Making Business Decisions Part 2: 7 Ways to Make an Effective Decision

Previously, I talked about how to manage the voice of fear and doubt so it didn’t get in your way of making effective decisions.

Now that fear and doubt are no longer running the show, let’s look at 7 effective ways to make a business decision quickly and effectively:

1.  Use your intuition. 
Intuition is the most critical factor in decision making. Always use your intuition. If it’s not clear, use one of these other techniques I’m about to share, and then check in with your intuition again.

Sometimes intuition is just a very quiet “knowingness” or “certainty” in your gut or your heart, and you simply need to stop and listen. Sometimes it’s a huge feeling of certainty, or of excitement or inspiration.

Inspiration is the same as intuition. If you feel inspired by something, that’s coming from the “real you.” If it wasn’t the right decision for you, you wouldn’t feel inspired!

2.  Pro/con list. 
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet you’d be surprised how many people don’t do this. Get a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, list pros on one side and cons on the other. Then review your lists, and check in with your intuition.

3.  Jump to the end. 
Close your eyes. Let’s say you have two choices, choice A and choice B, and you can go either way. Imagine you’ve decided on choice A, and it’s 6 months in the future. What will your life look like? Where will you be, and what will you be doing? Really put yourself in that place, and make a mental movie. Write it down.
     
Then, imagine you’ve decided on choice B, and repeat the process. Make a mental movie of that. Compare the two movies. Which one do you want in 6 months? There’s your choice!

4.  Be who you want to be. 
Do you want to be a six figure, multi-six figure or even a 7 figure entrepreneur? Would you like to be a compassionate, powerful leader? Then imagine you already are! Make your decisions from that place. Ask yourself  “If I were a (fill in the blank), what would I do?” You can bet that’s going to be a powerful decision.

5.  Weigh your values 
When I was a Life Coach, I had a client once who was struggling with a decision on whether or not to give his cat away. I asked him: “What value are you honoring by keeping the cat? He said: “non-human love and companionship.” Then I asked him to rate how important that was to him on a 1-10 scale. He said “8.” 

Then I asked him what value he’d be honoring by giving the cat away. He said “I’m allergic to it.” So I had him rate how important personal health and well-being was on a 1-10 scale. He said “10.”

Seeing the two underlying values of “8” and “10” and rating them helped him make his decision. It was still difficult for him and he had mixed feelings, but it was right for him.

6.  Calculate the return on your investment
Fear and doubt loves to interfere with financial decisions. Don’t allow it to! Look at what your investment is, and then look at the potential long term gain. Remember to look over years, not  just the next 6 months.

It doesn’t have to be about money, either. Your investment could be time or energy, and your return could be opportunity or joint venture partnerships. Consider all that you might invest, and your total return.

7.  Just do it.
Just make the decision. Perhaps the biggest mistake people make is to think that they must be 100% certain of the decision before they make it. 80% is good enough! Do it!

You’ll always get where you’re going faster if you decide and then course correct as you go along, rather than stay stuck in indecision.

As Marilyn Kennedy said “It’s better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.”