How can you make confident decisions as a leader?

My partner and I frequently find ourselves spending hours just scrolling through various TV channels trying to decide what to watch. And it always makes me laugh that we get so frozen in time and space because we can’t decide and end up wasting hours of time. 

It’s not as if it’s a life-changing decision either – if we choose something that turns out to be a dud we can switch it off or turn over – and we’ll have learned more about what we don’t like. And in fact we have a Sky box full of series we started and abandoned.  So why is it so hard? 

Especially given that we all of us make thousands of tiny decisions every day without even realising it – the decision to scratch an itch, make a cup of coffee, go to the loo, load the dishwasher… none of which seem to have the same paralysing impact. 

It’s the decisions that seem to have consequences that we will have to deal with if we get it wrong that can hold us back. So often folk delay decisions unnecessarily because they are afraid of it going wrong – rather than recognising that very few decisions lock us into something we can’t get out of. We fear loss of choice once we have made a decision, rather than recognising that once we have decided on a course of action new possibilities and new decision opportunities present themselves. 

I think we also fear loss and failure. By taking a decision we might lose something precious – or we might have made a wrong decision which might embarrass us or make us feel or look bad. 

But here’s the thing – a decision is only ever right or wrong in hindsight. There is no such thing as a bad decision.  No one looks at a good option and a bad one and knowingly opts for the bad one. We take our decision at the time with the best of intent and with the knowledge and experience we have at that time. If we knew it was a wrong decision at the point at which we made it we probably would have made a different one.  

You can’t allow fear of getting it wrong to stymie your decision making. I’ve taken some decisions in good faith that turned out to be absolute doozies – both personal and professional – and yet here I am. The world didn’t end and I navigated my way out of them and into better decisions.

But it can be hard. So my Speed Read is designed to get your decision-making moving so you’re not pinned in front of the TV anxiously scrolling channels but you’re taking actions to move forward. Check out my new Speed Read: Decision-making here.