5 Tips on Personal Decision Making
By Rene A. Bastarache
Do you ever have a hard time making a decision when someone asks you to do something? Lots of times you feel like you should do things just so you don’t disappoint anyone. It’s amazing how people find themselves wasting so much of their day doing things they really didn’t want to do and in the end they often times find themselves filled with disappointment themselves.
In this article I’m going to share with you five tips or helpmate that I found to help me make quick and easy decisions about situations that used to make me struggle in the past. The reason that I find this so important is that the purpose of life is to be happy. If doing things that you don’t really want to do brings you down then you shouldn’t be doing them. So it’s my hope that some of these may help you.
First: This one is something that I speak of quite often but it is so very important to understand. When someone calls you or confronts you out of the blue to ask you to do something for them it’s ultimately their agenda and not yours. In fact another name for the telephone is “the request box for other people’s agendas”. That can also be said of your e-mail, Skype, instant message, and even snail mail.
They’re asking you to do something that will make their life easier. You may still want to help them which is fine but keep in mind that on a daily basis you have your own agendas or goals that need to be accomplished as well. If you keep on delaying what needs to be done for you on a daily basis to work on other people’s agendas you may find that your own will suffer in the process. So keep in mind that it’s someone else’s agenda and your priority should come first.
Second: The next thing to consider is; does it make you happy to accept the request? It’s important to continually focus on happiness and uplifting things throughout your day. Remember the saying “As a man thinketh so is he.” Just as focusing on happiness can make you happy, focusing on misery can make you miserable. So before taking on a task for someone else think about how it will affect your emotional and mental state.
Third: Do you feel welcome? How often do you get calls inviting you to dinner, to meetings, to parties, two get-togethers and the list goes on and on. You may have nothing in common with the people you’d be meeting with or feel very uncomfortable with them. There may even be some people there who you don’t like and may cause problems. In these situations I’ve always found the easiest way to make the decision to attend is by asking myself “Do I feel welcome there?”. If you don’t feel welcome then why should you go?
Fourth: This is one of my favorite ones from Marketing Guru Jaime Tardy of Eventual Millionaire. When someone asks you a question or a request is your first response a “Resounding Yes”? If your first response is a long pause, confusion or whining and not a resounding yes then your answer should be “No”. Doesn’t that seem simple enough? I’ve used it many times and have found it to work very well. As a result of using this technique you’ll only be doing what you really want to do and not wasting your time on irrelevant tasks.
Fifth: My last tip on helping you to make a decision is to stop using the word should. Although should consist of six letters it should actually be a four letter word. Why is the word should so detrimental? Because it sets you up to fail. No one ever seems to measure up to what they feel they “should” be. Should seems to always be just out of reach or just beyond reality and insures that you are never really satisfied with your results. So from now on rather than using the word should, just accept what is. Here’s another way of looking at it that will help you to remember; it is very important to “Stop Shoulding” on yourself and others.