How long do you usually need to decide on the best option?
How many times did you regret it?
Imagine this for a second:
You are in a restaurant holding a menu.
As you’re browsing through the list of delicious food you’re starting to realize you have absolutely no idea what you want to order.
You keep browsing thinking you’ll find something better than everything else and that you’ll know when to stop searching for that perfect meal.
A few minutes later, you find yourself at the beginning of the menu.
How many laps do you usually go through before you order the same thing you order every time?
Or worse, you pick something you know you don’t even like because your date or the waiter pressured you.
Now, this might not be the most important thing to you, if your not a serious foody.
But what happens with major decisions in your life that could change the course of everything for you and people close to you?
What do you do when you’re deciding between different houses to buy?
How do you know what business partner or project to choose?
How do you pick the right partner?
The reason why making this kind of decisions is difficult is because no matter which option you choose it’s going to have some positive AND some negative sides to it.
If you had just one option with all the benefits among others with all the disadvantages – it wouldn’t really be a choice, would it?
So how to know which option would you be most satisfied with?
Read these three steps carefully now – it may save you from a bad date or even from making one of the biggest mistakes of your life.
1. Make a list of all the possibilities
If you’re in a restaurant – they’re going to do this for you.
But for almost any other decision in your life, this is your job.
Create a list of every possible choice and write it down.
Using your whiteboard can help you see all of them more clearly.
2. Go through each one of them
Starting from the first one imagine you already made that choice.
With your minds’ eye see everything that would happen if this was your choice.
Hear every sound that could be there.
Feel any emotion or go through every state as if it’s happening at that moment.
Here’s a great tip: think longterm.
Now continue doing this for every choice possible while grading each experience.
3. Do the math
This part is pretty simple.
If you forgot which option made you feel best, look at the numbers.
This way it will be easy to embrace both the positive and negative sides to it.
You were already there in every possible scenario, and you know precisely how it plays out.
Now you’re free to enjoy your choice and move on to other goals and victories.
And if you think this will take too much of your time, imagine a yellow cloud.
How many seconds did that take?
