The best advice for making decisions in a time of change
Posted on 3 May, 2009 by Chris | 
Be the First to Comment
There are different types of decisions that you make when making a change in your life. Actually, let me rephrase that, if you want to make a change in your life, there are many decisions you must make to achieve the change you want. But some decisions are much easier to make or ‘stick to’ than others.
The first decision is making the big decision, such as, “I’m going to get healthier”, “I’m going to spend less so I can save more”, “I’m really going to work on getting more customers”. Those are examples of the broader, or macro, decisions to address some area of your life. These are the kind of decisions that people are very good at proclaiming on New Year’s Eve as a resolution for the coming 12 months. Yet, the reason most people don’t get the results that they want, is that they are poor at consistently making the little daily decisions, or micro decisions, that really lead to the results they want.
And here’s why: most people make decisions based on who they are now, the skills they now have or the beliefs they now hold.
But if you’re a person who is aching for change and really wanting to get different results (e.g. more health, more wealth, more happiness, etc), you can’t make decisions based on who you are now.
The best advice I’ve ever received is this: make decisions as if you were the person you want to become.
Consider this example, you want to be healthier by going to the gym in the morning 4 days a week. You want it really badly but you struggle sometimes to get out of bed. You’re alarm goes off at 6am, you wake up and decide to lay there for another 15 minutes. At 6:15 you decide you need some more rest since you have a big day ahead of you and you can go to the gym tomorrow. That’s just not going to get you to your goal is it?
However, if you begin to make decisions as if you were a healthy active person, then you would begin to get out of bed as soon as the alarm went off and head to the gym regardless of how tired or unmotivated you actually felt in that moment. Act as if you were motivated. Act as if you loved going to the gym. And if you continued to make that decision on a consistent basis, and took that action on a regular basis, you’d soon become more healthy.
I recognise this can be easier said than done so contact one of the Action Coaches and listen to our motivational podcasts to learn some very simple and very effective techniques to make better decisions and consistently take the action you need in order to become the person you want to become.
