There have many times in my life that I know that I have missed out on a good thing because I failed to be decisive at a critical point in time. There have also been times that I have suffered dire consequences from not making a decision at all or not making the right decision. You may not always make the right decision or the best decision, but that is not as important as just making a good decision and sticking to it.
People who are indecisive are indecisive because they are afraid that whichever decision that they make will not work. This is just not true. There is always more than one option for you to take in any given situation. Many times the consequences of different options are not that different from each other. It is during these times that we must learn to make a quick decision and stick to it. Sometimes you will have to be more deliberate in your decision making which is understandable, but dont waste time with things that you dont need to waste time with.
We all weigh the consequences of a decision before we make it. One thing that we can and often do wrong is to try to weigh each and every possible consequence. Normally if we look at three or four pros and cons of a situation we have looked at enough. Most times it is redundant to try to go any further.
Even the most indecisive of us make hundreds of decisions each day, Most are not very important at all but some of them will have either beneficial or grave consequences on our lifestyle. On the other hand most times a bad decision will only cause us minor inconvenience. Many times the situation which you find yourself in will dictate the decision that you make. If you are being chased by a bear you have to either stay there and be killed or run and hope to escape. That one is pretty much a no brainer. My question to you is how do you cope with having to make a difficult decision, or any decision at all for that matter? Can you screw up the courage to do what you need to do or do you waffle for half a day about the simplest thing?
One thing that I was taught while in the military was that you need to get moving on the project. You can continue to work things out as you go along but the key is to get started doing something. We can always go back and tear down each and every decision that we have ever made after it is all said and done so from that standpoint no decision is right or wrong. You can make a bad decision right if you exercise it vigorously enough, and by the same token you can mess up a good decision by failing to execute.
The key is to give seventy percent of the weight of the decision to the execution and only 30 percent of the weight to the facts. Dont try to weigh each and every circumstance because that will only slow you down in your execution. You must be flexible enough to deal with adversities and changes. Remember also that some of the best decisions ever made were ruined by unforseen events. You cannot plan for each and every possible contingency you just have to be ready for them when they do occur.
The points that I am making here are for the times when you have to make quick decisions. There will be tomes that you will have to make deliberate decisions. If you have a lot of time to make a decision take it by all means, but when you decide stick to your guns.
The absolute worst thing that you can do is to abandon a course of action once you are into it. Now there may come a time when you will have to. If that happens it means that a major catastrophe has struck somewhere. Once your wheels are set in motion you may be able to redirect them somewhat, but it will be almost impossible to stop them and change direction.
Riceland Enterprises
