“Should I do A or Should I do B?”

 “Did I do the right thing back there? What if I didn’t…”

“I wished I could have done this instead of this!”  

Hmm…We all have been there! Guilty of overthinking, second guessing ourselves, even our most thought through decision. Many a times, I have waited on  a decision, slept on an opportunity too long, only to discover it getting expired. Then I tell myself, “Damn…I wish I could have acted earlier! I wish things were clearer!”

Why Do We Get Double Minded?  

Delayed and faulty decision-making happensbecause of many reasons: the need, the craving to have the absolute desire to have perfection in our work, in our life, every time. The other reasons that keep us away from taking actions are personal or professional insecurity, mental fuzziness, having too much on our plate, so on and so forth. Or maybe, you tend to procrastinate or second guess yourself and your decisions because some of the decisions you took in the past didn’t exactly work out for you. Consequently, you are now doubtful about your decision-making capabilities. So you don’t trust yourself enough! And constant self-doubt is a bad thing!

Double Mindedness, Procrastination and Self-Doubt Imapct Us Negatively…Here is How…

All of which leads to us having a harder time in making up our minds about things that are important. Indecisiveness takes up so much mental space and time. Moreover, being conflicted and double minded rob us of our creative energy.

If you are tired of being double minded, of procrastinating, over-thinking and second guessing your decisions, then here is a step-wise approach that can help you make quicker and most likely sound and informed decisions and improve your decision-making skills:

Understand the Nature of Urgency

You need to act on something quickly. Now, this kind urgency can be genuine, or it may be self-perceived, self-imposed or one that has been imposed upon you by others. In either case, you feel panicked because you think that something is extremely urgent (when it might be not!), and if you don’t take a decision any time soon, you are going to lose big times on an opportunity. Alternatively, this kind of urgency has been created by someone else, a sales person, a friend, perhaps, with a vested self-interest! Consequently, you feel pressured that you have been asked to make a decision on the spot. Once you understand the actual reason behind the need for urgency, you would be able to clear your head space from all the unwanted and useless pressures. Subsequently, you would be able to take a better, logical and sound decision.    

Devise a Timeline  

One of the main reasons we procrastinate is that we are waiting for things to align, a pattern to emerge, which can help us take the right decision, at the right time. However, delays don’t always act in our favor. Most of the decisions are time-critical in an age when things are fast-paced. So, how much time should you take to make a decision that needs to be urgent? Ideally, I would like to sleep on a decision, that’s all the time I need to think something through! Most likely and in most of the cases, that’s all the time you need to make a sound decision.  

Weigh the Pros and Cons

Rash and impulsive decisions are often enough the reason behind mistakes. When deciding upon a course of action, mentally jot down all the pluses and minuses and the possible outcomes and weigh them. Alternatively, if you have a little bit of time, do make a SWOT analysis and then make an informed decision. Even if that decision doesn’t work in your favor, you still would have the satisfaction of taking your time and thinking things through!

Trust the Process

There really is no magic crystal ball to reveal the future to us in crystalline lucidity (I wish there was…)! But more often, the secret of sound decisions lies in nothing else besides trusting the process and letting the outcome reveal itself. If you have been working the full clarity and consistently towards something, then you are already on the right track and are unlikely to make a wrong turn or make the a bad decision. Most of the signs and clues you need have already been there and all you need to do is to take the next logical step, which is most likely to be the right one.   

Trust the Outcome  

Once you have followed the due process, have weighed the pros and cons and have taken a decision, then accept and own that decision. This means not giving in to self-doubt and second guessing yourself. Don’t let saboteurs and naysayers get into your head and mess things for you. If things eventually work out in your favor, feel happy and confident! However, if the decision you took doesn’t eventually work out well and work in your favor, then simply accept it. Learn the lesson and just move on. Don’t dwell on things needlessly, just learn the lesson and continue going with the flow. Focus on progress.   

The Takeaways

We need to make small and big decisions quite often in our day to day working. However, all of us don’t happen to have strong and sound decision-making skills. As a result, we tend to second guess ourselves and experience self-doubt and confusion and we delay decision-making or we end up making the wrong decisions. However, we can make sound decisions with confidence if we become rational and systematic in our decision-making approach. Understanding the nature of urgency, sleeping on the decision, weighing the pros and cons, trusting the process and the outcome are some of the steps that can save us from self-doubt and second guessing ourselves constantly. Conclusively, this kind of systematic approach can help us make the correct and timely decisions mostly and create positive outcomes.