In these troubled times it’s not uncommon to find yourself awake in the early hours of the morning restless and turning over decisions. In the daytime you have a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach that nothing you do will give you relief. All the things you’ve learned, relaxed breathing, exercise, drinking water, talking to others, guided imagery and even laughter, don’t seem to work.
Does talking about indecision make you uncomfortable?
What then is the solution?
- You’ve lost your job.
- Retirement is around the corner and you have many decisions to make.
- You may have been mulling over an investment decision and suddenly the opportunity is lost.
- An item you wanted to purchase on an online store was selling at a big discount and you didn’t react fast enough.
- You may have had the money to enroll in an online course about a specialised skill you need and suddenly you are unable to pay for it.
Indecision can become much more personal than the few examples mentioned here.
Some would say that you need to be more decisive.
But indecision can be positive in that your intuition is telling you that you aren’t ready to make a decision because you don’t have enough information.
A decision doesn’t always need to be affirmative. You can say yes or no to whatever you are faced with.
Andrew Carnegie, the famous industrialist told Napoleon Hill, self-help author, “It has been my experience that a man who cannot reach a decision promptly cannot be depended upon to carry through any decision he may make. I have also discovered that men who reach decisions promptly usually have the capacity to move with definiteness of purpose in other circumstances.”
In his book Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed gives us the pre-mortem method of decision making. With this method you are told that “the patient is dead”, the project has failed; the objectives have not been met; the plans have bombed. A pre-mortem starts with asking you to imagine that the project has gone horribly wrong and to write down the reasons why on a piece of paper.” The purpose of the pre-mortem is not to kill off plans, but to strengthen them. Celebrated psychologist, Gary Klein, says “prospective hindsight” increases the ability of people to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30 percent.
This is why in everything that I teach including business writing, business idea generation, business leader coaching and business continuity, I gently probe to find what’s holding you back. Often we find ourselves at the crossroads and need to decide to move forward on a different path or stagnate. I subscribe to what best selling author Matt Furey teaches, “I teach you to make no conscious effort to change your beliefs. Most of your beliefs took hold in your mind unconsciously and effortlessly, therefore, attempts to upgrade them should also be effortless and spontaneous, not forced or rehearsed.”
Another way to look at decision making is to consider what Robert Fritz author, filmmaker, composer and management consultant and developer of structural dynamics, suggests: “Know what you want, know where you are. Hold the image in your mind of the outcome you want while being aware of the current reality that exists in relationship to that outcome. Your actions will become more strategic, more effective, and easier to take than usual.”
Should you require more information to make an important decision on business writing, business idea generation, business leader coaching and business continuity, then let me know and we can send you more information or even have a zoom meeting to answer any queries.
Let me leave you with this inspiring quote from Jim Rohn, “Indecision is the greatest thief of opportunity.”
It’s up to us to make sure that we are in control of our lives and our decisions.
