The Dynamics of Making the Right Decisions

 

We for most of our lives live in a dilemma whether what we are doing is the right thing to do or not. Sometimes, we are presented with two choices in life, both equally enticing, and we have to face the music to make the right decisions which are gonna decide our future. So, how can one know for sure whether what he’s gonna choose is the right decision or not? And what exactly are the dynamics involved in making those right decisions in this game of life?

The thing is that there are no hard and fast rules about such imminent topics. Nobody can tell you for sure today whether you are making the right decisions or not. It’s only after a few days, months, or even years that you ruminate about your decisions and put a label of right and wrong.

I don’t know whether choosing to blog was the right decision to make or not. Honestly, now that I think about it, I can literally go either way. 

Either I can think about all those long hours I have to sit my ass down to write and pretend to know about stuff and conclude that it was the wrong decision or that I could have chosen 112 other things to make me a quick buck. On the flip hand I can also think about the impact it can have on people, the very thought of making someone’s life easier or better even 0.0001%, makes me believe that I made the right decision, in fact, the best decision of my life so far.

 

Focus on What You Can Control

The point being, instead of scramming your head and worrying about whether you made the right decision or not all your life, you should focus on ensuring that you are doing the best you can irrespective of the decision you made. And if you can honestly and sincerely do that, then you are actually ensuring that the decision you made turns out to be right. Essentially, even a right decision can go wrong and a wrong decision can turn out to be right. It all depends on your endeavors.

It’s possible that what you thought was the right decision is utterly wrong, and what you thought was wrong turned out to be insanely right. Now, what do you do?

You see, you again have a choice. One can either cry out loud, ask for support, blame the people, destiny, God, and think that he is done for good. Or he can see what went wrong, double down on the hard work, and make the sinking ship afloat again. To right a wrong is also the right decision fellas. Also, to stay focused on the course to continue the streak of a right decision is again the right decision.

The more interesting thing to note here is that making the ‘wrong decision’ isn’t actually a mistake. Because when you try something new, the line between right and wrong often becomes a tad blurry and there is no harm in tripping on the wrong side of the line. But to stay there forever, to let the fear of being wrong overpower you, to not right the wrong, to let one ‘wrong decision’ define your whole life is actually the first wrong decision you will make.

Sync the Intelligence with Your Desire To Make Right Decisions

Now, in my how to control your mind article, I talked about your intelligence controlling your mind, which undoubtedly can go a long way in making the right decision. But what if I told you that there’s a better way?

See, one situation is where your mind wants one thing and your intelligence is telling you to do the other, so there is some kind of resistance here. Now, what if somehow both your mind and your intelligence are in sync? Can you imagine the kind of power it will bestow upon you? 

Choosing a work that is both your desire and also the intelligent thing to do will put you on another pedestal of life altogether. It makes for a deadly combination and needless to say, one is bound to make the right decisions if somehow he can calibrate the two to the right amount.

All the confusion, dilemma, and resistance prop up when there are differences in your mind and intelligence. Your desire to do something without having the accurate facts and figures, the ins and outs of that particular field creates all the skepticism and hesitancy in one’s life, which makes for the perfect recipe for the wrong decision.

You need to go in-depth of whatever you desire to do or achieve—accumulating all the pros and cons, inspecting the best case and the worst scenarios of what you want to do, talking to the people who have already gone down that path—and then you need to analyze, scrutinize and come up with a decision based upon the information you took in, unbiasedly.

The cardinal rule of making the right decision is to keep on digging and digging and digging until you have no questions left about it. Forget what you think you know, there’s no space for ‘belief’ here. You need to act on facts, figures, cold hard brutal truths. And once you go this deep in analyzing your work, or a situation, then chances are that your desire and your intelligence may converge, and that’s when you actually become unstoppable.

Once you crack this formula then you can kiss goodbye to laziness, boredom, or tiredness. You will become hyperactive all the time because there will actually be nothing holding you back, once your intelligence and mind become besties. The moment you understand your passion and go in-depth about it, and even your intelligence approves of it, then there is nothing that you can’t do. You will easily bulldoze your way through every challenge, hardship, and obstacle without sweating a tear.

And figuring out how to achieve this is the first step towards making the right decisions in life. You need the cooperation of both the mind and the intelligence to do something extraordinary. The mind will provide you with the energy required to perform the task, and intelligence will carve out the way ahead for you.

 

Is Confusion a Bad Thing While Making a Decision?

Now, I know what most of us go through on a daily basis, “I am confused all the time about all the things in my life.” “Confusion is killing me.” The basic thing to understand here is that confusion may not necessarily be the villain you thought it was and instead it may be the hero you always snubbed. Let me explain how. 

If you are confused about something, it can be anything like chocolate or vanilla, pizza or burger, job or business—it is actually signifying the fact that you are smart enough to consider both the pros and cons of a particular situation which is what is making you confused. Doesn’t this imply the fact that confusion is something experienced by an intelligent person? I mean, a foolish person wouldn’t go through the hassle of forcing his mind to think, he will simply just act. 

So, the next time you are confused about whether you are making the right decision or not, don’t beat yourself up, instead, pat yourself on the back to be patient and thorough enough to see both sides of a situation. Confusion is the breeding ground of clarity. Confusion is the portal to intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, and a better understanding of things. 

Every successful person in every field started with a confused mind. So, don’t treat confusion as a ‘negative’ state or something to avoid. People get distressed and often become irritated when they see themselves getting confused about something. That’s not helping you in any way. So, instead, the right decision here is to become excited and exuberant whenever you are getting confused because you know that this is actually gonna be useful to you in the long run.

Now, having said that, this doesn’t mean you go into la-la land or stick with confusion all your life. That’s again what foolish people do—either they don’t get confused at all, or remain confused throughout their life. The right decision here is that firstly tackle confusion on a positive note. Secondly, don’t tangle yourself up in your mind alone. 

 

Write it Down To Improve Decision Making

Whenever confused, immediately take a paper and pen, and jot down the bullet points according to your situation, and scrutinize them with your core values of life. If you know what you want from your life in the long term, then you can easily make up which are the right decisions to take.

Looking at things this way will prevent you from making the wrong decision you would make by looking at just the short-term benefits and overlooking the malignant long-term effect. This will clear things out and declutter your mind from taking any external pressure or strain. But that’s what we don’t do. We think we are gonna sort it out in our tiny little minds only, which is why after a certain point we give up the whole darn thing because we can’t handle the tension.

Talking inside your mind can pile up the confusion in perpetuity instead of clarifying it out. Confusion isn’t the enemy, foolishness or call it laziness to not take the adequate steps to unconfuse yourself is the enemy. Confusion is like a mental workout for you. Don’t avoid it, don’t detest it. Start with a small workout session, and gradually your appetite for the workout will increase automatically as your mental muscles come in shape.

Avoiding confusion totally, or burdening yourself with a shit ton of confusion are both injurious to your health. You don’t go and immediately start doing 10 sets of bench press on your first day at the gym. You build up, slowly. And that’s what is required with your mind to make the right decisions. A problem is like a playground for your mind to play with to make it sharper, better, and smarter than before.

 

Stop Being an Emotional Fool

You gotta stop being an emotional fool. Taking decisions when you are high in emotions can make you vulnerable to all sets and kinds of troubles. I know it’s kinda enticing, tempting, and alluring to just give in to our emotions and feelings, and simply go with the flow. We like to make big ass promises when we are on cloud nine—we go all fast furious on someone totally innocent when we are angry—we are unable to think straight when we are morose. 

These small decisions, made at the wrong time can go a long way and cost you even more than you imagined in your wildest of dreams. Moreover, repentance and remorse will eat the living soul out of you for the rest of your lives. And trust me, there is no more poisonous venom than regret. You think, “only if I could have kept my calm”, “I wish I hadn’t got that excited”, “I wasn’t aware of what I was doing.”  

So, instead of letting the situation slip like this when all you can do is berate yourself and call yourself an idiot, you gotta train yourself to keep your calm in heated situations. When things get a little out of your hand when you kinda lose control of your mind, the best thing to do is to simply let the emotions pass by, instead of wallowing in them, because now you are aware of their destructive nature. 

These things require a ton of practice. You can’t expect to become Dalai Lama the very next second. Patience and perseverance are the keys to making the right decisions in situations like these. An activity as simple as taking a deep breath whenever you feel rushed into making a decision because you are inebriated of emotions can work wonders.

 

The Third Door to Make the Right Decisions 

You see, in order to make realistic decisions that are based on reality, which is free from biases and prejudices, one needs to eliminate himself from the scenario and look at it like your neighbor or a friend would—as a third person. That way when you make a decision, you will be neither overly optimistic nor insanely pessimistic—both of which are a recipe for disaster—and just be realistic and see the underlying situation as it is.

Just when you solve your friend’s dilemma or your relatives’ petty issues, you are able to give better solutions because you know you have got nothing to do with it and it isn’t gonna affect you. But when the same situation drops under our radar, we go apeshit. 

Now, I understand that you can say, “but when it comes to us, our decisions are gonna affect us in a major way, so how can we remove ourselves from the equation. ” You see, it is this exact thing that takes us off-course and makes us act like fools, the majority of times.

Our decision-making potential takes a hit and isn’t at its best capacity when it sees what’s at stake. Why do you think the doctors don’t try to involve emotions with the patients? Because he knows doing so will cloud his judgment and can jeopardize the whole operation. You see, his ability to be indifferent is what’s actually making him truly care for his patients. And that’s precisely what you need to start doing if you wanna make the right decisions in life.

So, whenever you are facing a conundrum and it’s time to make a decision, simply imagine a friend of yours who’s going through the exact same situation as yours, and then analyze all the variables and see what your friend should be doing. 

That decision is likely to be a thousand times better than what you would have made taking it all upon yourself. Either fear or greed would have totally shit the bed for you. But since what happens to your imaginary friend isn’t gonna directly affect you, you will have a better understanding of the pressing situation. 

Final Thoughts

At last, you gotta define—your central point, what you stand for, what kind of legacy you wanna leave behind, why you are doing what you are doing—if you wanna make quick and right decisions in life. Because once you are actually clear with the above questions, it becomes significantly easier for you to probe and inspect what kind of decisions will be beneficial for you in the long term.

For instance, if you have realized the fact and know it within your heart that you wanna live a peaceful and calm life, then you will automatically stay away from people who bring disturbance and uneasiness in your life, irrespective of the financial benefits they bring along with them. If you wanna be someone who wants to be known for their loyal character, then no matter how attractive the person you meet is, you are already clear about what you want from your life and who you actually are.

Confusion props up when two opposing thoughts clash—one of fear and another of greed. We see the profit of doing a particular thing but at the same time, the fear of getting caught or doing something illegal tends to hold us back. But like I said before, confusion isn’t the enemy. If you are confused for the better part of your life, then this generally means that you haven’t really decided yet what you deeply want from your life.

Well, don’t worry! Confusion is here to remind you of exactly that—to figure out what the hell you really want, to introspect, to ask the important questions about your life, to know who you are and what you stand for. Once you figure this out, then no amount of greed can lure you and fear can’t touch you. All in all, making decisions will become easy and life will become much more simpler and enjoyable.

 

 

 

Instead of going crazy about the ‘right decisions’, take Decisions and don’t stop until you make them right!