We’ve allowed television to ruin our attention spans, and the web to wrap us in the illusion that the answer to every decision is out there just waiting for us to uncover it. The endless choice that we are constantly faced with has made modern decision making something that people avoid, fear, and even dread. Here are 10 simple tips to help you take control of your decisions rather than letting them take control of you.

1. Research, Don’t Obsess

Even though there is more information available than any other time in history, don’t fall prey to the illusion that you can gather every possible scrap of information about a decision. You can’t. The key is to gather an appropriate amount of information in relation to the decision and then know when to stop. If you cross a point in your information gathering where each additional hour yields less and less relevant information, you may have crossed the line from researching into obsessing.

2. Trust Yourself

Because information is changing at a faster and faster rate, learning to trust yourself is becoming more important than having all the information. All decisions have blind spots, and the sooner you train yourself to fill in the gaps with intuition instead of information, the better off you’ll be when your information turns out to be outdated, unavailable, or simply incorrect.

3. Put It On Paper

Writing out a simple list of pros and cons can sometimes help to crystallize your decisions. For something slightly more advanced, use SWOT analysis to help you analyze both internal and external factors that can have an affect.

4. Think Long Term

If the importance of a decision is weighing you down, consider whether your choice will make a difference to you in ten years. Most won’t, but even the ones that look like major changes can look like a bump in the road when given a long term view.

5. Set Deadlines

Give yourself an appropriate amount of time to make a decision and stick to it. Procrastination lets your decisions live past their expiration date, and rushing makes the decision itself more important than your participation in the process. Be in control. Don’t let your decisions have power over you.

6. Be Courageous

Some decisions will lead to failure, but small failures are essential steps on the road to success. Know that the only real way to fail is to let your fear of failure prevent you from learning lessons that will guide you toward bigger successes in the future.

7. Take Responsibility

Let go of the idea that people can force you to do anything. You are the captain of your ship and only you can guide it where you want it to go. Captains don’t hand over the wheel to less competent people and let them steer their ships all over the place. They stay in control because they know that they are the only ones responsible for the direction of their boat. Captains do not bitch, they do not moan, and they do not pass blame. They steer.

8. Always Do The Right Thing

I won’t pretend to have the authority to even begin to tell you what the right thing is, and I won’t pretend that your moral compass will allow you to make better decisions. What I can say is that people who believe they are doing the right thing have an easier time living with their decisions than those who don’t.

9. Sleep On It

Although counterintuitive, sometimes the best decisions are found by stepping away from the problem and focusing on something completely unrelated. Getting away from a decision for even a short period of time can not only help you to see the problem in a new light, but can allow your unconscious to unravel some of the issues that are making the decision tough.

10. Let Go Of Regret

Replace the words “bad choices” with “learning experiences”, and strike “should have”, “would have” and “could have” from your vocabulary. You’ll succeed and learn rather than fail and regret. Regrets are for people who don’t trust that they made the best decisions they could with the information that they had at the time. Regret won’t do anything to change a past decision and will most likely derail future decisions, so trust yourself and know that you’re doing the best you can.

Posted in Philosophical BS