Do you have trouble making decisions? That could be a real blocker. Before you can take action you need to decide. Of course, simply making decisions won't guarentee you take action but if you get in to the habit of making a decision to act now or schedule things until later you will get more done for sure. Decide to act. Here is some great thinking on decision making and getting things done from David Allen...one of the most positive forces for positive thinking I have met!
David Allen is one of the best gurus on getting things done and making decisions I have yet to encounter. His techniques are helpful and effective. His writing and speaking skills are exemplary. It's a joy just to read his material. . I'm always inspired and optimistic after reading one of his newsletter entries. His thoughts on Decision-making are profoundly simple and common sensical.
DAVID'S FOOD FOR THOUGHT
THE DUE DILIGENCE OF DECISION-MAKING
If you had no trouble making decisions, you would probably have no trouble. You'd still have challenges, but problems would be in motion toward solutions, no "stuff" would lie around draining your psychic energy, and things to be done would be funneled into a process of completion as they show up instead of as they blow up.
There is obviously a strong connection between choice-making and productive, relaxed behavior. So, what's the issue about making decisions? Why don't you immediately and easily get off the dime with a pending choice and dispatch it? Several hindering factors could be at work:
1. Decisions require thinking, which takes time and energy. Often you feel you have neither.
2. You believe if you choose, you lose. Deciding means there's something you must sacrifice. Likely you are spoiled—you'd love to pretend that you could really have it all. You may add way too much reading material to your piles, for instance, instead of limiting it on the front end.
3. Bad choices get the blame. You can't be blamed for going off course if you're not yet on the course.
4. You potentially create lurking monsters. If you got feedback from every decision instantly, you could probably handle it easier than having to make choices for which the consequences could be far-reaching and unexpected.
So, if thorough front-end decision-making is a key success behavior, and you can easily get sidetracked, can you train yourself to make them quicker, better, and more thoroughly across your life and work? Sure.
The most all-encompassing approach would be to do whatever you need to do to gain a greater sense of self worth, giving you more confidence and reducing the fear of making mistakes. But perhaps the most significant short-term factor in ensuring consistent decision-making is increasing your discomfort with not doing it. If you raise the bar internally with how much ambiguity and lack of clarity you are willing to tolerate, you'll find it much easier (necessary, actually) to just get on with it. We spend thousands of hours holding a focus for our clients to make hundreds of thousands of decisions that have been pending in their psyche and their world—from random papers on their desk to key issues distracting their consciousness.
They would not have allowed those to linger had their comfort zone not tolerated them.
So how do you raise your standards about indecision you'll tolerate? Become conscious of the inventory of choices you haven't made, but need to. Realize that executive time and energy must be committed to expedite the process, and discipline yourself to empty your in-basket regularly. Commit to bigger results that require an intelligent allocation of your limited resources. And practice, practice, practice... until you get so accustomed to the energy you experience with a clear deck internally, you just won't allow the nagging lack of choice to linger.
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