How to make decisions
Sometimes decision making is easy – do you want your eggs scrambled or poached? Coffee or wine? Get up or sleep in a little longer? Other times we struggle a little more – should we get a dog? Do I want to go back to work? Which school should I send my child to?
Why is it so hard to make a decision sometimes?
The main reason why it can be hard to make decisions is because we put pressure on ourselves to make the ‘right’ decision. We think that it is possible we could make the ‘wrong’ decision and end up regretting it. We are trying to avoid a situation in the future where we are thinking ‘I shouldn’t have done that’ and blaming ourselves for our ‘bad’ choice.
The good news is that there is no such thing as a ‘right’ or a ‘wrong’ decision. Decisions are neutral – we only make them ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ by the way we choose to think about them. If this is starting to sound a little ‘life-coachy’ for you – stay with me…
Around 4 years ago we decided to get a puppy. We’d been talking about it for years, we all wanted a dog, the kids were now both at school, life was meant to be ‘easier’ (you can see where this is going). Seems like a good decision, right? Enter adorable mini-groodle, Buffy. Now we weren’t going into this completely blind – we knew there’d be some ‘teething’ issues (quite literally), but it’d be all part of the fun. Fast forward 2 months and we’ve cleaned up countless indoor accidents, had to put back up baby gates to protect the carpet upstairs, given up trying to protect the coffee table from sharp puppy teeth, and said goodbye to lush, green lawns forever. All of that combined with one struggling kindergartener who needed extra help and attention meant that something had to give – and that something was my post-graduate study for 6 months.
At that moment in time I could easily (and probably did) think we had made the ‘wrong’ decision in getting a dog. The story I just told you and the one I told myself at the time created a lot of stress, frustration and overwhelm. Of course it sounds like the wrong decision if I choose to think about it that way.
The story I tell now is a very different one. Getting a dog was one of the best decisions we ever made. I adore him – he even has his own Instagram page (@buffy_the_minigroodle for those who are interested!). Yes, sometimes I still wonder what we did when we got a dog – like every time I nearly twist my ankle falling in a new hole he’s dug in the yard, but mostly I wouldn’t change a thing.
Decisions are not inherently ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – you make them right or wrong by what you choose to focus on.
Now that the pressure is off, what do you decide?
