We all have to make decisions in our life. We make hundreds of small decisions throughout our day. What should we have for lunch? Should I have another cup of coffee? Should I pick up supper or make it at home? These decisions are not usually life changers and are usually made pretty quickly and easily. But what about those big decisions? Those life changers. Should I take that new job? Should I move to another city? Should I have a baby now? Those are tough decisions to make. Below are a couple suggestions that may be helpful when trying to make a decision.

Identify the decision to be made

After realizing that a decision must be made, you then go through an internal process of trying to clearly define the nature of the decision you must make.

Gather relevant information

Most decisions require collecting pertinent information. Some information must be sought from within yourself through a process of self-assessment, while other information must be sought from outside books, people and a variety of other sources. What is it you need to know before you can make a decision? Is there anyone else that can help you make this decision?

Identify alternatives

Through the process of collecting information you will probably identify several possible paths of action, or alternatives. In this step of the decision-making process, you will list all possible and desirable alternatives. Generate several possible options. Make them creative and positive. How would you like the situation to be when it is resolved?

Weigh evidence

In this step, you draw on your information and emotions to imagine what it would be like if you carried out each of the alternatives to the end. You must evaluate whether the need identified in the first step would be helped or solved through the use of each alternative.   Are there alternative courses of action available to you? Evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and desirability of each option.

Choose among alternatives

Once you have weighed all the evidence, you are ready to select the choice that seems to be best suited to you.

Take action

You now take some positive action, which begins to implement the alternative you chose.

Some decisions are a simple matter of whether to make a change or not, such as moving, taking a new job, or buying something, selling something, replacing something, etc. Other decisions involve number of options, and are concerned more with how to do something, involving a number of choices. The use of the brainstorming process to identify and develop options for decision-making and problem-solving is an option for these type of decisions. You could ask your friends and family to help you in this process.

First you will need a separate sheet for each identified option.

1. On each sheet write clearly the option concerned, and then beneath it the headings ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ (or ‘advantages’ and disadvantages’, or simply ‘for’ and ‘against’). Many decisions simply involve the choice of whether to go ahead or not, to change or not; in these cases you need only one sheet.
2. Then write down as many effects and implications of the particular option that you (and others if appropriate) can think of, placing each in the relevant column.
3. If helpful ‘weigh’ each factor, by giving it a score out of three or five points (e.g., 5 being extremely significant, and 1 being of minor significance).
4. When you have listed all the points you can think of for the option concerned compare the number or total score of the items/effects/factors between the two columns.
5. This will provide a reflection and indication as to the overall attractiveness and benefit of the option concerned. If you have scored each item you will actually be able to arrive at a total score, being the difference between the pros and cons column totals. The bigger the difference between the total pros and total cons then the more attractive the option is.
6. If you have a number of options and have complete a pros and cons sheet for each option, compare the attractiveness – points difference between pros and cons – for each option. The biggest positive difference between pros and cons is the most attractive option.
7. N.B. If you don’t like the answer that the decision-making sheet(s) reflects back to you, it means you haven’t included all the cons – especially the emotional ones, or you haven’t scored the factors consistently, so re-visit the sheet(s) concerned.

Use whatever scoring method makes good sense to you for your situation. The example shows a low score method, but you can score each item up to 10, or 20 or 100, or an ‘A/B/C’ or three-star scoring method – whatever works best for you.

Decision Model

Now that you have a couple of tools at your disposal, good ahead and make that big decision.

References

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6162-decision-making.html

http://www.the-happy-manager.com/tips/steps-in-decision-making/

http://www.businessballs.com/problemsolving.htm