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October 2004 I have quoted directly from the book to capture some of the salient points. Enjoy! Yes or No:
The Guide to Better Decisions Perhaps you do not always need to make the best decisions. For things to get better, we only need to make better decision. To make a better decision, I first stop proceeding with a poor decision....If you stop a poor decision and create a void, you can fill it with something better. Although it is often dangerous, we feel safer if we do not change what is familiar. Eventually, the ineffective but familiar way becomes accepted. To get there, we look at both sides of a decision by asking ourselves two questions - a practical question and a private one - and then we soon make our decision. I use my head by asking myself a practical question and I consult my heart by asking myself a private question. Then, after I listen to myself and others, I make a better decision and act on it. Use your head by asking the first question: ‘Am I meeting the real need, informing myself of options, and thinking it through?’ Most of us set out to go and get what we want. Usually it is because we do not know what we need. So we go off in the wrong direction. A want is a wish. A need is a necessity. A want is just an attractive distraction, which we may pursue but later find unfulfilling.... A need however is basic and nurturing. A need is what a situation requires. The key is focusing on the real need. Focusing means seeing a vision of only the results you really need and focusing on these results so clearly, and in such detail, that you can already see yourself achieving them. Do you think it would help you to focus if you wrote down, in great detail, the results that you needed, and looked at this often?...You focus by saying ‘no’ to whatever doesn’t help you achieve the real need and ‘yes’ only to what does. When I pursue only the real need, I am more decisive and I make better decisions sooner. To see what you merely want, ask yourself, ‘What do I wish I could do?’ To see what you really need ask, ‘Looking back on this, what would I like to have done?’ When you hear yourself say, ‘I have no other choice’, just smile at yourself and know you simply are not yet aware of your options. In our fear-frozen minds we sometimes think we have no other choice. It is merely a sign of our fear that has paralyzed us. If you want to know more, notice more....As I gather more information, I become more aware of my options. When I don’t know how to say ‘yes’ to a better decision, I can first say ‘no’ to a poor decision and stop doing what doesn’t work. Even if I do not know a better way, I will most likely fill this void I’ve created with something better. Looking closely at your previous decisions will teach you more than you can learn from anyone else....Our lives are shaped by decisions which we do not think are all that important at the time. But our decisions work like dominoes. Our ineffective decisions are based on illusions we believe at the time. Our effective decisions are built on realities we recognize. An illusion is a fiction we believe because we want to, even though it turns out to be false....To live in an illusion is to live with a constant dull pain. We know something is wrong but we do not want to know what it is. We deny it and hope it will go away, but it doesn’t. Our character is our collection of personal beliefs and how we act on them....My decisions reveal my beliefs. The private question concerns your personal beliefs about: 1. your integrity 2. your intuition and 3. your insight into your own worth.... The more aware you are of your own character, the more often you make better decisions. If you asked the people who cared about you, might they see your illusion? The sooner I see the truth, the sooner I make a better decision....Ask yourself ‘How do I feel about how I am making this decision?’ By personal observation you can teach yourself how your feelings at the time may forecast your results....To use your intuition it is important to look at how you feel as you are making your decision. Complex means there are many parts to the problem. Complicated means you cannot distinguish one part from the other....My feelings often forecast the consequences. My better intuitions are a source that provides an even greater wisdom for me than my own experience....If tuition means teaching, intuitions is what we have learned inside ourselves. Then better intuition is going beyond ourselves. Does my decision show me I really believe I deserve better?...The key to consistently making better decisions is to consciously choose to believe you really deserve better and to act on that belief....We often get the results we unknowingly believe we deserve. Ask yourself, ‘If I believed I deserved better results, what would I do?’ In each of us resides ‘a guide’ who is an internal mentor that each of us is given to show us our own wisdom. We are each our own guide to better decisions. |