5 (More) Tips on How to Make Decisions Like a Pro
The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your decisions
The best way to improve your life is to improve the quality of your decisions.
As I explained in my previous blog on decision-making, good decisions compound over time.
A 1% improvement in your decision-making today will elevate the quality of your life in ways that are hard to imagine.
So, let’s explore 5 more tips on how you can improve this important ability.
1. Know your desired outcome
Before making any decision, you need to know what the result could be. The potential of good and bad impacts how you will make any decision.
Even more importantly, you need to know what you want to result from this decision.
You will not reach your target if you do not know what your target is.
Once you know the desired outcome, you can reverse engineer which decision is most likely to get you there.
Chances are, there will be more than one possible path. Some of these paths will have a high potential for risk and a higher potential for a large reward.
These details matter when making important decisions.
Even if the decision is not important, it’s a good idea to practice pre-meditating your desired outcome so all decisions come to you quicker and are better.
2. Understand your biases
All of us, thanks to our biology, genetics, environment, how we grew up and many other factors, have biases that can affect our decision-making.
For example, most of us (thanks to evolution) are programmed to want to fit into social circles. This programming makes us want to protect our ego from being hurt. Protecting your ego can harm your decision-making ability.
Another good example is how your environment or how you grew up can affect your risk tolerance in decisions. If you grew up poor, you may take bigger risks because you aren’t afraid to go back to 0 again or maybe you don’t want to go back to 0 so you won’t take risks.
Being self-knowledgeable enough to take into account your personal biases can be immensely valuable when making decisions.
It can be the difference that protects you from making a life-ruining decision.
3. Gather relevant information
Knowledge is power. Especially when you are making important decisions.
Preparing for whatever arena you are playing in allows you to make better decisions. Those with the most information, and those who are able to sort through what information is relevant or not, are the ones who win.
Knowing what information is relevant is an ability that comes with time.
You will only improve this ability if you get used to gathering information in the first place.
Gathering information allows you to analyze the potential outcomes. It also allows you to evaluate the risks properly and compare them to similar scenarios of the past.
Information will help you win.
This can be tricky though as other people’s filters may be implemented on this information.
For example, if you only gather information from MSNBC or Fox, your info will be skewed in one direction or the next.
You should find a variety of trusted sources to let the information flow in. As you gather information, you can place your filters on it based on what you know best.
4. Figure out your timeline
When making any important decision, you need to know how much time you have.
A decision that can be put off for a while allows you to gather more information, contact important sources, and meditate on what you know.
However, a decision which needs to be made now means you may need to go with your first instinct. The good news is often this first instinct is right.
The quality of your first instinct will continue to improve the more you practice to make decisions.
But, you need to know whether you have to use your first instinct or not.
Figure out the timeline you have to work with before you make any important decision.
5. Trust your logic, regardless of the outcome
Every great risk-taker knows that you cannot always control the outcome.
Whether you are a basketball coach, professional poker player or investor, you can only make the best decision with the information and knowledge you have at that time.
Sometimes, that means you will make a losing decision. And sometimes, that losing decision was still the right decision.
That right! Your decision can be right and a losing one at the same time.
No scenario is 100% guaranteed.
So, trust your logic regardless of the outcome. You made this decision because it put the odds on your side.
But, even if those odds were 95% in your favour, you can still lose.
Once you know the outcome, you can use it as relevant information the next time you make a decision.
Chances are though, if your logic was sound in the first place, you would make the same decision all over again.
Closing thoughts
At the end of the day, decision-making is a skill that you will be working on for your entire life.
It is a skill that you will never regret taking the time to improve.
Very few people will ever be a decision-making master like Warren Buffet who can sit around reading all day and then make 1 important decision a week.
But, they can try.
You need to practice this skill daily, make the necessary adjustments, and continuously grow until you fulfill your potential.
Thanks for reading