My decision making process

Life is full of decisions jumping at us from all corners and some of these decisions can be small; choosing between buying Coke or Pepsi, while others can be big such as moving to a new city or changing jobs. Whatever type of decision it is, having a well-thought-out process makes all the difference in determining if you succeed or not. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail.

For me, making a decision depends on what is at stake. Sometimes, I make quick decisions when it's something small but most of the time, I take my time in making a decision and I tend to overthink things as well. A lot of times, I get unexpected outcomes from the decisions I have made but everyone does the same because nobody is perfect, we can't be 100% accurate in making the right decision all the time. As I said, I make quick decisions when it involves something small like picking a drink but when it comes to major decisions, this is my thought process;

Understand my goal

What am I trying to achieve? I always like to ask myself that question whenever I'm faced with a major decision. I talked about unexpected outcomes and one good way to minimize the possibility of that happening is to think about the goal I'm trying to accomplish. Will this decision help me to achieve that goal?

What if

“What if this doesn't work, what will I do?” This thought process clearly gives rise to options or alternatives, a sort of backup or insurance in case my decision backfires. I always like to have different alternatives when I am trying to decide on something because I may stumble on an even better way of solving the issue at hand. While thinking about the possibility of things not going to plan, I'm coming up with backup plans and sometimes, I end up picking one of the backups.

Weigh the pros and cons

After coming up with alternatives, I evaluate the benefits of each of my options, and also their disadvantages. By weighing the pros and cons, I can know which path will be the better option and I can finally go ahead to the last step.

Take action

At this point, I have already done most of the hard work and the only thing remaining is to implement the decision I have made. The funny thing with making major decisions is that even when you're finally implementing it, you will still find a couple of numerous decisions along the way that you will have to take to fully achieve your goal and each of those smaller decisions plays a role in determining if you will get the expected result.

Coping with disappointment

Do I actually get disappointed when things don't go according to plan? I don't really know, what is even disappointment? The reason I said I don't know is because I always expect things to go bad whenever I make a decision - if things go according to plan, I celebrate and if it doesn't, I just move on with little or no disappointment. One phrase I have always tailored my life around is “Hope for the best but expect the worst”, which is something I heard in Mr. Hudson and Jay Z’s song titled Young Forever.

I always apply that quote to every aspect of my life, especially decision-making. After carefully thinking about my decision and executing it, I hope for it to go according to plan but also expect it to not do so. This is where the alternatives I talked about earlier play a big role; in the case that things don't go well, I can just carry out the alternative plan and if everything else fails, I just move on because I have thought about this possibility as well during my decision-making process (What if).

I guess in a way, that's how I cope with disappointments - don't expect much and don't get your hopes high. So, even when I don't get the expected results from a decision I have taken, I just say something like “I knew it” or “I saw this coming”. I always let myself know that things don't always go according to plan and it's all part of life. It still hurts whenever things fail but from my experience, the pain is higher when you put all your hopes in things going smoothly with no possibility of failure, life doesn't always work that way.

Thanks for reading

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