One of my clients told me this week that ‘decision making’ is her biggest development area.
I always find it interesting when people say this.
I asked her - how did you decide what to eat for breakfast? How did you decide what route to take to work? How did you decide whether or not to grab a hot drink on the way in?
We’re making decisions constantly.
Do you know, on average, how many decisions we make in one day? Go on, guess before you carry on reading.
It’s a mind blowing 35,000 - so you are already an excellent decision maker!
And most of them we don't actively recall making.
So why do we get stressed about decisions like whether to leave our current role/ go for a new one?
It’s not because we’re not good decision makers. So what is it?
In my experience, it’s typically because we doubt ourselves. We’ve decided, but then get distracted by other thoughts like: what if it’s the wrong decision? What would [influential friends name] do? Am I rushing this? Can it really be this simple? Etc
Exhausting isn’t it?!
So here’s some strategies for growing confidence around decision making:
- Know that you DO KNOW the answer, you’re just being distracted by other thoughts- Go for a ‘gut feel’ decision FIRST, and then apply logical filters to check it e.g. writing a list of pros and cons
- At work, get in the habit of making a recommendation rather than just presenting the options and deferring decisions upwards - it’s good practice
- Write down the stray thoughts that are clouding the decision and deal with them one by one rather than letting them loop around in your mind on repeat.
Ultimately you do know the answer. Your first instinct was probably the right one. Back it up with some logic and move on. You’re a much better decision maker than you give yourself credit for.
Interested to hear from you - what decisions are you actively making this week?