Decisions, Decisions
“Left or right?” he pondered aloud as we approached an intersection.
None of us were familiar with the area – or even with where we were going. It was before the time of smart phones and we didn’t have a GPS.
“Any ideas?” he asked as we got closer and closer to needing to make a choice.
After another moment of trying to decide, not seeing indicative road signs, and just generally not having a clue, I spoke up, “Right! Let’s go right!”.
As he turned right, he asked, “How do you know which way to go?”
“Umm, I’m not sure I do, I just knew we needed a decision, so I figured I could help with that, ” I responded hesitantly, but honestly.
Decisiveness is Learned
Decisiveness is quite important and has to be learned. The more decisions you make, the easier it will be to make your next decision. This is incredibly exciting to people like me, as decision-making can leave me feeling quite hung up!
“This or that?”
“I really don’t know what I want!”
“Do you have any preference what I choose?”
“Is there someone here who wants to make this decision for me?”
“No? Well, umm, let me think…!”
I once read that one of the most important things to master in life was the ability to make decisions. Yay, something I really need to work on! was my thought at the time. But bit by bit, decision by decision, I’ve found that decisiveness is progressively less complicated than I initially thought!
Choosing Your Decision
So how do you get to that stage of making deliberate decisions? Like all good things, my friend, it takes time and practice.
One thing that really helped me in the beginning was to have a decision ready before I was asked for it.
Often, we have a heads-up about a decision that needs to be made. Sometimes the decision is whether or not we want to go to town with everyone or stay home, go on a hike or wait at the vehicle, or even something as simple as what we want to eat at a restaurant. Decisions seem to be around every corner just waiting to be made!
So, after considering my options and possibly even consulting with my siblings or friends, I’d have my decision in place. Then when asked what I wanted to do, I could confidently say.
Now that I am (just the slightest bit!) older, decisions often have to be far more creative than before!
I no longer pick from a list of options, but rather the options are limited by my imagination! I do still like to run these ideas by others. We all have unique perspectives and experiences – and as the Bible says, “in abundance of counselors there is victory“! And most importantly, I pray about it! God is so good to give direction or cautions – we simply have to ask and pay attention for an answer!
Be Ready to Change
Decisions are handy things. Once made, if at all necessary, they can typically be changed. This doesn’t mean that I am encouraging you to sway back and forth in your decision-making process. I’m merely saying that the decisions that the average person has to make are pretty flexible.
A while back I was invited to bring my clothing boutique to a shop in town. A whole room was available to me and I had to decide what to take! First off, I made practical decisions – I’d only take season appropriate items and only one of each size garment. As time moved on, I had opportunity to change my mind about some items, retrieving them from the store and adding others in their place.
To me, decisions are much like the auto-pilot function. As I understand it, the auto-pilot function calculates where an airplane needs to go and directs it towards its destination. As the airplane gets closer, the auto-pilot will figure out how close it is to being on course, and adjust accordingly.
I’ve often seen this depicted in a drawing. There are two dots – one on the left and one on the right. The one on the left represents the airplane and the one on the right represents the destination. A straight line is drawn freehand from the airplane toward (but not all the way to) the destination. This charts the airplane in its flight. Usually the line is a bit low or high to its destination. Another line is drawn from the end of the first line towards the destination to correct the flight. Again this line is often a bit high or low of the destination, so more lines are necessary. But with enough adjustments the destination can be reached.
This is also true of decisions. Sometimes many adjustments are necessary before you accomplish your goal. Be willing to make these adjustments and to be flexible to the changes you need to make!
To Wrap it Up
Humorously, I don’t recall if we had to turn around due to a poor choice in direction in the story I shared above, but the moment stands out to me as important.
It is important to be able to make decisive, deliberate decisions. Truth be told, most of the decisions that we make are small, bite-size decisions, not to be intimidated by. Those are your building blocks and as you learn to make these decisions confidently, the larger decisions won’t appear nearly as overwhelming!
How do you handle decision-making? Does it come naturally to you or is it a learned strength? I’d love it if you’d share below!
Until Next Time!
Hope.
PS. Do you have a product or story you would like to share? I’d love to hear from you! Please email me at hope@theamericanlady.com.