Happy Valentine’s Day!
I promised that I would talk about the steps you can take to make good decisions, and here it is.
One of the best life skills you would have is decision-making. It is relevant in all aspects of your life. You make a decision when you choose what to eat for a day. If you eat the same thing for a whole week, it may have an effect on your body. You make a decision when concluding on what time to leave home. If you leave early, you may get to your destination early. While researching, I stumbled on this material by UMass and thought I should share.
These 7 tips would help you become a better decision-maker:
- Identify the decision. Obviously, you need to know what you want to do. If you are thinking about how your weekend will go, for example, some decisions you may need to make include resting, doing your assignment, what to eat, if you should do chores, and so on.
- Gather relevant information. This is a personal favourite because it includes internal sourcing or external search. You could think deeply about the information relating to your potential decision. If needed, you could also reach out to the Internet for some help – #HeySiri, #OkGoogle. Relevant information will include time, the effort required, importance, what it entails, etc. An important one is also, “is it worth me/my time/my mental or physical energy”. Pretty critical.
- Identify an alternative. Next, you want to know, “if not this, what else?” This widens your scope. Who knows, you may end up going for another option. I have been trying to modify what I eat these days because I noticed that it consists of a lot of noodles and eggs. Not only are both items becoming tiring, but they are also now my go-to food choices whether I have enough time to cook or not. I don’t like that. So, I made a list of possible meals I can make. I also decided that a fridge would be a good item for me to invest in now because part of the reason I settle for noodles is that I need to cook often.
- Weigh the evidence. Still with my meal example. I made sure that I understood how my old meal choices may affect my health and how my new meals will. For example, my family has a history of high blood pressure (from both parents). I know to eat healthily if I want to stay healthy based on the evidence I have at home presenting themselves as my parent’s health. So, amongst other things, my salt intake is very low. I also know that it is a good decision to cut down on my noodles and soy sauce intake because of sodium.
- Choose amongst alternatives. From my list of meals, I pick the ones that I can realistically afford to make. So, no, you won’t see my grilling plantain just to stay healthy. If your decision is to be more productive on a weekend than you normally would be, you may decide to either do some chores or do your assignments.
- Take action. This is you actually doing what you have concluded on in your head.
- Review your decision and its consequence. This is where reflection and reversal come. Don’t be afraid to do what’s right when you realise you’re wrong. Evaluate your decision to determine if it meets the original need for your decision.
I should note that you do not have to take these steps ALL the time. Come on, seriously? I don’t want to weigh the evidence when I need to pick a movie to watch. So, chill. Good luck with life and shii.
This is 500 words (or more ?)! Talk to you tomorrow!