Struggle with decisons: stop chasing perfection
When you’re at school, most of the questions you get asked have a clear answer. For example 3 x 5, and even with essays they are looking for a certain sort or style of answer.
And your rewarded for it. You get it right; you get smiles from the teacher and an extra hour on the games console at home. You get it wrong; and it’s shaking heads and extra pressure to ‘try harder’.
But then you’re in the world of work and it's not so simple; the ‘right’ answer is not clear. This can be a really arresting experience when you first become and manager and someone asks you for a decision. You’re thinking ‘where’s the examples of previous answers’, ‘what does good look like’.
And on top of that, you remember the lessons from school that getting it wrong is ‘bad’.
The higher up you go, the more and often bigger decisions you have to make.
So, then it's no wonder that many of the clients that come to me struggle with making decisions. One of the main reasons is that they are trying to make ‘perfect’ decisions, and these simply do not exist.
Here are three things I use all the time to help me a decision:
Don’t measure whether it’s a good decision or not by the outcome. All you can do is weigh it up as best you can a make a choice based on that. There are often so many factors impacting a situation that you can’t control how it may turn out. In other words, you can make a ‘good’ decision based on the information at the time and it still may not work out.
Can you explain the reasons for your decision. When I’m thinking a choice through, I imagine explaining to someone why I made that decision. If I feel happy with that explanation, then that’s all good.
No one gets it ‘right’ all the time. While they may like to tell you otherwise, no one gets it all the time. Like I said, even when you’ve made some sound calls, there are things which mean it may not turn out as expected. And there are times when we’ll just make a bad call. That’s another opportunity to learn; more experience in the head for the next dilemma.
The perfect decision doesn’t exist, so relax and trust yourself.