How do I know if I made the right decision. Decision Making: A Quick Guide

To be or not to be - that is the question! Perhaps the words of Hamlet best describe a man who is so insecure. “He knows that he must kill his stepfather, and he hesitates only because the goal he is pursuing unconsciously frightens him,” explains Nifont Dolgopolov, a Gestalt therapist. - He strives for the ideal and is tormented by his own imperfection. And therefore cannot be fully satisfied with any of the solutions.

At that moment, when a person should give an unambiguous answer and is not able to do this, real panic can seize him. “He feels embarrassed, annoyed, embarrassed, feels guilty for dragging out time,” says Nifont Dolgopolov. “These feelings are exacerbated and can develop into irritation and even anger if his companion or companion begins to urge or criticize him.”

Paradoxically, the more he hesitates, the more sure he really is about what to do. But still waiting for someone to make the decision for him. Such an unconscious strategy gives a person the opportunity not to take responsibility for the consequences and for the choices made by others.

"I'm learning to listen to my desires"

Ekaterina, 36 years old, doctor

“When I have to choose black trousers or a red dress in the store, I buy both. For several years now I have been hesitant to leave the hospital to go into private practice. I am unable to connect my life with the man I love because I cannot answer simple questions: Should we live together or not? Have kids or wait? As soon as I have to make a choice, I involuntarily begin to procrastinate, procrastinate, as if waiting for someone to decide for me ...

The situation became so unbearable that I decided to take a course transactional analysis. I am working with my therapist to learn to listen to my desires, trying not to be guided by the opinions and tastes of my authoritarian mother. My path of healing is to finally release my inner child, still living in me, who has been deprived of the right to speak since childhood.

Fear of error

Those who find it difficult to make their own decisions suffer from self-doubt. They are afraid of making mistakes, because having made a choice in favor of, say, one dish in a restaurant, they have to refuse others that are presented on the menu.

“Self-doubt becomes the main property of a person in the event that with early childhood when making a decision, he is used to relying on the opinions of others - parents, friends or people who are authoritative for him, - explains Nifont Dolgopolov. - Such a tactic of behavior develops in a child if his parents are authoritarian and adhere to a strict parenting style. They constantly evaluate the child, criticize his behavior, his preferences, make decisions for him ... And he gradually ceases to rely on himself.

It is pointless for an indecisive person to give advice, but it is dangerous to make decisions for him, because then he will lay all the responsibility on you. Another mistake is to blame him for inaction: this will increase his negative attitude towards himself.

Help him figure out what is preventing him from being more decisive. Make it clear that he only clings to self-doubt because he focuses on hypothetical losses rather than potential gains. It is difficult for a self-doubting person to recognize the consequences of his indecision. Point out to him what can happen if he never learns to make his own decisions.

What to do?

Don't be afraid to take risks

Challenge yourself, others and win - learn to enjoy it. Each decision like every victory over ourselves, strengthens our self-confidence. Use the technique of model behavior: choose for yourself a brave, determined person who, in your opinion, can serve as an example of success and willpower. And every time you make a decision, ask yourself: what would he do in my place?

Change position

You are mistaken when you confidently say about yourself: "I am not able to make this decision." In fact, you are like Molière's Monsieur Jourdain, who did not even suspect that he had been speaking prose all his life until he was told about it. After all, from morning to evening, every day you make a lot of decisions! So change your perspective: be more attentive to the decisions that you yourself made today.

There comes a time in everyone's life when they have to make a difficult decision. How to make the right decision when in doubt? What direction of study to choose? The partner with whom I am now will not disappoint me in the future, do I have love with him for life? Should I accept the offer or can I find more interesting work? These are just some of the dilemmas most of us face.

The choice of what to buy - apples or pears, seems insignificant compared to decisions whose consequences can affect a lifetime. How can you be sure that you are making the right decisions? How to avoid internal dissonance, the impression that the option you gave up might be better than the one you chose? How to make difficult decisions?

Decision-making methods

Two decision-making strategies are mainly used - heuristics and algorithms. Thinking algorithmically, a person carefully studies and analyzes, compares the pros and cons of a particular option. Heuristics saves us time because it appeals to emotions, intuitions, preferences, internal beliefs, without "calculation".

It seems that in the case of a difficult choice, it is wiser to think things over carefully several times before making a final decision. Meanwhile, people are very often guided by their hearts rather than their minds - even in the case of making decisions that affect their entire life (for example, when choosing a life partner). How to understand what is best for us in this situation?

Depending on the rank of the problem, a person usually uses from 1 to 3 decision-making strategies. What methods are used in making life choices?

1. Obtaining information from others

When you do not know what to decide on, you often use the support of loved ones, friends, family. Are you consulting, looking for Additional information. If you need to make a difficult decision, you should consult with others, ask what they would do in a similar situation. Brainstorming, exchanging views with others helps to look at the problem from a new point of view.

2. Postponing a decision in time

If no one and nothing helps, take your time with the choice, give yourself time. You may temporarily not feel strong enough to make decisions that could affect your entire life. Postponing a decision until later can be a good idea, because during this time new facts may be discovered that will help make a choice. But it is important not to put it off indefinitely, in the end you need to decide.

3. Eliminate the worst options

When you have several different options and you don't know which one to prefer, make a choice, eliminating what seems to be the worst and least interesting. At the end of such a screening, there will be a better alternative.

4. Choosing the lesser evil

The choice is not always between good-better or good-worse: you have to choose between two not the most attractive options. How do you choose between two equally unpleasant alternatives?

You need to choose something that carries fewer potentially negative consequences, and come to terms with the decision. There are things that we simply cannot influence. Therefore, sometimes it is easier to accept the need to make a decision with bad consequences than to make such a choice.

5. Before you choose, analyze

This is a strategy related to algorithmic thinking. List the pros and cons of each of the alternatives and choose the one that has more positive consequences. In other words, a balance is drawn up of the gains and losses associated with choosing one option and rejecting the other. However, such a cold calculation is not always possible, because sometimes emotions take precedence over reason.

6. Act on the spur of the moment

Sometimes there is neither time nor opportunity to consider the proposals received for a long time. Then you need to make a decision spontaneously, immediately, on a hot hand. In this case, it is better to trust your instinct, inner voice. Not always, guided by emotions, we act recklessly. In retrospect, it turns out that this correct solution so trust yourself and your intuition.

7. Descartes square

One of the most efficient and simple ways make a difficult decision. You are invited to analyze any situation or problem with different points vision. To make the right decision, answer four questions by looking at the figure below.

Be careful when answering the fourth question, because your brain will try to ignore the double negative and try to answer like the first one. Don't let this happen!

Why is this method so effective? When you are in a situation that requires you to accept difficult decision, you often get stuck at the first point - what happens if that happens? However, Descartes' square allows us to look at the problem in many ways and make a carefully considered and informed choice.

8. PMI Method

How to effectively make difficult decisions? You can use the Edward de Bono method - the PMI method. This abbreviation is a derivative English words(plus, minus, interesting). The method is very simple. It is based on the fact that before a decision is made, it is comprehensively evaluated. A table is drawn on a sheet of paper with three columns (pluses, minuses, interesting), and arguments for and against are indicated in each of the columns. In the “interesting” column, everything is written that is not good and not bad, but at the same time connected with the decision.

Below is an example. Decision: whether to rent an apartment on the outskirts with a friend?

When is issued given table, a scoring is made for each of the arguments in accordance with the direction (arguments for are indicated by a plus, against - by a minus). For example, for some, more space is more important than pleasant company. At the end, the value of all arguments is summed up and it is determined whether the balance will be positive or negative.

The PMI method cannot be called innovative, it is not fundamentally different from how we make decisions in Everyday life. It seems that he appreciates the strong and weak sides this choice. Nothing is further from the truth. Most of us, when making a decision, actually take it for ourselves from the very beginning and then select the arguments that would justify our choice. Even if it turns out that the decision we made has 3 more minuses, we will still choose it. People are actually not very rational, guided more by personal preferences, taste, etc. Pros and cons on a sheet of paper will allow for an accurate analysis, at least with a partial disconnection of emotions.

People are very often afraid of the consequences of their choices and do not like to make decisions. They would willingly shift the responsibility for their lives onto other people. Unfortunately, if we want to be happy, we must learn to solve our own problems and bear the burden of life's choices. There is no guarantee that others would do it better for us. We will never know if the options we ignored are better than the ones we chose, so don't weep over spilled milk and constantly regret the positives of rejected alternatives. Constantly lasting dissonance kills us morally.

The life of each of us is an endless stream of decisions. You constantly have to choose: what to buy, how to spend the evening, which profession to choose, which deal to accept and which to reject, etc.

Fortunately, in most cases, making the right decision is fairly easy. Our subconscious does not have to spend a lot of time choosing one of the options, since it is definitely better. But there are situations when it is not clear which of the chosen options will bring more benefit and less harm.

Remember the legendary movie "The Matrix" when Morpheus offered Neo to choose one of the pills. From the outside it may seem that choosing freedom and life in reality was easier and more correct than forgetting everything and continuing to exist in a fairy tale. In fact, most people choose the other side in their lives.

But we digress a little from the topic. So, there are situations when it is not easy to make the right decision. Each of the possible options has a lot of pluses and even more minuses that we would not like to receive. In addition, each of the options will have a lot of consequences that we could not even imagine.

2 approaches to decision making

There are two ways that can help us make a choice. We have used each of them in our lives, simply, someone chooses one more often, someone uses the second more often.

1. When to enable logic?

Careful consideration of possible options and their consequences is characteristic of making logical decisions. Using this approach, we can weigh the pros and cons, analyze the possible benefits and losses of each of the possible options.

The logical approach is best used in situations where there are many inputs and most of the consequences are easily predictable. As a rule, this approach is better applied in business and in any other business areas life, in cases where the possible risks are very high.

2. When to use intuition?

Often we find ourselves in a situation where it is almost impossible to imagine further development events. There is no past experience corresponding to such situations, and there is no way to extract and analyze information from other sources. And you need to make a decision quickly, because "delay is like death."

In this case, there is nothing left but to listen to your intuition and not make a quick and unambiguous choice. Still, we will not be able to build any accurate forecasts.

The need to make such decisions almost always arises in personal life and in everything related to human feelings and emotions.

Regardless of which approach you tend to take more often, I recommend following these five principles to help you make the right decision:

Principle 1. Never rely on "maybe". Always make your own decision.

Don't wait for things to work out on their own or for someone else to do it for you. Indecisiveness is also a decision, but in this case you are no longer in control of the situation, therefore you are not in control of your life. Often people put off making a decision until there are no alternatives worthy of attention, and this is no longer a decision.

Consciously making a decision, however unpleasant, will prepare you in advance to accept its consequences and, most likely, it will be easier for you to cope with its negative consequences. Or maybe you can even find a way to get rid of some of the problems associated with it.

Principle 2. Make a decision quickly.

Postponing the decision for later, we tend to raise our bet in this game. As a rule, intuition tells us the best ways, but intuition only works for a short time, then all your past experience, fears, doubts and other nonsense that the brain is loaded with comes into play. All this only clutters up our consciousness and encourages us to make mistakes.

The sooner you can make your choice, the more time you have to prepare for its negative consequences. There will be time to “lay straw”, as a result, you will be able to get more out of the path you have chosen.

Principle 3. Once you've made your decision, take action immediately and don't stop.

Nothing delays the achievement of goals like procrastination. Once you postpone the implementation of your decisions, it will not be difficult for you to postpone them in the future, and this is fraught with the fact that you will never achieve the goals for which the decision was made. Often, what we thought about and decided to do is forgotten after a few days. The long box has not been canceled yet - it is in it that all our greatest achievements are stored.

Principle 4. Do not change your decision half way to the result.

Achieving any result takes time and effort. It makes no sense to expect that the result will come easily and quickly. And if you constantly change your decisions, then it will all be like Brownian motion(chaotic movement of the molecules of a substance, in which the substance itself does not move anywhere) and no result will definitely come.

Drive it into your head - you can get the result only by reaching the end.

If you have made a decision to become rich, then act to the end. If you decide in a week that it is difficult and it is better to become healthy. Stop saving money and start eating right. After another week, you will stop eating vegetables, because. you want a barbecue, and decide to be beautiful by playing sports. Then you can continue on your own.

Principle 5. The most important. Never regret your decision.

Often people believe that they made the wrong decision. It was necessary to act differently. The trick is that you can never know if you did the right thing, because. check is impossible. Always consider your choice as the only correct one.

For example, you bought a car, and a week later its engine broke down. The first thought - it was necessary to buy another, but, on the other, at the most inopportune moment, the brakes could fail. What would be better?

In fact, it is not difficult to make the right decision, it is much more difficult to take responsibility for its consequences! Follow these rules, they will help you and get outstanding results.

Good luck, Dmitry Zhilin

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Today I will tell you what methods will allow you make the right decision and learn to make decisions in general. This article will be based not only on my experience, but also on the decision-making methodology outlined in the famous book by Chip Heath and Dean Heath - “. This technique helps to make effective choices in business, career and education. Here I will outline the main points of this technique, and also talk about what helps me personally in finding the right solutions.

Method 1 - Avoid "narrow borders"

Often we fall into the trap of "narrow frames", when our thinking reduces all the diversity possible solutions There are only two problems: yes or no, to be or not to be. “Should I divorce my husband or not?” "Should I buy this one? expensive car Or ride the subway? Should I go to the party or stay at home?

When we choose only between "Yes or No", in fact, we are stuck in only one alternative (eg, breaking up with her husband, making a purchase) and ignoring the others. But maybe there are other options in your relationship besides breaking up with your partner and returning to the status quo. For example, try, discuss problems, go to family psychologist etc.

If you choose not to buy an expensive car on credit, it doesn't mean that exhausting subway rides are your only remaining alternative. You can probably buy a cheaper car. But, perhaps, the most correct choice will lie in a different plane of decisions. Maybe it will be more convenient and profitable to rent an apartment closer to work. Or change jobs to less distant from home.

An alternative to choosing between different breeds of cats or dogs may be for you to go to a cattery and choose a homeless pet that you like best.

This seems like an obvious tactic for thinking about choices, yet many people continue to fall into the same traps. There is always a temptation to reduce the problem to a yes or no dichotomy. We instinctively strive for this, because it is much easier to consider the problem only in black and white, and not in all its diversity. But it turns out that with this approach we only create difficulties for ourselves.

Also, we often try to consider a choice between two extremes, although it is possible to find a compromise between them in the middle. Or we don’t notice that both of these extremes can be implemented simultaneously and in fact it is not at all necessary to choose one of them.

Method 2 - Expand the selection

This method is a development of the previous method. Many of us know situations when we want to make an important purchase, for example, to buy an apartment. We arrive at the first apartment and we are fascinated by it appearance, and the realtor offers "favorable" terms of the transaction and thereby provokes us to make a quick decision. And we are already thinking not about “which apartment to choose”, but about “whether to buy this particular apartment or not to buy”.

Do not hurry. It is better to look at five apartments, instead of buying the first one that comes across. Firstly, it will allow you to better navigate the real estate market. Perhaps there are better suggestions. Secondly, the time you spend looking at the rest of the offers will “cool down” your instant emotions. And momentary emotions always interfere with the right choice. While you are under their influence, you may overlook some obvious shortcomings of the apartments you like, but when time will pass, you can see the whole picture more clearly.

We become too attached to the goal to which our thinking is initially tuned. And this forms a strong inertia in decision-making: we are ready to see only what confirms our decision, and we ignore what contradicts it. For example, you wanted to enter a certain university from school. A few years later, you failed your entrance exams. And now you are thinking about preparing hard and trying your luck again in a year. You dismiss all the arguments of your friends in favor of choosing another university, as you are used to thinking that your choice is the best.

But what if in the few years it took you to finish school, the situation has changed and the university you want to go to is no longer the same as before? Suddenly new promising educational establishments? Don't get attached to your choice and spend comparative analysis. Expand your selection! Familiarize yourself with the curriculum and teaching staff at other institutions. What other universities offer a similar program?

To become less attached to one alternative, the auxiliary method of "disappearing options" will help you.

Variant Disappearance Method

Imagine that the alternative you have chosen cannot be chosen for some reason. For example, the university you want to enter, let's say, was closed. Now think about what you would do if this really happened. And start doing it. You would probably look at other possibilities, and probably in the process you'll discover how many great options you've missed out on because you've become fixated on one alternative.

Method 3 - Get as much information as possible

The authors, Chip, and Dean Heath are surprised that it is common practice for many people to read reviews before buying electronics, booking hotels, or choosing hairdressers. But at the same time, when it comes to choosing a job or university, fewer people use this wonderful practice, which helps to get a lot of valuable information.

Before making a decision about employment in a particular company, you can study the reviews of people who worked in it. This is better than relying only on the information provided to you by HR and the future boss.

The Heath brothers suggest asking one question at the interview for this.

“Who worked in the position before me? What is his name and how can I contact him?

There is nothing wrong with trying to get firsthand information. When I learned about this practice, I was surprised that, despite the obvious advantages of this approach, it never occurred to me to use it during my job search!

You may not always be given the contacts of these people. In this case, it will help you get information practice of leading questions.

This practice is good because it allows you to get information from someone who is reluctant to share it.

At the interview:

Instead of asking what prospects and conditions you offer (you may be promised brilliant prospects and good conditions work), ask more direct questions:

“How many people have left this position in the last three years? Why did this happen? Where are they now?"
Asking this question will help you get more reliable information about your future work.

In the shop:

One study found that when sales consultants, motivated to sell as many products as possible, were asked the question, "Tell me something about this iPod," only 8% of them reported problems with it. But when they had to answer the question: “What is his problem?” 90% of all managers honestly reported the shortcomings of this model.

Method 4 - Get rid of momentary emotions

As I wrote above, instant emotions can greatly interfere with decision making. They make you lose sight of something important and focus on small things that later turn out to be insignificant.

Many of us face the dire results of impulsive and unconscious choices, realizing that at the time of making the decision, we were blinded by our emotions and didn't see the full picture.

This may concern an early marriage or an impulsive divorce, expensive purchases or employment. How to avoid the influence of these emotions? There are several ways.

The first way to get rid of emotions - 10/10/10

This method allows you to go beyond the narrow perspective that instantaneous impulses set. It consists in asking yourself three questions before making a decision:

• How will I feel about this decision in 10 minutes?
• And after 10 months?
• What will happen in 10 years?

For example, you fell in love with another man and want to leave your children and leave your husband. If you make this decision, what will you think of it in 10 minutes? Probably, the euphoria of falling in love and a new life will rage in you! Of course, you will not regret your decision.

But after 10 months, passion and love will subside (it always happens), and perhaps when the veil of euphoria that has covered your eyes disappears, you will see the shortcomings of the new partner. At the same time, a bitter feeling of loss of something dear will begin to manifest. You may find that what you used to take for granted was actually a benefit of your previous relationship. And this is no longer in your new relationship.

It is very difficult to predict what will happen in 10 years. But perhaps, after the ardor of falling in love passes, you will realize that you have come to the same thing that you were running from.

Of course, I'm not saying that this will be the case for everyone. For many relationships, divorce is the best solution. But, nevertheless, I am sure that a lot of divorces happen impulsively and thoughtlessly. And it is better to weigh everything carefully and distance yourself from the delusion of euphoria in anticipation of change.

The second way to get rid of emotions - Breathe

Before making any important choice, give yourself a little time out. Take 10 calm full and slow inhalations and exhalations of equal duration. For example, 6 slow counts of inhalation - 6 slow counts of exhalation. And so 10 cycles.

This will calm you well and cool the ardor. Well, do you still want to order this expensive trinket you don’t need, just because you saw the same one from a colleague?

This method can be combined with the previous one. Breathe first and then apply 10/10/10.

The third way to get rid of emotions - "Ideal me"

I came up with this method when I could not make one decision. And he helped me a lot (I wrote about him in more detail in the article ""). Think about what your "ideal self" would do or be. ideal scenario development of events under existing restrictions. For example, you are thinking whether to go out drinking today or stay at home with your wife and children. Many factors in the decision will compete with each other: a sense of duty and a momentary desire to drink, caring for children and health with the need to have fun.

What to do? Think about what would be ideal. Just stay realistic. I understand that ideally, you would like to split in two, so that one part of you stays at home and the other part is at the party, while alcohol would not bring her any harm and hangover the next day. But that doesn't happen. Given the restrictions, the ideal option would be to stay at home, because last week you promised yourself to drink less. You realize that your wife rarely sees you and if you don't go to the party you will feel better the next day.

No need to think about what you want more. Because, Just because you want something doesn't mean you need it. Desires are fickle and fleeting. Now you want one. But tomorrow you may regret indulging your momentary desire. Consider which option would be correct. What would an ideal husband do?

The fourth way to get rid of emotions - What would you advise a friend?

Imagine that you want to change your job to a more comfortable and highly paid one, but you are afraid of change, you are afraid of being disappointed, you don’t want to let your colleagues down, you are worried about what your boss will think of you in connection with your departure. Because of this, you can't make up your mind about it.

But what if this choice is not in front of you, but in front of your friend. What would you advise him? Surely, if he shared with you his fears at the expense of disappointments and the opinion of the boss, you would answer him: “Come on, you think about all sorts of nonsense! Do what's best for you."

Surely many of you have noticed that you can give good and reasonable advice to your friends in solving some situations, but at the same time, you yourself behave unreasonably in similar situations. Why? Because when we think about another person's decision, we only look at the essentials. But when it comes to ourselves, a bunch of little things immediately pop up, to which we attach exaggerated importance. Therefore, to get rid of the influence of these unimportant things on your decision, think about what advice you would give to your friend if he was in a similar situation.

The fifth way to get rid of emotions - just wait

Remember, a quick decision is very often a bad decision, because it can be made under the influence of emotions. You don't have to listen to impulsive desires every time. In some cases, it makes sense to just wait and not make a spontaneous choice. Impulsive desires, on the one hand, are quite intense and can be difficult to cope with. On the other hand, they are fleeting and you just have to wait a while, and this desire will disappear. You will realize that what seemed to be an essential need a couple of hours ago, in fact, you do not need.

Personally, I like to let some decision “ripen” in my head, give it time, provided that I have nowhere to rush. It doesn't mean that I think about him all the time. I can do some business, and suddenly the decision will appear by itself. It even happens that I make a decision instantly, but I am in no hurry to implement it if it concerns important and long-term things.

In a few days, details may “surface” in my head that can change my choice. Or vice versa, I will understand that the first thought was the right thought, only now, I will be sure of it.

The sixth way to get rid of emotions - stay focused

This method is suitable in situations where you need to make quick decisions while under psychological pressure, for example, at an interview.

As a poker lover, I know how important it is to stay focused so as not to give in to instant emotions. Poker is basically a game of decision making. I have noticed that when my mind wanders somewhere far away from the game between hands, I make unreasonable and emotional actions when it's my turn to bet. But if I am focused on the game, even when I am not in the hand, for example, just watching the opponents, this allows my mind to be alert, constantly monitor everything around me and myself, think only about the game and not let unnecessary thoughts and emotions into brain.

So, for example, during an interview, keep your attention on this process. Listen to everything they tell you. Do not let extraneous thoughts enter your head, such as: “what did they think of me?”, “Did I say too much?” Think about it later. But for now, be here and now. This will help you make the right choice.

Method 10 - When Not to Use All of These Methods

Looking at all these methods, it seems that decision making is very difficult process. In fact, these methods are designed to help you make choices, in which each alternative is determined by a set of advantages and disadvantages. But what if there are no flaws? What if you have nothing to lose if you choose one option?

Then forget about all these tips, act and see what happens.

For example, you saw a pretty girl on the street, you are alone and are just looking for a mate. Stop going over the pros and cons in your head. You have nothing to lose if you come up and get to know each other. This is an absolutely simple solution.

Such situations are an exception. The more you think about them and weigh the decisions, the more uncertainty and the chances of missing an opportunity grow. Therefore, where the choice does not cost you anything, think less and act!

Conclusion - A little about intuition

The methods I've been talking about are attempts to formalize decision making. Give clarity and clarity to this process. But I do not want to belittle the role of intuition.

These methods should not confuse you, instilling in you an illusory confidence that any decisions are amenable to reason and dry analysis. This is not true. Often the choice is characterized by a lack of complete information and you will have to accept the fact that in many situations you cannot know with 100% certainty in advance which decision will be better. Sometimes you just need to choose something, and then it will be clear whether you made the right choice or not.

Therefore, you need to use intuition, instead of waiting until your methods give you an unambiguous prediction of the correctness of one or another alternative. But at the same time, one should not overestimate her role and rely too much on her “gut”. For this, there is a formalized approach that is designed to balance your mind and feelings, logic and intuition. The right balance between these things is the art of decision making!

The whole life of a person consists of a constant need to make all kinds of decisions, ranging from the choice of products in the store, and ending with the global existential choice of one’s own life path and destinations. In the first case, the decision made does not have a special impact on a person's life.

On the other hand, significant situations of choice often frighten and confuse a person, and it is in such circumstances that one must be able to adequately assess the current situation and take the necessary actions that will help make the right choice. Making a decision is a process that has a certain structure and features, and if you want to know how to make the right decision, you should carefully analyze the information and use the tips that you will receive in this article.

Making a decision means choosing the most effective course of action from among the others., in the process of which thinking, emotions and will, character and temperament, human motivation are involved. All of these factors can either help or hinder good decision making. Scientific research features of information processing showed that there are certain tendencies of thinking that affect the decision-making process. Try to pay attention and remember what factors are inherent in you personally, so that during the decision-making process you can recognize them and abstract.

• Search for supporting data. A person collects only those facts that influence the reinforcement of his own conclusions, while completely ignoring conflicting information.
• Inconsistency. Inability to act in a single direction, being in a similar situation.
• Conservatism. The inability to quickly change one's opinion and perception of a person or situation, even in the presence of new facts about them.
• Novelty. Failure to consistently complete tasks latest events occupy a more important place in the mind than the past.
• Availability. The tendency to regard readily available facts as relevant and valuable when the really valuable information is ignored.
• Selectivity. The tendency to assess the situation, relying solely on one's own experience and personal factors, based only on one's life position.
• False interpretation. The tendency to attribute success to one's own skills and knowledge, and to blame other people or circumstances for failure. Such a vision does not allow a person to learn from his own mistakes and quickly gain life experience.
• underestimation of the situation. The tendency to build unjustified illusions and show excessive optimism contributes to the construction of unrealistic forecasts of the future, which act as factors influencing the decrease in personal effectiveness.

Learning to Make Conscious Decisions - 3 Strategies

The modern classic of management, Canadian professor Henry Mintzberg, believes that there are specific ways of making decisions, the choice of which is influenced by how specific situation and these individual factors.

1. “Doing” means the process of making a decision without lengthy reasoning in an emergency situation, if the decision needs to be made quickly and there is no time for the deliberation process. In such situations, a person tends to make a decision using ready-made attitudes and options for action from past experience. To do this, you need to be able to extract this useful experience from the situations experienced, working on negative tendencies of thinking.
2. "I think" is the traditional way of making a decision in Western culture. Here, this process is carried out using a certain logical algorithm of actions, which includes:
   • statement of the problem or goal;
   • collection of information;
   • clarification of the goal;
   • choice of performance evaluation parameters;
   • development of alternatives;
   • analysis and comparison of different options;
   • assessment of the consequences of different possibilities;
   • decision-making.
3. “Seeing” is an intuitive way of making decisions that manifests itself as a kind of insight or insight. This method is the most reliable if you need to make a very important life decision, because the subconscious of a person stores the answers to everything. important questions you just need to know how to use your abilities correctly. In Gestalt psychology, there are 4 stages of the decision-making process using intuition:
   • Preparation begins with the collection of information, both at the level of thinking and including the emotional aspect;
   • Incubation means a kind of meditative state, a special focus on the problem with the aim of its deep understanding, feeling;
   • Illumination is the result of incubation, when that same insight occurs, and a person, with the help of deep meditative introspection, quickly realizes how to make the right decision;
   • Verification of the correctness of the decision.

Video about how our brain determines the choice:

Of course, the process of making a successful decision includes many factors, but the most important of them is the time for competent and deep reflection on the choice at all levels. If you want to learn how to learn how to make decisions in any situation, you should use the following tips:

• Take time to think. In the old days, the wise men retired to long time in a secluded place if you had to make an important decision. You need time to realize how important this choice is for you and what consequences it may incur, so as not to act impulsively and thoughtlessly, because, unfortunately, often a person realizes the fatefulness of a choice only after making it.
• Feel the situation. Often a difficult choice acts on a person as a stress factor, in which there is a feeling of impasse and hopelessness. In this case, you should let go of heavy thoughts and try to trust own feelings. We are not talking about fleeting volatile emotions that should never be trusted, here you need to listen to the inner voice. For most people, it is not easy to revive such feelings, so you should create special conditions that affect the effectiveness of decision making: light candles and sit in silence, sit comfortably and focus on some subject. The ways to create such an atmosphere are very individual, you can experiment and find your own way to achieve insight.
• Check the truth of your intentions. If you are in the process of making a major decision, be sure of its true importance. Confidence in the right path is felt as a sense of inner harmony, when there is no inner discomfort and the desire to "escape" from the problem. If the decision is considered and mature, then the feeling of doubt does not arise. If you feel heaviness, depression and some confusion, then you should postpone the decision for a while so as not to regret what you did in the event of a likely failure.
• Realize the cost of your decision. Any decision is a certain choice that brings new opportunities along with the need to give up something. Before making a final decision, you should evaluate how important new experience is in comparison with the past, whether it is worth losing something important on the way to new discoveries and achievements. Try to continue this phrase: "Now I never ...". Such an exercise will help you, on the one hand, to realize all the important factors of past experience, and on the other hand, it will give you the courage and strength to take responsibility for your future. Understand that everything in life has its price, you just need to learn how to set your own priorities correctly.
• Breathe life into your decision. To make a decision meaningful and significant, you need to charge it with a certain type of energy. There are two options here. In the first case, you choose one of the solution alternatives that does not suit you and promises a negative ending, and you represent the saddest scenario. Tell yourself: “If I do this, then I will blame myself and worry all my life, because ...” and list all the negative consequences. In the second case, you should try to present all the most positive aspects of your possible choices in the future. In this way, you will quickly help yourself become more confident in the correctness and firmness of your intentions.

The German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, in his brilliant work Escape from Freedom, argued that every decision is dictated not by inner convictions, but by a person’s fear of isolation, which pushes each of us to follow. public opinion, muffling the voice of true motives. That is why, every decision you make must be made on the basis of deep conviction, coming from the depths of the inner space.