Most people seem to fall into one of two extremes when it comes to making choices. The first group never thinks about them and just does whatever comes their way (or even worse, they do what they think others expect them to do). The second group thinks endlessly about them and they ‘research’ forever and thus are paralyzed because they’re waiting for the ‘best’ decision.
Luckily there’s a third choice. Not as popular, but infinitely more productive. Where you spend a short while on ‘research’ then make a decision based on whatever info you have.
Because the best decision you can make, is often the fastest one.
Actions always speak louder than words.
In the end, when you look back on life, you’ll reflect on the choices you made, not on the discussions you had about those choices. You won’t judge yourself and be proud that you took 2 years to come up with a decision.
Those same 2 years could’ve been put into trying out those choices instead of simply thinking about them.
Thinking about it for a long time probably won’t improve your decision.
In economics you call it decreasing utility. It means that as you spend more and go higher up the expensive scale, the returns you get become less and less per dollar. Example, spending 200 bucks on a phone gets you a phone. Add 200 more? The phone will be 3 times better. Add 200 more? It’ll only be twice better. Keep doing this and you’ll realize later that even adding 200 bucks more won’t improve the phone by any noticable amount.
In the same way, spending more time will not improve your decision much. Spending half an hour thinking on a problem will probably give you 90% of the choices you have. You’ll probably even know what you should do by the end of it. Or maybe it’s a decision that needs a few days of thought, where you need to also ask friends and family. That’s fine. Spending 3 weeks on it probably won’t improve the decision you will make. It might even make you more confused as you over-analyze it.
Spending 2 years? It’ll probably just destroy your self-esteem as someone who can’t even make up your mind. And you’ll never make a decision. So it’s a guarantee that you’re not making the ‘best’ decision. As they say, “you can’t win unless you play the game“.
But most people never actually think about their futures?
You’ll probably misunderstand when I say this, because generally people DO think about their futures. In fact, a lot of people can’t stop thinking about it. But they only really worry about it. They don’t sit and think about what they really want in their futures, they only follow what society expects them to do and think about how to achieve what society wants from them.
Maybe my vision of life on earth is different from others but I can’t imagine having a job that eats up my nights and weekends, or to live in a house that’s so big that I never get to see my own kids, or to work in a place half an hour away (and that’s without traffic thankyouverymuch), or to be in debt (while the bank is charging interest!), or to while away my life listening to the latest and greatest tunes “because they describe my life so very well!”, or to follow the lives of such strangers on tv that you don’t follow the lives of your own friends and family, or to update my Facebook statuses and my Twitter in the hope somebody will notice me and retweet. But ohmygod, don’t you know it, I’ve just described 95% of the population.
And if I ask where they want to be 20 years from now, they don’t have an answer to give. After thinking a little, they’ll tell you that they want to be a manager, or earn 10 thousand a month. They never say that they want to be the best dad in the world.
It’s almost as if they don’t know what they will want in the future.
Do YOU know what you want in your future?
But once you know what you want, you’ll often have to make a choice on what to do to get there. And life unfortunately offers many choices. Which choice do you take?
I read once before (I forget who wrote it) that when you have a few business ideas in mind, you should always start with the one that fails the fastest. Time is money. Time is the resource that is most precious to you. So if the chances of them succeeding are all decent, choose the one which will fail the fastest. If it succeeds, all is well. But if it fails, at least it will fail fast and you can quickly move on to the next thing.
Faster! Faster!
You never want to try something that is slow in failing. Imagine trying something out where it will take you 5 years to see the result. What if it fails then? 5 years wasted. And if you had another business where you could see the results in 4 months instead? It would’ve failed and you could’ve moved on to the next thing.
I figure life choices can be made the same way. If you’re trying to figure out a new direction in life and you have the choice between an 18 month management program and a 3 month introductory course to PhotoShop skills, it’s probably better to take the 3 month course. If it’s bad for you, you’ve only lost 3 months instead of 18.
I guess that in the end it just means that if you have to make a mistake, start with the mistakes that aren’t so expensive. And expense is measured in terms of time.
So in the end there are two aspects to making fast decisions:
- Don’t spend too much time making decisions. Often you’ll know what to do in the first 5 minutes anyway. It’s just about whether you can bring yourself to do it.
- When torn between 2 decisions (because you’re not psychic and can’t predict what will happen in the future), choose the one that will fail the fastest.
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You know people have a term for people who make decisions fast, I think it's called "reckless".
Lol.
I believe I am one of those people who make a decision fast, but it was never something I thought was a good trait. Example: I was studying in Russia for a year (and this is after I already didn't want to go and tried not to, but hey I was18 and mothers still have a strong influence over you because you live in their house) when I realized I was miserable and I didn't want to stay there anymore. I talked to a close friend there, cried for an hour about what a shitty situation I was in and how shittier it was only going to get once I realize I have no options– but then I calmed down and I knew I still had to go back anyway. Within the week, I told my dad (who was pretty cool about it), I bought my flight ticket, and went to see the Dean and explained my withdrawal, packed up my bags and I LEFT.
Looking back, it's one of the better decisions I've made. It's an expensively late decision, but I rationalize that I would never have been able to experience Russia had I not gone to study there (and it was on it's own a great experience, just the studying there for years and years wasn't) and I know myself a little better.
You're right though, usually a decision is made up within 5 minutes but it takes a long time to muster up the guts to do it. I like to think it's instinct, and I also suspect sometimes that instinct is God talking to you through your belly.
Yes, reckless it is! :p
But I DO think that decisions need proper research. It's just that some people seem to research forever. I'm glad you got a good experience out of Russia. I'd probably put this as one of those situations where you need to experience it first to really understand it. And I guess this counts as a decision that failed fast. After all, you didn't waste much time and here you are with a Masters already!
And you just proved that you do make good decisions for yourself. If not you wouldn't have left Russia.
Hahaha, I never thought that divine intervention happened through stomach butterflies!
Salam Lutfi
When I looked at the title of your post, my first reaction was to disagree with you. After months of indecision before making the ultimate move to quit a relatively well-paying job in one of the biggest firms in Malaysia, I can humbly say that making a fast decision is easier said than done.
With that said though, after reading your post thoroughly, I can see your point and the reasons in support of it. Harping on a decision for too long is counterproductive and won't get you anywhere. There's got to be at the very least a timeline you set yourself when coming to crossroads – consider your options, weigh each one of them carefully, consult your family and friends (especially your family since they deserve to know, and will one way or another be affected by the decisions you make), take a deep breath and choose to act by a certain deadline…even if the decision is not to act at all. That would count as a decision, and once arrived at, you have to stick to it and move on.
Personally, my decision wasn't an easy one to make. I was bouncing around between clarity and confusion for a while before I saw the light. Alhamdulillah, istikharah prayers and duas in Ramadhan helped a lot too. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that: I don't find it necessarily a bad thing to take some time to really consider what you're about to do, especially if you're not sure whether or not it's a wise move, career-wise. There are some things that you can't do based on a gut feeling and summary research alone; sometimes it takes a bit of time to fully understand what needs to be done, and to validate it with a reason/reasons. As to whether every decision needs reasons – I say, only the important ones.
Usually the choices we're afraid to make are the important ones anyway.
But I digress.
Bottomline: It's always best to make an informed decision. I've always believed the luckiest people on earth are those who know exactly what they want and have the rest of their lives to pursue it. For the rest of us, while on that quest to find out what the answer to that question is, we're just trying to be careful in making the choices that Insya Allah would lead us to more meaningful lives.
I'm kind of a little all over the place up there Lutfi, but I hope you catch some coherency.
Wassalam, and thanks for this post!
It's always hard to make a decision when each choice has their pros and cons. It takes time to sort out which pros are more important to you. I definitely agree that we have to consult friends and family. It doesn't necessarily mean we follow them exactly but we should know their stance on things. They are after all important people in our lives.
It's interesting that you say that even not acting at all is a decision. I'm gonna have to ponder that.
And you're right! Sometimes decisions don't need reasons! As long as it doesn't go against your core values. I used to believe that there were just some people who instinctively knew what the right thing to do was. Now I'm starting to understand that these people just knew what they wanted and thus could easily make choices that gave them what they want.
I understood completely coz I've been in the same situation before. That's why I wrote this post! Thanks for reading it and giving your always interesting comments!
Wassalam