Four Benefits of Being Decisive and How to Train Yourself to Make Decisions
It happens to everyone. Whether you’re stuck on deciding the side for your lunch order or endlessly weighing the pros and cons of a business move, indecision can consume our time and energy.
To stop the cycle and feel more confident and fulfilled in our decision making, we can train ourselves to be more decisive and reap the benefits from making swift, informed decisions.
How to Train Yourself to Make Decisions
1. Delay Decision Fatigue
Decision fatigue is our brain’s way of saying, “I’ve had enough decision-making!”
With it, we struggle with the most simple decisions. Since decision fatigue is inevitable after a certain cognitive load, you can help postpone this effect with these tips:
Schedule your most important decisions early: Prioritize your most important decisions and tasks to be addressed first thing in the day so you can tackle them with a fresh mind and full confidence.
Simplify your choices: Choose what to put your energy toward, and which choices you can automate. This might mean streamlining your attire and morning routine, or making a meal plan to remove the daily decision of what to eat.
2. Set Time Limits
Designate an amount of time to tackle each decision or task so you spend your time on what’s most important: movement and momentum.
That might be two minutes to reply to that email, ten minutes to find a bakery for the going away party or a couple hours to plan a weekend getaway.
This helps you conserve your time and energy for the things that matter most.
3. Make Decisions Based on Value, Not Emotions
Emotions like fear, passion or excitement, can cloud our judgment and make decisions a risky affair. Learn to separate these from your decision-making and instead weigh your decisions based on your values.
If relocating for that promotion brings fear, make a list of your values (long-term and short-term) and see how each decision aligns with them. Once you separate risk from fear, you might realize that the scarier option of relocating puts you at greater risk of not reaching ultimate fulfillment.
Weighing your new apartment options with the values of saving money and having a short commute might take out that less practical (but gorgeous) townhome that would force you to tweak your budget.
Values keep our decision-making informed and allow us to trust our decisions more once they’re made because we know they’re aligned with our deepest desires, not just passing emotions.
4. Let Go of Perfectionism
When we worry too much about making the wrong decision, it can be paralyzing. The key to letting go of perfectionism is to accept that sometimes we will make a wrong decision, and that’s okay.
Those are the moments to practice our resilience, grow some new skills and pivot back on course.
When you practice making more decisions, rather than stressing about making the right ones, you’ll inevitably create more opportunities for yourself.
4 Benefits of Being Decisive
More Time to Do What You Love: Finding more efficient ways to make decisions allows you more time to do the things you love with a clearer and more restful mind.
Prevents Burnout: Progress and momentum quickly elevate the mood rather than building stress. The result: more fulfillment and less burnout!
Relieves Stress and Anxiety: When we don’t feel confident in our decisions, stress and anxiety can exist before, during and even after a decision is made. Relieve yourself from this restless energy in the back of your mind by making value-based decisions and letting go of perfectionism.
Pushes You Toward Success: Making decisions that move you further toward your goals and accepting that wrong decisions are just moments to readjust puts you on a freeing path toward fulfillment and success.
The Key to Decisions: Just Keep Moving
Whether you occasionally struggle with making big decisions or wrestle with everyday indecisiveness, the right decision is to choose movement.
Relieve yourself from the pressure of decisions being finite events and instead look at them as opportunities to move forward with the flexibility to pivot if you find a better alternative along the way.
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