The quality of your life is a function of the quality of your decisions. Consistently making good decisions results in a pretty good life.

By the same token, poor decisions leave us wishing that we'd made better decisions.

It's important to make decisions as quickly as possible, too. In most cases, taking longer than necessary to make up your mind leads to confusion and wasted time.

For the best results, your goal should be to make good decisions quickly.

Try these tips for making wise decisions in the shortest amount of time:

1. Know your values. If you're struggling to decide, there's an excellent chance that you're not clear about what's important to you. If you're torn between several options, think about your values and let your decision support them.

2. Give yourself a "gut check." Some choices simply feel better than others. It can be helpful to take a few moments and find a quiet place where you can be alone. Think about your choices and see what your body is telling you.

• That uncomfortable, queasy feeling that we've all experienced is a sign that you're probably not on the right track.

• Your gut can be a better tool than you might think. You've made many decisions over the course of your life. Some of them are better than others. Your subconscious has gained a lot of experience over the years. It will communicate with you, if you'll listen.

3. Get the information you need. Avoid trying to make decisions until you have any information that is critical to analyzing your options. Find out what you need to know.

4. Start tallying. Benjamin Franklin was an advocate of making decisions with lists of pros and cons. He admitted to making all his decisions in this fashion. So, make a list and see what you discover.

• By asking yourself questions, "What's good (or bad) about this?" it will lead you to new perspectives.

5. Get practice with less important decisions. It might be a little nerve-wracking to make important decisions quickly, so practice with less important decisions. Practice will strengthen your decision-making skills.

• Decide what you're going to have for lunch in ten seconds or less. Choose your clothes quickly.

6. Rely on chance. If you can't decide between multiple options and have tried everything else, why not give chance a chance? Consider that if you can't make up your mind, all the options are probably equally good or bad. Why waste any more time? Roll some dice or draw your options from a hat.

• Making a decision is almost always better than not deciding anything at all. If you can't figure out what to do, do something.

• Where there is no solution, there is no problem.

7. Give yourself a time limit. All tasks tend to take up the full amount of time allocated to them (Parkinson’s Law). If you had a school paper due in 2 months, were you working on it right away or did you wait over 7 weeks? If you tell yourself you have a month to make up your mind, it will surely take a month. Decide how much time you need and set a deadline.

It's important to be able to make wise decisions and stand by them. Good decisions can, indeed, be made quickly. In most cases, taking an excessive amount of time to make a choice rarely results in a better decision.

If you're clear about who you are, where you want to be, and where you're going, then making good decisions quickly isn't only possible, it's likely.

Not everyone is clear about who they are or where they want to go, let alone, how to get there. We help folks work that out.

As always,
Brian