decisions – Personal Growth Cafe

October 9, 2019March 27, 2018

I make decisions with the big picture in mind.

I keep my priorities and goals in clear view so that, regardless of the circumstances, I do what I know to be the right thing for me.

Even if emotions run high in a disagreement or the distractions of the day try to take away my focus, I automatically think of the big picture.

I ask myself, “What is most important here?”

In a disagreement with someone I love, I go with the solution that best maintains a positive, loving relationship, because that is what is most important to me.

Whether I am right or wrong about a trivial issue does not matter.

In business negotiations, I keep my primary goal in mind and my discussions open to any solution that works well for both of us.

This solidifies a profitable business relationship.

Another question I ask myself in order to keep the big picture in mind is, “Will this make a difference 5 years from now?”

If a single issue can make a difference 5 years from now, I know that it is a matter of some importance to my life.

Otherwise, I keep it in its proper perspective.

Either way, I make decisions accordingly, letting my priorities guide me in my decision.

I use this strategy every day, even in seemingly small decisions.

Keeping my priorities in mind allows me to choose to live life according to what is really important to me, rather than being blown willy-nilly by momentary distractions.

As a result, I live a fulfilling life!

Today, I intend to keep the big picture in mind and I let my priorities – not distractions – guide me in my decisions.

How have you clarified your priorities in life?

How can you get in the habit of keeping the big picture in mind?

Talk about that in the Personal Growth Cafe Community!

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September 21, 2019March 26, 2018

I am strong enough to make tough decisions.

October 11, 2018February 1, 2018

Essential Tips for Making Good Decisions

All decisions are not created equal.

Some decisions impact us on a small scale, like deciding what to eat for dinner.

Some decisions can alter your life so much that you become a new person altogether, like leaving your hometown to live and work in a foreign country.

Sometimes you’ll find yourself at life’s junctions where you’re perplexed with your choices and the decision making is overwhelming.

Whether you’re making a decision about where to go to college, whom to marry, where to move, or changing jobs, there are many elements that can throw your emotions into turmoil.

If you have a big decision looming, here are some things you can do to make your decision a little easier:

1. Get various perspectives.

Seeking advice from the people you trust – like family members, friends, or spiritual directors – can provide unique viewpoints about your situation that may help make your decision easier.

Sometimes someone from the outside can offer clarity that you don’t have sitting in the middle of the decision.

The person can offer a bird’s-eye-view of the situation and bring out things you might not even be aware of.

2. Consider the Pros and Cons.

Another great method for helping with decision making is writing a Pros and Cons list.

Get a piece of paper, and write the positive things about the decision on one side and the negative things on the other.

Include financial impact, emotional considerations, friendships, and short and long-term aspects of your choice.

Time might also be a factor, especially if you’re trying to achieve a goal.

Sometimes a visual timeline is enough to propel you to make the right decision.

Include other people in helping you make the list.

If you still don’t have enough facts to make the decision, hold onto it for later consideration.

Life circumstances may change, and that may alter your decision in the future.

It’s essential to spend time praying, meditating, or simply reflecting on your choices.

Find some time when you won’t be distracted, and spend as long as you need exploring what you feel inside.

This will often lead to a peaceful solution.

3. Become educated about your options.

For example, if you’re considering a move across the country, you’ll want to visit the place first.

Find out about living expenses, the job market, and how you’ll survive.

Knowing the answers to important questions will help you feel secure in the decision you make.

4. Trust yourself.

If all else fails and you still haven’t made your choice, go with your gut.

If you feel strongly about something in your heart, you’ll have the perseverance to withstand any storms that may come with the decision.

Making the choice that you know is right for you will leave you ready to face the challenges.

Making a decision is like being on the Price is Right game show.

The contestants on the show are given big decisions to make.

They can take advice from the audience, use prior knowledge, or make an educated guess based on given information, but they ultimately still have to go with their gut feeling.

Life may be different than a game show, but the decision making process is still the same.

Use all the resources at your disposal, employ the strategies above, pay attention to your inner feelings, and then trust that you can handle whatever comes your way.

Why is it important to think carefully before making a decision?

What was the hardest decision you made this week?

Talk about that in the Personal Growth Cafe Community!

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October 10, 2018February 1, 2018

Delegation Strategies for the Control-Freak

Do you have a team around you who is fully capable of getting things done, but instead of delegating, you try to do everything yourself?

If that sounds like you, there’s a better way.

Delegating tasks can be so difficult for some people.

They act like a micro-manager who ensures that they see, do, and be everything.

It’s hard for them to let others share the load or the glory.

Maybe the control-freak is you.

You may have tried to delegate tasks in the past.

Perhaps the quality of work wasn’t good enough to suit you so you ended up redoing everything.

There’s no sense in delegating tasks in the first place if you know you’ll end up redoing them, right?

Here are three problems you might be using as excuses for not delegating:

You feel you can do the job better yourself.
There’s not enough time to train someone else to do the job.
You feel like you have to redo someone else’s work.

If you’re facing these challenges, perhaps it’s time to look at some strategies you can use to find success in delegating.

Consider using these delegation techniques:

1. Face the truth. If you feel you can do the job better yourself, take time to think things through.

Other people may not do the job the same way you would, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do an adequate job.

The people on your team may be eager to do a great job and need only your encouragement, rather than for you to take over.

2. Train your staff. Perhaps those working with you do need some additional training. This shouldn’t be a reason to do everything yourself.

Look at the need for additional training as a means to be better prepared in the future.

Short-term training now can have a huge pay off later on.

If you take the time to train your staff now, they’ll be better prepared for the next project.

3. Relax. There’s no sense in letting pressure for perfection bring you undue stress.

While perfection would be great, it’s usually not expected.

Give yourself a break. It’s just not possible for you to do everything yourself, nor should you want to.

Other people can do the work even if you don’t think they’ll do as good a job as you.

4. Follow a successful plan.

If you’re the head of the team and certain tasks are critical for the success of the project, you may want to do the major work on those.

However, the more routine tasks could be passed along to other people on the team.

Delegate the task itself, not the way in which it’s completed.

Assign tasks based on strengths.

Perhaps you could let one person do research, assign converting raw data into a spreadsheet to another person, and designate a good writer to write the rough drafts of the reports.

You can still be in control of the final report by pulling all the data together into a solid finished project.

Require progress reports at specified deadlines over the course of the project.

If they’re having problems meeting the deadlines, instead of assuming they’re not going to get the job done, ask them if there’s anything you can do to help them meet the next deadline.

Expect that your team will do a great job and you won’t be disappointed.

People usually rise to our expectations.

Finally, give praise and positive feedback when the project is finished.

Instead of being a control-freak on your next project, decide now to let go of some of the responsibilities.

Look for ways you can use the talents of your co-workers in the future.

You may find that working with a team and delegating tasks makes your job much easier and the atmosphere at work much better for everyone.

Have you tried delegating a task to someone else?

How did you feel about it?

Talk about that in the Personal Growth Cafe Community!

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April 29, 2018January 7, 2018

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the worst thing you can do is nothing. – Theodore Roosevelt

January 29, 2018January 5, 2018

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. – Amelia Earhart

January 14, 2018January 5, 2018

The Art of Decision Making: Tips on Making Decisions You Can Live With

Making decisions in our lives – whether it’s what to eat for lunch or where to find your next job – can seem overwhelming.

Each decision carries with it a result and a chain of events that may dictate the course of our lives.

For those of us who consider every decision as life or death, day-to-day decisions can seem impossible!

To help you discover the finer points of decision-making, here are some valuable tips on how you can make decisions that you can live with every day:

Map out your decision. Start by evaluating the decision to be made.

What are the details?

By mapping out exactly what your decision will entail as far as consequences and results, you’ll be on your way to making an informed decision that you can live with.

Weigh pros and cons. This process is tried and true.

Make a list and evaluate the pros in one column against the cons in another.

Include short and long term consequences as well as positives and negatives.

Seeing the pros and cons before you on paper will make the matter at hand seem all the more evident as far as how you should make your decision.

In your evaluation, give more weight to the pros and cons that carry more weight in your life.

The quantity of pros or cons does not equal the quality.

For example, if one of your main priorities in life is to make more money, listing “make more money” on your pros column should count for more than one of the cons in the other column.

Become informed. Find out all of the related information you need to make your decision.

Being better informed through research or talking to others will help you make a decision you can live with.

Consider your motives.

While evaluating your list of pros and cons, consider what motives may be contributing to the points you added in both columns.

Revise or weigh accordingly.

For example, can the con on your list be attributed to your lifelong fear or is it merely situational?

In the case of fears, perhaps facing your fears should be part of the decision.

Facing the fear may be a pro as opposed to the fear being a con.

Give yourself a deadline.

When faced with an important decision, we tend to delay making the ultimate choice.

By giving yourself a deadline, you will have no other choice than to decide one way or another.

Look at the decision as part of the bigger picture.

Is this a small or large decision in the course of your life?

Decide which and evaluate accordingly.

If it’s small, perhaps you’re spending too much time and consideration on it.

If it’s larger, how will it fit in with the rest of your life goals?

By examining the decision for what it is in the short and long-term, you will better understand how the decision affects the bigger picture.

Recognize the relativity.

Many tough decisions can carry with them irrevocable consequences, but more often than not, there is always more time and more opportunity to make the decision again.

Worrying needlessly about one decision is futile.

Most decisions only determine your short-term circumstances in the relative present.

In most cases your decision can be altered in the future when circumstances are different or you’re in a different stage of your life.

Following these tips can transform decision-making from a stressful process into a process that gives you more confidence and control in your life.

Embrace decisions as the good thing that it is, and the result will be a happier, more confident you!

How could you take a more proactive approach to reach your goals?

How can you keep organized so you can eliminate procrastination in your life?

Talk about that in the Personal Growth Cafe Community!

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July 17, 2012

Life is About Choices and the Decisions We Make

Life is like a road. There are long and short roads; smooth and rocky roads; crooked and straight paths. In our life many roads would come our way as we journey through life. There are roads that lead to a life of single blessedness, marriage, and religious vocation. There are also roads that lead to fame and fortune on one hand, or isolation and poverty on the other. There are roads to happiness as there are roads to sadness, roads towards victory and jubilation, and roads leading to defeat and disappointment.

Just like any road, there are corners, detours, and crossroads in life. Perhaps the most perplexing road that you would encounter is a crossroad. With four roads to choose from and with limited knowledge on where they would go, which road will you take? What is the guarantee that we would choose the right one along the way? Would you take any road, or just stay where you are: in front of a crossroad?
There are no guarantees.

You do not really know where a road will lead you until you take it. There are no guarantees. This is one of the most important things you need to realize about life. Nobody said that choosing to do the right thing all the time would always lead you to happiness. Loving someone with all your heart does not guarantee that it would be returned. Gaining fame and fortune does not guarantee happiness. Accepting a good word from an influential superior to cut your trip short up the career ladder is not always bad, especially if you are highly qualified and competent. There are too many possible outcomes, which your really cannot control. The only thing you have power over is the decisions that you will make, and how you would act and react to different situations.
Wrong decisions are always at hindsight.

Had you known that you were making a wrong decision, would you have gone along with it? Perhaps not, why would you choose a certain path when you know it would get you lost? Why make a certain decision if you knew from the very beginning that it is not the right one. It is only after you have made a decision and reflected on it that you realize its soundness. If the consequences or outcomes are good for you, then you have decided correctly. Otherwise, your decision was wrong.
Take the risk: decide.

Since life offers no guarantee and you would never know that your decision would be wrong until you have made it, then you might as well take the risk and decide. It is definitely better than keeping yourself in limbo. Although it is true that one wrong turn could get you lost, it could also be that such a turn could be an opportunity for an adventure, moreover open more roads. It is all a matter of perspective. You have the choice between being a lost traveller or an accidental tourist of life. But take caution that you do not make decisions haphazardly. Taking risks is not about being careless and stupid. Here are some pointers that could help you choose the best option in the face of life’s crossroads:
· Get as many information as you can about your situation.

You cannot find the confidence to decide when you know so little about what you are faced with. Just like any news reporter, ask the 5 W’s: what, who, when, where, and why. What is the situation? Who are the people involved? When did this happen? Where is this leading? Why are you in this situation? These are just some of the possible questions to ask to know more about your situation. This is important. Oftentimes, the reason for indecision is the lack of information about a situation.

· Identify and create options.

What options do the situation give you? Sometimes the options are few, but sometimes they are numerous. But what do you do when you think that the situation offers no options? This is the time that you create your own. Make your creative mind work. From the most simplistic to the most complicated, entertain all ideas. Do not shoot anything down when an idea comes to your head. Sometimes the most outrageous idea could prove to be the right one in the end. You can ask a friend to help you identify options and even make more options if you encounter some difficulty, but make sure that you make the decision yourself in the end.

· Weigh the pros and cons of every option.

Assess each option by looking at the advantages and disadvantages it offers you. In this way, you get more insights about the consequences of such an option.

· Trust yourself and make that decision.

Now that you have assessed your options, it is now time to trust yourself. Remember that there are no guarantees and wrong decisions are always at hindsight. So choose… decide… believe that you are choosing the best option at this point in time.
Now that you have made a decision, be ready to face its consequences: good and bad. It may take you to a place of promise or to a land of problems. But the important thing is that you have chosen to live your life instead of remaining a bystander or a passive audience to your own life. Whether it is the right decision or not, only time can tell. But do not regret it whatever the outcome. Instead, learn from it and remember that you always have the chance to make better decisions in the future.