We make hundreds of decisions every day, ranging from the clothes we’re going to wear each morning to what we’re going to have for breakfast and lunch. To some extent, we should learn to limit these small decisions through certain set habits, because although making small decisions may not seem to affect us, the truth is that they wear us out more than we think. That’s why Obama admitted that he had only two kinds of suit in his wardrobe, much like Mark Zuckerberg’s famous grey T-shirt.
But then there are the important decisions that can change the course of our life or our future in the short, medium and long term. And those decisions are where we can go wrong, by looking at them from the wrong perspective or in the wrong emotional state.
James Altucher told how a friend’s grandmother once told him that, when it comes down to it, there are only two kinds of decision: decisions made out of fear, and decisions made out of a sense of thriving, or growth.
For example, are you staying in your current job because you’re afraid of the uncertainty of what would happen if you left it? Or, on the contrary, are you staying because you’re excited about the potential for personal and professional growth you have at that company?
As a rule, people decide for themselves not to pursue their dreams or a better future simply because they’re afraid of the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen. So they decide to stay in their comfort zone. A decision based on fear, a comfort zone that keeps them from growing.
If that person made the decision based on the need to grow, they might leave their current job to pursue their dreams.
It’s true that leaving that job involves risk. It’s true that it could go wrong and we might later regret having made that decision. But it’s even more true that our comfort zone could collapse, and we might then regret not having decided to get out of there much sooner.
(See: The 3 most important decisions you’ll make in life)
But decisions based on fear or growth also turn up in other areas of our life.
Are you in a relationship with someone because you really want to grow old and die with that person? Or, on the contrary, are you staying in that relationship because you’re afraid of not finding anything better, afraid of hurting that person if you leave, afraid it will be bad for your children, afraid of what people will say?
Although we like to think we’re rational people, the truth is that we’ve shown hundreds of times that we’re far more emotional than rational. So when it comes to making certain decisions, however hard it is, we must learn to set our emotions aside and analyse the circumstances coldly and rationally.
Likewise, it’s not a good idea to make important decisions when our emotional state isn’t neutral. In other words, avoid making decisions out of anger or sadness, because they will probably be poor ones.
Decisions made out of fear aren’t usually the right ones either, because fear is the most paralysing force there is. What would you do today if you weren’t afraid of anything?
Are you living the life you wanted to live? Do you like your job? Are you happy? What’s missing from your life? What do you have too much of in your life? What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy?
It’s often good to stop and analyse these questions coolly, always remembering that if we’re not living the life we want, there’s almost always only one set of culprits: ourselves, our fears and our insecurities.
As someone once said, “If you don’t like the life you’re living, change it. You’re not a tree.”
Of course, in the end we also need to be able to tell the desire for growth apart from the desire for short-term pleasure. In other words: am I making this decision based on growth that will bring me closer to what I want in my future, or am I making it based on short-term pleasure that will probably hurt my future?
It looks really bloody hard, though it’s also simpler than it seems. But it’s still bloody hard.
See also: Decision-making and willpower: what you need to know so you don’t wear down these assets
Featured image: NPS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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