There are only two things that determine how your life turns out: luck and the quality of your decisions. You have control over only one of those two things.
This is a great quote from Annie Duke, in her book How to Decide. And it’s true – think about how many decisions you make… and imagine if they all got you a little closer to your goal, rather than took you in different directions.
And, imagine if you could make those decisions confidently, rather than delaying it and carrying the weight of it around, and then second guessing the choices you do make.
Life would be better: you’d have confidence in your decisions and you’d have time and freedom to think about the things that really matter.
The good news is that making the best decisions about important things is a skill that can be learnt and practiced. And it will make your life better.
So – how do we make sure we’re making quality decisions about the big things, like careers, in our lives?
The first thing is to acknowledge that not all decisions are the same. Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow) describes two types of decision-making systems – System 1 decisions (the ones we make quickly, often based on intuition and instinct) and System 2 – those that rely far more on logic, systematic thinking and data.
We are all faced with hundreds of decisions a day, and we can’t treat them all in the same way. Intuitive decisions are good when we have:
- stable environment
- repeated attempts
- rapid feedback
Big, life decisions don’t fit any of those criteria!
So it’s important that for big decisions – say how to navigate job uncertainty or career change – we slow down and actively avoid relying on our intuition. This is a big first step in , making good decisions.
Good decisions also require a process – otherwise we end up spinning around our same thought patterns. We tell ourselves the same stories about what we think we’re capable of, what we think is possible. We get stuck in our own heads.
How do we get out of that?
The process
Step 1 is to make sure we’re asking the right question. Framing is everything. So while ‘should I keep applying for jobs in the spill and fill’ is important in the short term, the bigger (better) question is ‘what do I really want to do’.
We often avoid this, because we don’t know where to start. But if we’ve got some clarity on this, it means we’re in a far more powerful position to make confident decisions.
Zooming right out, diverging, looking at the situation from a different perspective will give us different options. And these options are where the gold is. What do we really want to spend our time doing…what are the things that we’ve put in a metaphorical box under the bed, to be dealt with or thought about later. These are the crucial parts of the life we really want to live.
The best way to do this is to work with a coach who keeps pushing you towards an answer, regularly revisiting and forcing you to delve deeper.
Using good prompts and writing out the answers can also help uncover the underlying aspirations; it can be hard to do but answering different questions encourages thinking from a different perspective.
This initial step of figuring out what we want is one that will evolve over time, but getting something on paper, out of our heads, is important.
To help you do this, I’ve created a free workbook. It’s a structured way of broadening your thinking that will give you some insights in to what’s important to you, and help you shift your perspective. Download it now to get started.
Step 2 is to collect data on the options including base rates. to evaluate the options and risks. Things like Inversion thinking and pre-mortems can also help with risks and decision making, but the goal is to look for objective information about comparable situations.
Step 3 is to question our biases – the assumptions and beliefs we might be making. If we generally have a scarcity mindset, how might this be unnecessarily be holding us back? How can we overcome that?
Step 4 is to then evaluate – based on all the information you’ve gathered and thought about. This is where you can use your instincts to synthesise the information, and come to a decision.
