The Power of Decision-Making

I believe the ability to make decisions is a superpower.

Every day we make decisions which impact our lives. Some of them take us closer to our goals and some of them cause delay. We are always making decisions. Even when we’re not making a decision, we are still making a decision because we’re deciding not to decide.

We can lose a lot of time working in our business by resisting making decisions. Often the reluctance comes from wanting to make the right decision, so we do some research, weigh up pros and cons, ask others for advice, try and make a decision but have second doubts and put it on the backburner for a later day.

The impact on our business can be catastrophic as we wilfully stop our forward momentum. Decisions result in us taking action and when we are so busy looking for the right answer, we put a hold on our growth.

I’ve made lots of decisions about my business, which in hindsight based on the information and reasons for deciding at the time, were the right decisions for me. I can also think of many decisions I’ve made, that in hindsight were wrong.

How I discovered whether they were right or wrong was by taking action, testing, and trying them out, assessing the outcome and deciding whether it worked or not. So how could I have known what was the right decision ahead of time? I couldn’t.

Now for some of us who like certainty and control (ahem – that used to be me) this may be scary. We want to know ahead of time what’s right, so we don’t waste time, money and effort in our business which is understandable so let's make sure we do our due diligence. We can research and follow whatever decision-making process works for us and take action – the difference is we decide its the right decision and we don’t stay in indecision.

We make what we decide is the right decision for us in the moment, take action and move forward learning along the way knowing that we can always re-decide in the future. So following this model, we decide the internet platform that served us so well for the first 12 months of our business is longer suitable for the products we want to offer so we re-decide to change servers. A year ago it was the right decision at the time and now it’s the right decision to change.

I love the concept that there are no right or wrong decisions even when my brain struggles with this idea. It's based on the premise that we get to decide what is right or wrong based on our thoughts and beliefs.

Thirty years ago, it was the right decision for me to pursue a legal career and now it’s not. I don’t believe it was the wrong decision, it has served me well giving me lots of job satisfaction and opportunities along the way. A couple of years ago I re-decided my career choice believing that coaching was now the right profession for me in my future years.  I choose to believe that they were both the right decisions for me.

Making decisions and re-decisions is how we progress and move forward with our business goals. We just need to get comfortable with using our superpower.   Try taking yours out for a spin.