Tag Decide

Making Better Decisions

Steve Keating 2 Comments

It has been said that every decision we make, makes us. I believe that is true. It’s also true that the better our decisions the better our lives will be. Yet, many people struggle to make decisions. Their progress in life is hampered because they can’t, won’t or are simply afraid to decide. What they often fail to realize is that not making a decision is in fact a decision. It’s a decision to do nothing. That’s almost always a bad decision. 

It’s almost impossible to “fix” a decision that wasn’t made. When you make a bad decision all you have to do is make a better decision to fix it. Making more and better decisions is a valuable skill that can be developed through practice and a thoughtful approach. Here are some steps to help you improve your decision-making abilities.

  1. Define the decision: Clearly understand the decision you need to make. Identify the problem or opportunity you’re facing and define the desired outcome or objective.
  1. Gather information: Collect relevant information and data related to the decision. This might involve conducting research, consulting experts, or analyzing past experiences. Ensure you have a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing the decision.
  1. Identify alternatives: Generate a range of potential options or solutions to consider. Avoid limiting yourself to just one or two choices. Brainstorm different possibilities and explore creative alternatives.
  1. Evaluate the pros and cons: Assess the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative. Consider the potential risks, benefits, costs, and consequences associated with each option. Consider the consequences of the consequences but don’t paralyze your decisions making ability by over analyzing. You must find balance here. Prioritize the factors that are most important to you or align with your objectives.
  1. Consider your values and priorities: Reflect on your personal values, beliefs, and long-term goals. Ensure that the decision aligns with your principles and supports what matters most to you. Sometimes, it may be necessary to make trade-offs or compromises. But, and this is big, do not compromise on your core values. Fight for them. If they aren’t worth fighting for then they aren’t really core values to begin with. 
  1. Analyze the potential outcomes: Project the potential outcomes of each alternative. Consider the short-term and long-term consequences and how they align with your objectives. Assess the likelihood of success or failure for each option.
  1. Seek diverse perspectives: Engage with others who have knowledge or experience related to the decision. Seek different viewpoints, feedback, and advice. This can help you gain valuable insights, challenge your assumptions, and identify blind spots.
  1. Trust your intuition: Intuition can play a role in decision-making, particularly when you have relevant experience or expertise. Listen to your gut feelings, but also balance them with rational analysis and evidence.
  1. Make a decision: After weighing the information, alternatives, and perspectives, make a choice. Avoid excessive hesitation or indecisiveness. Trust yourself and have confidence in your ability to make sound decisions.
  1. Take action: Implement your decision and follow through with the necessary actions. Develop a plan, set deadlines, and allocate resources as needed. Be adaptable and willing to adjust your course if new information or circumstances arise.
  1. Evaluate the decision: Once you’ve implemented your decision, evaluate its effectiveness. Assess the outcomes and learn from the experience. Determine what worked well and what could be improved for future decisions.
  1. Reflect and learn: Continuously improve your decision-making skills by reflecting on past decisions and learning from your successes and failures. Seek feedback and seek opportunities to refine your approach.

Remember, decision-making is a process, and it’s normal to make mistakes. Sometimes you won’t need this entire process. Sometimes you’ll use all of it but the process will be brief. Sometimes, the process will require a significant investment of time. 

In any event they key is to make a decision. But, it’s not really a decision until you act on it. Acting on a decision is vital to effective decision making. By consistently practicing and refining your decision-making abilities, you can enhance your skills and make more informed and effective choices over time.

And remember, the better your choices, the better your life!

Making Better Decisions

Steve Keating 1 Comment

Somebody really smart once said that our lives our made from the choices we make. I believe, good or bad, we are all only one decision away from a completely different life. That means we need to be certain we are making the best decisions possible in our life. 

Making decisions is a complex process. It involves weighing various factors and considering the potential consequences of each option. Some decisions are so complex that many people decide not to make them at all. But deciding to not decide IS a decision. 

It’s a decision to allow other people or random circumstances to choose your life’s course for you. That hardly ever works out well. So YOU need to decide, even with all the risks that can come with a decision you’re better off deciding than not. 

So here are some steps you can follow that are likely to help you make better decisions.  They can also remove some of the stress associated with decision making. 

  • Identify the decision: Start by identifying the decision you need to make. It’s important to be clear about what you want to achieve and why you need to make the decision.
  • Gather information: Once you have identified the decision required, gather as much information as you can about the options available to you. This could include research, advice from others, and your own experiences. Sometimes you’ll need to “trust your gut” when making decisions. Know that your “gut” is likely a life experience that you have forgotten but your subconscious mind has not. You almost certainly know more than you realize, trust yourself. 
  • Evaluate the options: Consider the pros and cons of each option. Think about the potential benefits and risks of each choice, and assess how well each option aligns with your goals. Go deep here, consider the consequences of the consequences of the consequences. Play the “what if” game. What if this happens? What if that happens? Good decision makers are seldom surprised by an outcome of their decisions. That’s because they have considered all the possibilities. 
  • Make a decision: Based on the information you have gathered and the evaluations you have made, choose the option that best aligns with your goals. 
  • Take action: Once you have made your decision, take action to implement it. This may involve communicating your decision to others, taking steps to put your plan into action, and monitoring your progress. You may have felt a weight lifted off your shoulders when you made your decision but you need to understand, it’s not a real decision until you act upon it. 
  • Evaluate the results: After you have taken action, evaluate the results. Assess whether your decision has led to the outcomes you were hoping for, and whether you need to make any adjustments or changes going forward. I like to assume that some adjustments will be needed. Having to make adjustments is not the sign of a bad decision, it is a part of making your initial decision even better. 

The better your decisions the better your life will be. You make tons of decisions everyday. Most are made subconsciously. Some of those can have a bigger impact on our lives than we realize but it’s the ones that keep us up at night that really matter. Don’t allow other people or circumstances to make those decisions for you. You are better off making a wrong decision that you can fix rather than surrendering control of your life to someone else’s poor decisions that you can’t fix. 

Make your decisions fearlessly. Know full well that you are in control of your life and you’re only one decision away from having exactly the life you want. 

Vacuum Packed Decisions

Steve Keating

Some decisions are easy to make. Some decisions are harder. Some decisions require a little information to make. Some decisions require a lot of information and some require a lot more than a lot. 

But every decision is a better decision when the information required to make the decision comes from multiple sources. Not all the information will be equally valuable. Some may even be worthless. But considering, if only for a moment, the value of information eventually deemed worthless makes for a more informed decision.

But some people in leadership positions disagree with that philosophy. They believe only their input is required. They believe they have enough experience, enough knowledge and good enough instincts that they don’t need additional viewpoints.

They are wrong. They are wrong even if the decision they made turns out to be right.

When people in leadership positions make decisions in a vacuum they demoralize their teams. They deny them the opportunity to learn how decisions are made. Their teams may begin to believe that vacuum packing decisions are the proper way to make decisions.

When people in leadership positions make decisions in a vacuum they deny themselves access to varying viewpoints and different life experiences. They lose all the experience that the members of their team bring to the organization.

When people in leadership positions make vacuum packed decisions they make poorer decisions. They hinder the growth of their organization and their people.

Authentic Leaders seek advice and consul from a wide variety of sources and people. They combine other people’s experience with their own and they have the courage to admit when someone else’s input makes more sense than their own.

Authentic Leaders make better decisions as a result. Even when the decision is wrong. The extra input and variety of viewpoints provide the Authentic Leader with fallback options when the initial decision goes off the rails.

A decision that provides the decision maker with additional options and alternatives is a great decision.

If you’re in a leadership position ask for input. It is not a sign of weakness it is a sign of courage and strength. And don’t ask for input only from those who think like you. Go after some far out thinking because if it does nothing else it will strengthen your confidence in the decision you ultimately make. But you never know, it may turn out that it’s not so far out after all, maybe it will help you make a much better decision than you otherwise would have.

Vacuums are good for cleaning up. They are not so good at helping someone make a decision. Unseal your brain and let some fresh ideas in now and then. The people affected by your decisions will thank you.

Change the Trajectory of Your Life

Steve Keating 8 Comments

A little kid walks into a candy store with his dad and was amazed by the variety of treats to choose from.

 

“What should I choose? What should I choose? What should I choose?” He asked himself.

 

“Come on son, we don’t have all day,” his dad said.

 

“These are my favorites. No wait, these are my favorites.” He walked along the aisles, picking up bags and putting them back. He just couldn’t make up his mind.

 

“Come on son, make up your mind, we have to go,” his impatient dad said.

 

Frantically, the boy ran around the store, his eyes moving from one shelf to another, but all of the options looked so good and he couldn’t make a decision.

 

Eventually, the dad had enough, grabbed his son by the hand and they walked out of the store empty-handed. The young boy had tears in his eyes. He wanted them all, but ended up with nothing because he couldn’t choose just one.

 

At some point or another we have all been that little kid. The world we live in is that candy store and sadly, some people never do decide.

 

There are a ton of decisions to be made but if we don’t make a decision about our career, education, relationships, investments, church or other important issues, we end up empty-handed. 

 

Sometimes we worry about making the wrong choice so we just decide to delay the decision. Well, that delay is a decision. It’s a decision to not decide and that is almost always the wrong decision.

 

You are perhaps only one decision away from changing the entire trajectory of your life. If you’re not where you want to be it’s likely because of decisions you’ve made in the past or perhaps you’re where you are because of decisions you didn’t make. 

 

If you’ve hesitated to make that decision then that’s on you. It’s your life, you should be deciding as much as possible who and what is in it. 

 

Deciding isn’t all that hard. Making a decision however can be very challenging. What’s the difference you ask…well deciding is choosing to do something. Making a decision is actually doing it. 

 

No matter what you decide it’s not really a decision until you take action to make it happen. Good intentions are not a decision. 

 

Making a decision requires discipline. Discipline is best described as wanting something more tomorrow than the something you want today. Think of it like this: you want to weigh less tomorrow but you have ice cream in the freezer today. If your desire to weigh less is greater than your desire for ice cream then you’ll avoid the freezer. If not, well then enjoy the ice cream. 

 

Good decisions come from discipline. Bad decisions frequently come from a lack of discipline.


When you’re ready to change the trajectory of your life you’ll find the discipline you need to do it. Don’t just decide to do something, make the decision to actually do it. 


Do This….When You Don’t Know What to Do

Steve Keating 1 Comment

Most people, maybe all people, certainly me, experience times in their life where they don’t know what to do. That doesn’t make them weak people. That doesn’t make them dumb people. It also doesn’t make them less likely to succeed…. unless they do nothing because they don’t know what to do. 

 

Hopefully you have someone in your life that you can bounce ideas and problems off of. It could be a coach or a mentor. Possibly a close friend or family member. The importance of having someone in your life that you trust enough to share anything with cannot be overstated. If you don’t have that person or even better, people, then you need to find one. 

 

But sometimes, even with help, your next move can be hard to determine. You’re not sure what to do next. 

 

Because that’s happened to me from time to time I’ve received lots of advice on the subject. One time when I had to choose between two options and deciding seemed hopeless, one of my mentors told me to flip a coin. I said that the decision was too important for something as frivolous as flipping a coin. 

 

He told me that it wasn’t at all frivolous because when that coin was in the air I’d know exactly which way I wanted it to land. I still wanted to dismiss his suggestion but somehow I knew he was right…and he was. So I flipped the coin and said if it was heads I’d do this and if it was tails I’d do that. It came up tails and I didn’t want that so I decided that it was such a big decision I should do two-outta-three. It was then that I knew exactly which way I wanted to go. 

 

As clever as that was I still find it a little ridiculous to make a major life decision on a coin flip. So I sometimes use advice from Benjamin Franklin. 

 

When the very wise Ben Franklin was asked for advice he would tell people he couldn’t decide for them but he did share his own decision making “tool.” He advised people to take a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On one side of the paper he said to list the reasons for doing something and on the other side of the paper list the reasons for not doing it. 

 

Then he said, and this is the key advice, he said to NOT count the things on either side, he said to weigh them instead. Seeing the reasons on paper made them more concrete and real. You could have 12 reasons on the “do not” side verses 2 on the “do” side but if the 2 outweighed, or mattered more, than the 12, you knew your decision was to “do.” 

 

When I share how to use Ben’s tool today I let people know it’s okay to take several days to list your reasons on that paper. As you ruminate over a decision keep that paper nearby and track your reasons for and against, you’ll have your answer in relatively short order.

 

But sometimes even when using that tool the “weight” of the decision is equal and you just won’t know what to do. 

 

So do this.

 

Do the next right thing. You may not know completely what to do or what not to do but somewhere in you the knowledge of the next right thing to do exists. Doing the next right thing may not get you to where you need to be but it will get you closer. 

 

I can tell you from personal experience that doing the next right thing is a lot harder than it sounds. I’ve often convinced myself that I didn’t know the next right thing to do because I just didn’t want to do it. I wanted to do the easier thing. 

 

Right leads to success. Easy leads to…well it doesn’t lead to success, at least not real, lasting success. 


The knowledge of the next right thing to do lives inside of you. The only question is do you have the courage that is often required to do it. 

You’re Not Always Right

Steve Keating 4 Comments

One of the top two or three characteristics of great leaders is excellent judgment. Their decisions are right far more often than they are wrong. Those decisions produce favorable outcomes for their organizations and their people. Not only are they right far more than they are wrong, almost all of their biggest decisions, the crucial ones, are spot on.

 

Almost.

 

No one can be right all the time. 

 

I love confidence in a leader so long as that confidence is tempered with an understanding that being right often and being right always are not the same thing. I’m guessing a little bit here because I’ve never been right so often that I’ve become overconfident in my judgment. But I’ve seen several instances where a leader has been right so often that they apparently forget what it was like to be wrong. 

 

That leads some to believe they can no longer be wrong. That’s an extraordinarily dangerous way of thinking. 

 

As a leader it is imperative that you never forget what it feels like to be wrong. When you lose that feeling it can lead to sloppy decision making. You no longer take the time required to gather the facts necessary to make good decisions. You can begin to assume too many things. You fall into the often fatal trap of thinking that your future is merely an extension of your recent past. You conclude that because “all” of your past decisions were correct that all your decisions are and will continue to be correct. 

 

You stop listening to the people who helped you make those good decisions in the past and decide to be your own counsel. That decision often leads to more wrong decisions but by this time you’re on your own. You have no one left to tell you how wrong you are. That downward spiral is difficult to stop. The good news is that it’s not impossible to stop. You must push yourself back to the basics of sound decision making and never leave that foundation again. No matter how many great decisions you make. 

 

The best leaders are confident and bold in their decision making but never to the point of assuming that they can’t be wrong. They know that they can be as wrong as anyone else. They put great effort into doing every bit of the due diligence required to supply their excellent judgment with the facts required to make great decisions. 


As it turns out one of the best ways to be sure you’re right is to at least consider the possibility that you could be wrong. Decide that you too can be wrong about most anything and you’ll be on your way to being right a whole lot more often. 

Death by Indecisiveness

Steve Keating 13 Comments

I’m not sure if there is anything more useless than a leader who cannot or more likely, will not, make a decision. 

 

I know that sounds harsh but I’ve really held that belief since I was a seventeen year old High School senior. As a Senior Officer in my Military High School I had the responsibility of overseeing the small bore rifle range for a Freshman military class. 

 

One day a student’s rifle misfired and the student turned toward me looking for instructions on what to do. (We had only explained the proper procedure 1000 times) As he turned toward me the barrel of his rifle also tuned toward me and I hesitated to give direction for a split second. That was long enough for the round in the chamber to go off striking me in the foot. 

 

I was fortunate on many levels. I was wearing boots which helped and the round was only a .22 caliber, plus the 14 year old Freshman had kept the barrel of his weapon pointed toward the ground. It was a relatively minor injury and at the time I was more upset about my boot than my foot. 

 

But I was also unfortunate. I was unfortunate (in hindsite also foutunate) in that the active duty military person on the range that day was Sergeant Major Stock. To say that he was mad would be the understatement of my entire four years of High School. 

 

Funny thing was, he wasn’t mad at the kid who shot me; he was furious with me. He was furious because he said my indecision, as brief as it was, could have gotten me killed. 

 

I stood there with blood oozing out of my boot while he screamed at me about the importance of making decisions. I distinctly remember him “explaining” that even a wrong decision was better than no decision. He said that in fact a “no decision” was a decision, it was a decision to not decide and that was a sure way to lose all control over a situation. 

 

He said that even when you make a wrong decision you retain control over changing it, improving it, or fixing it. He said doing something, deciding something, was always better than doing nothing or deciding nothing. ALWAYS! I think he actually said always like a dozen times, each time a little louder than the previous. 

 

Needless to say the whole thing made quite an impression on me and I’ve never forgotten the lesson I learned that day. It’s probably why I have so little patience for people who claim to be leaders and then show little ability or desire to make even small decisions.

 

Perhaps they believe they are playing it “safe” by not making a decision but in fact, they couldn’t be more wrong.

 

The inability to make a decision is as serious a flaw as a leader can have. It has killed as many careers as dishonesty, stupidity and lack of good judgment combined. 

 

I’m not suggesting that anyone make decisions on a whim. I’d highly recommend that a leader get as many facts regarding a particular situation as possible before making a decision. You may not have all the facts you would like to have but once you get all the facts that you’re going to get in a reasonable amount of time then you need to make a decision. DECIDE! It’s what leaders do. 

 

There are a lot of reasons that people in leadership positions hesitate when making decisions, the fear of making a bad decision, the fear of making someone mad or disappointing them and the fear that you just don’t know the right choice to make. I get all of that but none of those are valid reasons for delaying what needs to be done, they are merely excuses for avoiding a major responsibility of leading.

 

If you really don’t have the confidence or ability to make a decision then find a coach or mentor who can help you develop that critical skill. I know as a leader you will be required to make decisions that impact the lives of those you lead. I know that is not easy. Leading, truly leading, is not easy. 


But if you’re going to have the audacity to label yourself a leader then you have to make decisions. You simply must! Always, always, always……