Made another bad decision despite your good intentions?

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Are you plagued by bad decision making? You have good intentions, and you even read up on decision making, follow the recommended steps and use strategy tools. Yet, here you are again with another bad decision.

The results you were suppose to get have failed to materialize and you are ready to surrender your decision title to someone else. As a matter of fact to anyone else who appears to be more competent, wiser or more gifted when it comes to making decision than you.

Before you totally resign from decision making consider this …

  1. You’ve already made good decisions, Unfortunately their memories are being overshadowed or obliterated by your constant thoughts about bad decisions
  2. No one makes good decisions all the time. Even good decisions makers have their bad days.
  3. Your string of bad decisions may be no more than failing to examine earlier decision making mistakes and not learning from them.
  4. Many bad decisions can be fixed by taking the responsibility to fix them rather than abandoning them.
  5. Gaining experience from bad decisions will help you recognize the danger signs and keep you from going down the same wrong path again. 

But, there is something else that’s rarely talked about in the decision making process. It has nothing to do with the decision making strategies or tools you use. It has nothing to do with the amount of information you’ve gathered, the pro and con analysis and evaluation, or how much feedback you get from the people you consult. 

Here are 12 circumstances that can lead to a bad decision, despite your good intentions. 

  1. lack of sleep
  2. background distractions
  3. poor nutrition
  4. too much caffeine
  5. overwhelming stress
  6. deciding under pressure
  7. rushing to judgment
  8. negative emotions based on frustration, anger, fear
  9. bad mood or attitude
  10. bad posture (really, this is a proven fact)
  11. overriding personal biases or attachments
  12. trying to conform to the expectations of others

There’s a lot more elements to making decisions than most people realize.

If you recognize any of these circumstances affecting you, maybe it’s time to stop beating yourself up for making bad decisions and turn things around with a better approach to decision making.