Much of what we do as leaders is simply a series of decisions, day after day. Many times when we feel “stuck”, it’s because we are struggling with some kind of decision. We put so much weight on being able to predict the future by picking the “right” choice and then when we don’t, our mind goes crazy questioning whether we are even cut out for this job in the first place.
What if we stripped all of that away and got down to the fundamentals of what a decision actually is? I like to believe that a decision is simply a commitment to a thought that produces a feeling, action and result. That’s it. No drama, crystal balls or foolproof frameworks. Just you, committing to a thought.
You’re probably thinking “that’s great, but when I have big decisions to make that might be life changing for people or my entire company, it is definitely more complicated”. Here are 3 tips that help me when making big decisions:
First, your most important role in decision making is managing your mind, during and after. Where do we make the best decisions from? It’s not a place of fear, anger or self doubt. We make our best decisions when we come at the options from a place of openness, curiosity and competence. What if none of these options could fail? What if all of them could create amazing results? What would I decide then? Sometimes that means making risky decisions, ones that scare us. No biggie, because we can manage our mind around that too, because most of our fear will come from stories our brain makes up to keep us safe, not reality.
Second, like your reason why you are committing to a specific thought. If a decision makes you feel terrible, it’s likely because you haven’t found a reason why you like your choice. It doesn’t have to be personal, nor does it have to generate happiness. Take the decision of having to fire someone, you likely aren’t going to get to a place of happiness with that decision, but you can get to a place of neutrality by liking your reason why. Maybe they weren’t performing their job duties or did something unethical. Having a reason that you like will at least get you to a feeling of neutral or certain about your decision.
Third, stop looking at decisions as good or bad, right or wrong. When we view decisions as right or wrong, we are constantly looking for external validation to prove we made the right one. Many times, the best decisions result in failure before success, so using external validation as your success meter will commonly leave you feeling empty. Instead, what if every decision you made is exactly the one you should and the world is just giving you information on how to adjust in order to create your desired result? It’s like a science experiment and your job is to keep tweaking until it’s proven true.
The best decision makers are not magical unicorns born with an edge for predicting the future, they are simply leaders who commit to a thought that produces the feelings and actions necessary to create the outcome they desire. And then they continuously manage their brain as it tries to serve up all kinds of drama while they experiment and tweak, experiment and tweak until they get the result they want.