Decisions determine the course of your destiny. When you’re under stress, your decision making mechanism works in the defensive mode. Make it work to your advantage by doing it on paper.
Every day your body and mind make thousands, possibly millions of decisions. Every cell in your body makes its own decision on what to assimilate and what to eliminate. Every moment your brain decides whether to keep doing what it is doing now or to change course.
But one special category of decisions – important, conscious decisions of great potential consequence to your life – should never be done in your head.
You work where you work and live where you live because of your decisions. But look back and reflect for a minute: did you ever sit down and consciously decide on where you wanted to work and live and, if you did, did you do it on paper?
Probably not. And if you’re not quite happy with where you work and live, blame your decisions for it. If you make decisions on autopilot, your life is lived on autopilot.
I hope I have by now made a good case for making decisions consciously and on paper.
Stress Makes Your Decision-Making Ineffective
Well, it is effective only in a sense that it protects you from harm by making you avoid any risk-taking. The more stress you’re under, the more defensive your nervous system and your mind. Their job becomes protecting you from any change that could make things worse.
For example, if you are working at a job that you hate, and you’re stressed to the point of breakdown, your mind goes, “well, if you lose this job, it will be even worse, because then you’ll be homeless and die from starvation.”
And this vibration of thought impulses will keep you from making decisions (or even allowing choices) that could help you get out of the situation that is slowly killing you. In other words, your stressed mind prefers dying slowly to dying in a moment.
your stressed mind prefers dying slowly to dying in a moment
Mobilize Yourself by Making Decisions on Paper
When you sit down, with a pen and paper to make a decision, you’re telling your mind that this time this is serious and that you want to make the best possible decision. In other words, you’re mobilizing your psychological resources for a quality decision-making session.
Rather sophisticated methods of making decisions exist, and I definitely recommend some of them (such as a unit on decision-making in Tony Robbins’s program Time of Your Life – it’s awesome).
But I suggest you start simply and would like to give you a nice step-by-step sequence.
Making Decisions on Paper
Step 1. Identify your goal with as much clarity as possible.
What do you really want to happen – now, 90 days from now, one year from now?
Clarity is power, and most people never clarify what they want for themselves when making decisions. No wonder they end up where they don’t really want to.
You may say, but Philip, I have no idea what I want. Okay. Do you know what you don’t want? Great. Start with that and try to think of the opposites. Those are the things you most likely do want.
Now, you don’t have to go through an entire goal-setting session. Only think in terms of the area where you’re making a decision. If you trying to figure out whether to join a health club or a karate school, identify your health and confidence goals. Makes sense?
Step 2. Gather all the facts.
Well, not all the facts, but all the facts you can think of pertaining to this decision. What is the reality now?
To continue the example of health and confidence:
“I am 30 lbs overweight and have no energy. I barely have any time to workout, etc.”
Just ask the questions and write down the answers – what is the problem? What is the reality now?
Step 3. List all available options.
Look, if you think you have only one choice, you have no choice. Create some choices for yourself. For example,
- I could join a health club
- I could sign up for karate or mma
- I could go in for yoga
- I could try one of each and see what I like best
See how this works? Give yourself some options. And I hope you are writing down all these answers. This is not meant to be done in your head. Do it on paper.
Step 4. Prioritize the options.
Just go down the list and, considering all the information you’ve just written down, put a number next to each option – from 1 up.
Don’t worry – just trust yourself, and your mind will tell you what your priorities are.
Step 5. Decide.
Look at the list. The option that has number 1 next to it is your best choice. Just decide on it and take action.
No more thinking, no more hesitating. You just figured it all out. There is no more point of trying to figure it out further in your head because it will never be as effective as what you just did on paper.
Any desire to stray from the obvious choice is now just fear talking. But that’s exactly why you made your decision on paper – to avoid the tricky and stressed out mind.
Hope you take this to heart, my friend.
Till next time,
Philip S.
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