“Determining whether a decision is good or bad means examining the quality of the beliefs informing the decision, the available options, and how the future might turn out given any choice you make.” Annie Duke
Making decisions can feel like a very complex task, or it can feel very easy… it depends. The reality is that we make small decisions and big decisions almost every minute of every day. The decision to get out of bed, the decision to read this blog. Generally, most people spend more time and follow a process, whether conscious or unconscious, when the decision has bigger consequences in their life. Having said that, everyone has a story of either their own or someone they know who made a huge decision on what appears to be ‘spur of the moment’, with the follow up that it was not the best decision or that it was the best decision.
The question becomes about the results of the decision. Annie Duke’s message is that we tend to determine whether something was a good decision or a bad decision based on the outcomes. However, how useful is that? The outcome happens after the decision, what is more important is what is your process for making decisions? What information do you collect? Do you look at the potential outcomes of that decision and determine the likelihood of those various options?
A useful exercise might be going back over those previous decisions and having a look at some of the possible outcomes and determining whether it was just luck, circumstance or specific action that created the outcome.
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