You have weathered the storms and now you are planning for tomorrow. It is very important to understand the information you have gathered, as well as your own decision-making. Here, we discuss asking the right questions, testing our assumptions, knowing our goals, knowing our criteria, and knowing our decision rules.
Ask the Right Questions
Asking the right questions often divides the successful from the unsuccessful. Asking the right questions is a skill to be developed.
Ask the Right Questions
Coyote will sort everything out for you, more or less. Will I meet the perfect one? Where did I leave those mice? Can’t wait for the full moon—then I’ll decide. One gopher a day—no more, no less! How time flies! S. Gullikson
Test Underlying Assumptions
There is a business technique called “assumption surfacing and testing.” It means that we look at our decisions, find what assumptions they are based on and then test those assumptions for validity. Are you closing off options because of faulty assumptions?
Know Your Goals
By now, hopefully you have some insight about your goals. If not, think about what you want your life to look like in one year, in five years, in twenty years. Visualize it, write about it, draw it, or do whatever helps to clarify your vision.
Know Your Criteria
When deciding on future actions, can you identify four or five criteria to guide you? For instance, when deciding where to move, I assessed the distance to my family, the weather, the proximity to consulting jobs, and where I felt socially comfortable.
Understand Your “Decision Rule”
Decision rules help us to make decisions - simple as that. We might have one criterion, such as “my mother’s health - I will do anything I have to do for my mother.” Or, we might have several criteria, such as those I mentioned above. Or, we might have a cutoff criteria - “I won’t go anywhere where it snows,” leaving open many areas in the Southwest and West as options.
What is your decision rule? Does analyzing that rule improve your understanding of your viable options?
