Having a habit of making bad decisions can severely hamper the quality of your life.
Self Awareness
It can be changed by improving your self-awareness and shining a light on what is at the route of why you make your choices.
You may ask yourself “Why did I pick choice X over choice Y?”, by keep asking “why” you can dig deeper, and find the route cause of why you do what you do and don’t do what you don’t do. More about self awareness, here.
There are number of additional things to focus on when looking to improve your decision making…
Laziness
Don’t be lazy in your decision making, consider your options and weigh them against one another. Remember, doing nothing at all, is an option. Take time out to really think about all the choice open to you.
Pressured
Bad decisions can also come out of pressured situations. Important irreversible decisions should never be rushed under such circumstances.
Sales people are trained to add scarcity to their offerings in the form of limited volumes of stock or limited time availability, these are designed to encourage impulse, emotionally driven buying decisions. Don’t be fooled by this, better not to buy, than buy and have deep regret later.
Emotionally Driven
Avoid taking decisions when in a strong emotional state. Emotions can severely hamper rational decision making. Psychologically sleeping on decisions is a great strategy for allowing emotions to subside. Come back to the decision later when you can be somewhat more objective.
Summary
So, if you find you keep making bad decisions, you owe it to yourself to do something about it.
- The first step is to improve your SELF AWARENESS
- Don’t be LAZY. Ensure you are taking the time to evaluate all your options
- Don’t be PRESSURED into making rash decisions. If a decision is worth taking, make sure you aren’t being rushed into it
- Finally, avoid making decisions when in an intense emotional state, good or bad. Rationality and emotions don’t mix well. Take time out and revisit the decision when you feel you can be more objective about it.
For a more in-depth article about Decision Making click here.