it can handle you. You check your skill set and qualifications for the job. If your skill is capable of handling that kind of job. That being your tool in that situation.

You check your environment and in this situation it's the job market. Whether that's favorable for you and even your own environment or home. And the external pressure, you check if there's outside influences pressuring you to make financial decisions on taking the job.

You also have to beware of certain thinking traps related to decision making. A thinking trap like nothing bad will happen to me and I quit. It’s important to remind yourself something bad could happen and you can make a difference.

You can practice, adopt, use and integrate all of these tools into your decision making every day to help improve your decision making. They are easy to implement and simple but effective. So, next time you need to make an important decision, use one of these tools.

I have this video on YouTube from someone I respect a lot so I believe you can get better explanation from watching it.