When faced with a decision, have you considered how to make good decisions and whether you make the best choices for you?

Does Your Way of Making Choices Work For You?

How many times have you agonized over a decision only to ultimately impulsively make a choice?

Have you ever thoroughly analyzed a choice to the point of being nearly certain you made the right choice only to discover some overwhelming noxious downside when it’s just too late? It was a bad decision!

Finally, have any of these experiences cause you to modify or totally revamp your decision-making process? Probably not. Take a moment to consider this set of nine approaches that can help you make the best decision for you.

Common Ways We Make Decisions

Rumination and Decision Making

Probably the worst but most common approach to decision-making is rumination. Though allured by possible benefits of holding off making a decision in favor of some reflection, we often shift to dwelling on potential negative consequences. The reflection can become a circular, making the decision appear unsolvable. Thus, we postpone the decision over and over again. Unfortunately, this kind of rumination can create stress and anxiety. It also consumes considerable mental, emotional, and physical energy.

Cost-Benefit Analysis to Determine that Best Choice

Cost-Benefit analysis is another popular method. Here, you weigh the pros and cons, typically in a table or list format. Unfortunately, the calculation and direct comparison of costs and benefits are nearly impossible in most cases. This is because many element are subjective and difficult to quantify.

In the end, we begin to consciously or unconsciously add more and more trifling costs or benefits in order to tip the scale in favor of our current emotional state or just go with our gut, which for many of us is the same as an outright gamble.

This process rejiggering the costs and benefits may seem to be an awkward but accurate way to get all underlying preferences or true desires. However, powerful and stubborn limiting beliefs could just as easily be the driver. In this case you become trapped in inflexible ways of thinking.

Turning to Trusted Sources

Another common method is turning to a trusted person or information source (internet or social media). Boomers are more inclined toward the former source while Millennials toward the latter.

More data and perspectives are helpful, but only if they are evaluated and distilled by the decision-maker into an authentic personal choice. If not, this process can, unfortunately, could end up looking a lot like a rumination.

9 Ways to Make the Good Decisions

The best way to evaluate choice is to take a bit of time and look at the choice from a number of different angles. With different decision tools you get the benefit of cross validation. Plus, each method will reveal some new bits of information and wisdom. Here are nine good tools.

1. Conduct a cost-benefit analysis of your choices, but don’t stop there. Before you start adjusting the cost and benefit columns, hold onto the few take aways your gleaned thus far, but consider adding a new decision tool to the process.
2. Get input from others, but make sure it’s still your choice. Consider where your influencer is coming from (what are their motives for you and for themselves in the same situation).
3. Consider how the decision may affect other aspects of your and other people. Then make adjustments, especially those you are most interested in protecting or benefiting.
4. What does your heart say or, in other words, listen to your heart-brain.
5. What does your gut say or, in other words, listen to your gut-brain. Pay particular attention to thoughts attached to resistance and fear. Are there real reasons to be cautious or are these thoughts just pestering thoughts? If so, identify your limiting beliefs. And, even more important, do the work and overcome your limiting beliefs.
6. Journal or write about each choice and write whatever comes to mind.
7. Meditate on the choices and stay open to the wisdom that may pop in.
8. Blend options to create a workable compromise and perhaps a superior choice
9. Listen inside yourself or in other words listen to your body-mind.

Using and Combing The 9 Methods

When you have a tough decisions to make or one that could have significant consequences, you want to give the decisions adequate attention to make sure you don’t make a poor decisions. Take each of these into account even if you think they’re not relevant. The process could identify unexpected yet critical insights.

For example, consider how your decision could affect someone else even if you hadn’t planned to incorporate other people. If you reflect on the direct and indirect consequences of your choice, you might discover important information that you weren’t aware of.

The decision may have seemed to be unrelated to the needs of your spouse, but a reflection or a discussion with him/her could uncover an issue. In fact, this type of reflection can reveal potential positive or negative impacts on you. Stay open and curious.

You might poo-poo journal writing and hence avoid this method. But, free-style writing about a decision and the details of potential outcomes, even improbable ones, can shift and/or open your focus such that more opportunities or costs and benefits surface.

Finally, there’s the most obscure yet easily accessible and most personalized and authentic method: embodying the options and listening inside yourself. With practice, you, and anyone for that matter can learn and perfect the process of turning into the body, sensing the whole experience of each decision outcome, and attune to whether the body is telling you yes or no. The only way to know what is truly best for you is to sense it inside yourself.

So, the next time you’re faced with a tough decision, try some new methods of discerning the right option for you.

For More Assistance With Making Tough Decisions or Your Embodied Brain, See:

• Your Embodied Brain and 3 Ways to Get to Know It
• How Your Embodied Mind Shapes Your Life
• Personal Growth, Energy Healing, and Wellness Workshops.
• Spiritual Life Coaching Sessions

Updated March 20, 2024