DECIDE NOW

PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS Series 15

DECIDE NOW

Every positive change in your life begins with a clear decision that you're going to either do something or stop dong something. Your choice is your decision.

We are confronted with choices every day - from simple choices of cloths to put on or food to eat to complicated choices of where to work or who to marry. Decision making allows us to choose the best out of alternative choices.

Successful people decide quickly and change their decisions slowly, while unsuccessful people decides slowly and change their decision quickly. It's better to make a decision that's not the best than to not decide at all. By the way, indecision is a decision to not decide.

Decision determines destiny. Who you are today is the sum of all the decisions you've made over the years. What you will be tomorrow is being influenced by decisions you make today. Decision prevents delay, procrastination and wastage.

Many factors influence our decisions. One important factor is personal value system. Your values are what you consider important, desirable and good for you. Decision is always influenced by values. For instance, if you value education more than entertainment, you would rather study your books than watch a movie.

People have great influence on the kind of decisions we make. People you associate with influence your decision making, depending on their character. Most of the time our family members help us to make right decisions, though sometimes they do influence us wrongly.

Information is another powerful factor that influences the quality of our decisions. The quality of your choice is normally a function of the quality of information available to you per time.

Available resources also influence decision making. Your knowledge, skills, abilities, amount of money and time determine your choices. Your needs and wants also influence your decisions. Needs are things that are needed urgently to keep us living. Wants are things not needed urgently. In decision making, needs should be chosen before wants.

Motivation also influences our choices. Motivation is a force that drives someone to act in order to achieve goals. The reward you will get can drive you to make a decision. Decisions made in such cases are almost always unprofitable. Therefore, watch what's driving you before you make a decision.

Finally, experience influences decision-making. Having has an experience in a particular issue, you are better prepared to decide appropriately when next you're confronted with the same issue.

When you have to choose among alternatives, do this simple exercise. One, list all available alternatives. Two, gather information about them. Three, analyze the alternatives to see which is best for you. Four, decide and choose the best alternative. Five, act on your decision. Six, evaluate your decision.

If the outcome of a decision is not what you expected, you may have to make a new decision. What's important is that you decide now. Again, every positive change in your life begins with a clear decision that you're going to either so something or stop dong something. The fact is that people remain on the same level because they have not yet decided to move. When you decide to make a change, you'll change.