Decisiveness Is a Muscle
The hundreds of choices we face every day are our gym.
I’ve been deliberating about what to write this week, and the internal debate has gone longer than I like–which seems like the perfect topic. Let’s do this.
Lately I’ve been working on something very specific in life and work: Shortening the length of the debate-decide-act cycle. Whether I’m deciding what to eat for lunch, whether to hire a candidate, or what school my kid should go to next year, I want to gather info, consider the options, make a call, and move on without getting stuck or stalled along the way.
Being decisive is a key part of being action-oriented. Deliberating too long on decisions is downright debilitating. Decisiveness is a muscle, and life, which involves hundreds of choices on a daily basis, is our gym.
In my effort to become more decisive, there are a handful of powerful forces I have to continuously, actively resist.
Risk Paralysis
When you’re making a decision, you think through all the possible scenarios and outcomes, and identify the risks in each one, so that you can weigh them. But thinking through all the things that can go wrong–because let’s face it, so many things can and do go wrong–can put you in a paralyzed stress position.
