Measured decisions usually come on the back of measured thoughts. A measured decision is a decision that's made after considerable thought.
Decisions that are measured, (weighing up the pros and cons) are the best way to make decisions. When we make quick decisions without thinking about things, we make hasty decisions and in some cases, can potentially put us in deeper water.
Without standing back, without any form of evaluation you'll get things wrong, you may even go on to make some of your worst decisions.
Also, at the time you won’t always know if the decisions you're making are wrong, we usually go on to find out about those later. So, the next time you have a decision to make, stand back, and take time to reflect.
Make your decision when you’ve had chance to reflect and deliberate, so that you make a more balanced choice.
It's wise to take our time to measure the pros and cons before making a decision. My problem is that I torment myself by thinking too much about what consequences my decision will bring about.
I can also be a bit impatient and might end up making a hasty decision that doesn't give me the results I was hoping for.
Thanks Maria. I hear you and feel what you feel. Unfortunately though, I think confidence is usually a sticking point for those of us who struggle with making any form of decision. Without the confidence it's easy to get stuck and that's when we're more likely to deliberate and in some cases put off making any decision.
Because decisions are often made for us, we don't get to work through the decision making process as a child and therefore have to learn from scratch how to make any kind of decisions.
In my own case, I found the process easier when I followed my convictions through. If we have confidence and we know what we want, the process is easier. The hard part is getting to that stage and knowing what we want without having the interference.
I wonder whether those are also your experiences Maria.
Most of my life has been spent NOT making measured decisions but making them without putting a whole lot of thought into them!
A prime example is my decision to join the Army which doesn't work very well, when you don't like following orders blindly. I mainly did it thinking that it was something my father hadn't been able to do, without stopping to think that his breakdown was due to him going to Korea.
They wanted him to be a combat medic from what I know, which would have been one of the worst jobs to have to do in a wartime setting. Things change very quickly in your mind when you're holding an M16 and realizing what they're going to expect you to do with it!
Needless to say I've either made decisions impulsively or spent so much time thinking about what I should do that I ended up paralyzed in my mind. I could make decisions all day long, but until I actually took the first step to do anything, I had only made the decision to do something.
The best way to describe the feeling is to imagine a caged animal that isn't able to leave it's cage even when the door is left open. You become so afraid to step out of your comfort zone, to do things differently that you end up being unable to do anything! People can't comprehend what it's like unless they have been through it themselves.
The other side of the coin has been that making decisions that were right for me never entered my mind after a while. I wasn't really allowed to make my own choices as a child and have repeated the same pattern through my life.
I've always made decisions on what was best for everyone else and without fail hated myself for being so weak. Even now just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach, but I'm fighting to be able to change so I will be able to move on and live my own life for the first time.