5 Ways To Sabotage Your Decision-Making Abilities

5 Ways To Sabotage Your Decision-Making Abilities

So you headed off to college and you are now your own person (except for all that money you had to borrow). One of the benefits of being your own person, is that you also get to make some important decisions. And there will be consequences to those important decisions you make. Sounds like fun, eh?

The ability to make good decisions and live with the consequences is something that each person has to deal with on his or her way to adulthood. We call this - a fact of life. But there's no guarantee that the decisions you make will turn out the way you hope.

So, in order to make a good decision, it's important to begin to remove some of the ways that people make bad decisions. Here's five barriers that decrease the likelihood that your decision will turn out in a positive manner:

1. Indecision - The rock band, Rush, has a line in one of their songs that basically says, "If you decide not to decide, you still have made a choice." When we avoid making a decision, we leave our lives up to chance. And chance is not a good decision maker. All we are doing is trying to escape the responsibility of a decision because of the risk, fear or anxiety. All those can be formidable barriers and cause our indecision. Fight them by being courageous and making a choice.

Overcome indecision by deciding to decide.

2. Stalling - Sometimes we believe that we can't make a decision until we have "complete" knowledge. So we look for as many facts, details, and nuances as we can. We want 100% of the information that's necessary to make a decision. Trouble is, you'll never get that. The obsessive gathering of endless facts is only a defense mechanism for not facing the decision we need to make.

Overcome stalling by setting a timetable by which your decisions will be made.

3. Overreacting - When we let a situation spin out of control, we run the risk of letting our emotions take control. At that point, we'll probably make a decision that ends in regret. It's not that one shouldn't trust his or her heart, it's just that a decision made in anger, revenge, or during an emotional collapse will probably make matters worse.

Overcome overreacting by calming down before you make important decisions.

4. Vacillating - I understand that a girl's prerogative is to change her mind, but not 50 times. When we continually reverse our decisions, we become wishy-washy and others have difficulty trusting us. Plus, a half-hearted commitment only adds to our chance that our decision will end in failure.

Overcome vacillating by making a decision and sticking to it.

5. Half-measures - This is similar to #4, except it relates to the person that makes just enough of a decision to get by but doesn't deal with the whole problem. Many people will make decisions in an attempt to avoid controversy or conflict, but they don't really solve the REAL issues.

Overcome half-measures by making the right decision no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

Peter Drucker once said, "A decision is a judgment - it is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between 'almost right' and 'probably wrong.'