Tag: decision making

• How to achieve your desired goals?

  With the new year, lots of resolutions and promises to oneself must have come up. The reality is that setting these goals is just one step, the question of how to achieve these desired goals is often confusing, but if we break it down and simplify it then we can see how these goals are achievable and even begin to enjoy the process.

  The first and foremost step is to understand, visualize and define the steps towards your goal. More often than not, we set high aims in our life which is a great thing, and then get excited by that dream, but the actual process of working seriously and consistently towards that dream is not always necessarily glamorous and as a result we lose motivation too quickly and become disappointed. The important thing is to understand that if you want to achieve that dream you have, you have to struggle for a period of time doing things that you might not be necessarily happy with at the moment but still contributes to your dream. When you modify your thought process like this, you will start to see almost everything in life as either a healthy contribution to your dreams or as something that takes you a step away from your dream, thereby, keeping you on track by the virtue of your thought process.

  Another helpful habit that you can adopt is to attain clarity on what kind of goals you are setting, whether it is short term or long term, and to asses your own strengths and weakness. This kind of clarity combined with an optimistic viewpoint will allow you to harness your strengths when needed and to work on your weakness. For example, if you are looking for a job in a country that you have been dreaming about, but you don’t have the language skills required to stay in that country, then identifying this can give you an opportunity and time to develop the language skills to work in your dream country.

  Lastly, it comes down to your actions every day. Incorporate the activities and work that you need to do to achieve your desired goals in your daily life without letting it overwhelm you. The activities can also be an indirect contribution to your dreams which you can do even when you are relaxing in the day. For example, if you want to use social media, you can look up relevant articles or Quora threads that are related to your field just to read every night. Alternatively, you can watch Youtube videos or pick up a new skill that might not be directly related to your field but can contribute to your goals one day.

  Thus, when you start looking at multiple goals, prioritize them and break them down into long and short term goals, then almost all the activities and habits that you take up in your life will either be directly or indirectly geared towards them, thus allowing you to move forward in achieving your goals. This is not a one time effort, its a continuous journey that you are embarking upon, hence it will take time, patience and lots of self-motivation, but soon it will begin to change how you look at life and hence make the journey of achieving your goals enjoyable and an enriching learning experience.

  If you found this interesting then you might enjoy our article on a fresh new perspective on defining your goals.

  Some books that you can read on this topic are listed below:

  Creating Your Best Life by Caroline Miller

  The Book of Mistakes by Skip Prichard

  January 9, 2020

  achieving dreams, achieving goals, decision making, goals, mistakes, motivation, new year resolution, reaching goals, success

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• How To Improve Your Decision Making Skills

  Did you ever make a choice that you regret now? Are you wondering how to make future choices with minimum regrets? Then read on to know more about becoming good at decision making.

  Before we understand how to make good decisions, we need to understand why confusion occurs in the first place while decision making.

  Some of the reasons why one gets confused while taking decisions:

  Unclear thoughts

  There are so many thoughts that go through our head every second. We aren’t even aware of some of these thoughts.

  Some of these thoughts never completely materialize no matter how important they are to us. Sometimes we don’t let a thought completely form in our mind, the thoughts become unclear to us and hence leads to confusion while making a decision.

  Dilemmas

  Each choice has its own pros and cons. We face a dilemma because we need to accept the cons of one choice and let go of the pros of the other choice. This will always be difficult and hence we stall the decision-making process.

  Head vs heart

  Sometimes, our emotions point us in one direction and our rational thinking points us in the other direction. In other words, our desires influence us to lean towards one choice and our rationality favors a different choice. This leads to a large amount of confusion and struggle, especially when you are not clear about your priorities.

  We don’t give importance to our thoughts

  While making a decision, every single reason and thoughts we have regarding the decision is important. But given the plethora of information we have and out of a fear of what others may think, we sometimes don’t listen to our inner voice and then we feel uncomfortable with a decision that we make.

  The most common advice we hear and how to actually use it?

  When we are confused and seek other’s help, most people use the following phrases “It’s up to you to decide which way you want to go” or “That totally depends on you”, or “You should decide which one you want”.

  It brings us right back to the starting point of the whole decision-making process. But somewhere, there is a fundamental truth in that advice that we often overlook.

  The key is to start looking within yourself, your emotions, your goals, and your thought process. Once, you understand that you can begin making decisions that will have a positive impact on your life.

  

  How to improve your decision-making skills?

  So now that we know why we get confused while making decisions and how to use the advice that we get. We can look at some strategies to improve our decision-making skills.

  1- Accept the confusion

  First, accept that you are not sure about what to choose or what you want. It will push you to search for more defined answers about the choices and about yourself.

  2- Focus on the aspect of certainty

  Every choice has some uncertainty associated with it. So, don’t worry about the uncertainty and focus on what you know for sure, regarding the decision. Focusing on the uncertainty will only hold us back and keep us worried.

  3- Listen to the response of your body

  Think of each choice and just observe how your body responds to each of the choices. Do you feel a pit in your stomach when you think of a certain choice, or does your breathing rate rise due to excitement?

  Positive intuitions and vibes manifest in the following way – breathing becomes easy, chest and shoulders are relaxed, the gut is calm, feels safe, and energized

  Negative intuitions and vibes manifest in the following way – Sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, shoulder muscles tighten, sense of darkness, pressurized, agitation, feeling drained.

  4- Get creative

  We may be limiting ourselves to choice A and choice B. We think we have no other choice other than these. But we tend to forget that we can create a choice C that has the good parts of both the choices.

  5- Take a small step in one direction

  Take a small step in one direction and evaluate your thoughts on the developments. Your state of mind could change after acting on one of the choices. Your thoughts may be clearer and the new developments will make it apparent which choice you actually prefer.

  Finally, you have to remember that every confusion is a challenge thrown at you to better define yourself. Most of our confusion is not between the choices, it’s between the different people we could be while making those choices. 

  Give importance to every small desire that your inner self-tells you. You can never be sure that a choice is going to be perfectly right for you in every way. But make the choice after putting your best effort to understand yourself and your choices. After all according to the famous Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard – “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forwards.”

  Making a choice isn’t easy, but choosing what works for you and makes you happy will minimize the chances of regretting your decisions.

  July 17, 2018

  choices, confusion, decision, decision making, decision making skills, making choices, problem solving, skills

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