CONSIDER THESE POINTS WHEN MAKING MAJOR DECISIONS

Decision making is the process of choosing between two or more available courses of action. Effective decision making skills refer to the ability to make choices that produce desired results. Decision making is prompted by a desire to achieve a goal and there are many alternatives of achieving the goal hence a decision has to be made.

There are two major types of decisions, these are; programmed decisions and non-programmed decisions. 

Making programmed decisions is an easy task, all you need to do is follow the laid down procedures and you will get there hustle free. Simple tasks such as eating, getting up to go to work and choosing which lane to use on the free way, are guided decisions whose consequences are predetermined. Non-programmed decisions on the other hand are the hardest to make. They most probably will have a lasting impact on our lives. The outcome of such decisions is highly precarious and there exists no structured way of making such decisions. The key to making proper and sound decisions lies in understanding the whole process of making a decision. This process I argue, must start by identifying your personality, identifying your position and role in the decision making process, identifying the external factors that are affecting your decision making and identifying the impact of the decision on your life and the lives of the people around you.  Knowing the position you occupy and the role you play in decision making process will help you to understand the circumstances under which you are making the decision and what external factors like peer pressure, drugs and material things that are affecting the way you make your decisions.

The process of making a decision involves the following;

a)       Critical and creative thinking; which involves identifying the existing problem or situation for which a decision needs to be made and listing down alternatives for solving the problem, their advantages and disadvantages.

b)       Choosing; which involves selecting among the alternative solutions the most beneficial this calls on one to be very sober and bold

c)       Action; which refers to implementation of the selected alternative; a process that requires assertiveness and courage.  

d)       Dealing with consequences: it is obvious that actions are followed by consequences which may be negative or positive. Whichever way, the decision maker must be ready to deal and live with the consequences of implementation of choice.

e)        Feedback; which entails the decision maker assessing the alternative to find out whether it cured the problem.

High self esteem, creative thinking, assertiveness and good communication skills are some of the skills that you need to develop well in order to be effective decision maker.

So, where is the relationship between inability to make effective decisions and failure to achieve goals?

The teenager who engages in sexual relationship all for the wrong reasons and having to live with the negative consequences like contraction of H.I.V., early parenthood and dropping out of school may miss out on an opportunity to chase their dreams to the fullest.

The couple, who get married to the wrong partner all for the wrong reason, may not have to go through all the heartaches and having to endure a dead dream if they had made the right choice.

The people who wake up every morning going to careers that they were never built for, and having to endure the pain of doing something that they do not like over and over again and missing out on an opportunity grow themselves, all this is because they made a wrong career choice.

I am thinking about a teenager dealing with a drug problem moving from one rehab to another, injecting himself and losing his mind. If he had another opportunity he would never choose the path that he is on but now he has to live with a broken dream and a shuttered future all because he made a bad choice.  The decisions that we make today will not only affect us but the generations that come after us. Our bad decisions will be evident in the way our children live. Before making any unstructured decisions that have long term effects on us, we must stop and think and apply all he skills mentioned in this passage.