How to Make a Good Decision
How to Make a Good Decisions:
People experience a lot of stress over making everyday decisions. When you are trying to make a decision, you are focusing on your options: “Am I going to do this or that? Which one am I going to choose?”
Your decision will become clear when you connect your options to your priorities and to what you value most in this life. It’s similar to the exercise when you lose something and start to look everywhere in a panic to find what you lost. When you slow down and retrace your steps, you usually find that item.
Frustration and anxiety often come when the things you do in life conflict with your priorities. If family is a priority, and you continue to get business calls after hours, anxiety will build. Oftentimes, you just plow through the anxiety, you take the call, and your children quietly go upstairs. You miss the opportunity to connect and honor one of your priorities in life, resulting in frustration and anxiety.
The key factor here is to become aware of your priorities. What is important to you in life? What do you value most? You only have one life and it goes byfast. Where do you want to spend your time and energy each day? Know what you value and then make time for it each day. Even if you devote just a little time,do it.
When you reflect at the end of the day on the things that moved you, which is a worthwhile practice to connect you within to love and inspiration, clarity will arise around those things you highly value.
Try this practice for three days and record those moments that have lingered in your heart by writing them down, regardless of whether or not they produce a positive or negative charge in your body.
Day 1—These events moved me today:
Day 2—These events moved me today:
Day 3—These events moved me today:
As you practice tuning consciously into those things that move you, you will be able to notice more of what moves you throughout your days. You are only bumped within (i.e., inspired or vexed) when the event has triggered something of value to you, such as your reputation, your ability to connect with others, or your experience as a parent, spouse, or friend.
Remember that those things you value most in life more often than not flow from your experience of connection along with your feelings of safety—or lack of it—within those connections: with God, yourself, and those around you. Reflect for a moment on what you value most in life.
This will give you the opportunity to reflect upon those areas that may have become distorted due to fear and false beliefs, which are usually fueled by the “I will love and accept myself when…” way of thinking.
Imagine you believe that you have alreadymade itin this life and that you are loved and accepted by God, just as you are. How would imagining that help you remember what you truly value in this life?
Pull from your previous recordings the moments that moved you, and caused you to stop, linger, listen, and look. Write down—with no judgment—what you observe to be important to you in life. Release all sense of what you feel that youshouldvalue and have a moment of ruthless honesty.
- “What do I value most in life?”
Make this list your screen saver and reflect upon your words daily.
Rules for Discernment:
Here is some wisdom on decision making from one of the great spiritual teachers of history:Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, by St. Ignatius of Loyola1:
- “Intellect.Analyze the situation logically. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each course of action? Do the advantages of one choice substantially outweigh the other choices? Which decision seems best from a rational point of view?
- “Feelings.What feelings, if any, are raised as you consider each possibility? Is there a strong sense of desire or excitement involved in one option (which may be an indication it should be chosen) or sense of dread or unhappiness over another (which may indicate that this choice is not God’s will for you)?
- “Imagination.If someone came to you for advice about the situation you were facing, what would you say or urge that person to do? If you imagined yourself on your deathbed looking back at all the choices and actions of your lifetime and knowing that you’d soon be reviewing them with God, what decision—from that perspective—would you want to have made?”
According to St. Ignatius, after you go through one or more of these steps, a course of action will usually begin to stand out from the rest.
Some of the most powerful techniques that I have used in my own life have come from my master certification training in NLP, the systematic study of human performance. Some of the pioneers in the NLP methods include Richard Bandler, John Grinder, and Robert Dilts. Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson, and Gregory Bateson explored and expanded on the practical application of the NLP methodology.
In addition, the Polish-American scientist and one of NLP’s pioneers, Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski, said, “God may forgive you for your sins, but your nervous system won’t.” This explains why you may embrace the belief of forgiveness yet your neurology holds onto the trauma of past-life events, resulting in phobias, addictions, low self-esteem, and impoverished thinking. Korzybski believed that NLP was an integration of psychology, linguistics, neurology, cybernetics, and systems theory.
The main goal of NLP is to teach people how to learn, motivate, and change their behavior, thus creating excellence and spiritual, emotional, and physical congruency. NLP techniques create positive shifts in focus, expanding your ability to tune into all available options and leading to creative problem solving.
NLP is the science of shift. It explains how you take in information from your life experiences through your five senses of hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste (neuro); how you give meaning to, process, code, and organize the information you take in and transform the information into language (linguistic); and how you create programs based on the information you take in and organize (programming).
To create congruency and alignment for any desired emotional, spiritual, and physical shifts in life, the NLP Logical Levels of Change—inspired by Gregory Bateson’s work, and expanded by Robert Dilts and other NLP pioneers—are worth exploring. They are useful when you are seeking to align yourself and the work you are doing in this world with what you value most in this life.
You are more likely to achieve your desired outcome as you create congruency in the following areas:
- Spiritual/Vision:What is the bigger purpose for your desired outcome? How does your desired outcome benefit other people? Will it create a greater good? How so?
- Actions: What actions will you take to accomplish your desired outcome? What will you do?
- Values: Is this desired outcome aligned with your beliefs and with what you value most in life? Why is having this outcome important to you?
- Identity: Is this desired outcome aligned with who you are?
- Capabilities: What God-given gifts and talents will you need to use or access in order to achieve your desired outcome?
- Environment: Where, when and with whom will you create this desired outcome?2
Take time this week to make a list of 10 things you value most in life. As new goals emerge throughout the week, give yourself permission to step back from the doing aspects of accomplishing those goals. Reflect on how those goals align with what you value most. Think about your God-given talents and skills, who you are, who is in alignment with what you value most in life, and the greater good that will result in your life and the lives of others when you complete your desired outcome. Practicing this reflection process in your life will create congruency within—spiritually, emotionally, and physically—and result in clarity of focus, productivity, and a sense of purpose.
- FR. Joseph Esper, “Saintly Solutions to Life’s Common Problems,” St. Ignatius of Loyola,Rules for the Discernment of Spirits(Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2001, 1-800-888-9344). Reprinted with permission.
- Categories derived from Tony Stoltzfus, “NLP & Christian Coaching by Tony Husted,” Aug. 12, 2009 (www.christiancoachingcenter.org/index.php/2009/08/nlp-and-christian-coaching-by-tony-husted/)
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