7Day Challenge Day 3

I don’t know about you but I have made some good decisions and some not so good decisions in my life. Nobody makes the right decisions 100% of the time and most of us get the wisdom to make better decisions from our worst decisions — if we learn from them.

Powerful decisions aren’t about making perfect decisions, powerful decisions are about being true to ourselves and being committed to getting and using the best information to make the best decision we can.

What used to really mess me up and sabotage powerful decisions is emotions. When emotions override or cloud our judgement, the outcome is almost always disastrous. Emotions and power don’t mix. I’m not saying that emotions don’t matter, I’m saying that when emotions lead powerful decisions, life changing decisions, major decisions, it’s like giving a three year old the keys to your brand new car.

Purely emotional decisions don’t care about truth, common sense, information or proof. We all struggle with this at times but to go from good to great decisions, powerful decisions, game changing decisions that produce the results we want, we have to learn to lead our emotions and not follow our emotions.

All emotions aren’t bad and there’s probably never going to be a time that we are going to make a major decision without emotions being involved. The key is, and what I’ve learned from emotional wrecks, there are at least four ways that emotions can mess you up and turn a powerful decision into a pitiful decision:

1. Childish excitement can cause you to overestimate ability, underestimate the risk and disregard the red flags
2. Anxiety or fear can lead to impulsive, short-sided and desperate decisions
3. Sadness can cause you to compromise, settle and even excuse the unacceptable for temporary happiness
4. Anger and embarrassment can cause you to shoot first and ask questions later, make irrational decisions, make decisions out of pride, shame or guilt, and make people pleasing decisions

What we have to recognize is that we are human but at the same time realize that we are not incapable of managing our emotions, owning our power and making powerful decisions that agree with God’s will, our purpose and our destiny. 

Emotions must be trained to submit to our powerful decision.

Sometimes the most powerful decision will mean that we have to hurt ourselves temporarily to prevent someone from hurting us for a lifetime. Sometimes the powerful decision is to do nothing or to wait until you have more information. Sometimes the most powerful decision is the most unpopular decision. Sometimes a powerful decision means we have to say no. Sometimes a powerful decision means we have to walk by faith and not by sight. Sometimes the most powerful decision means that somebody is going to be disappointed. Sometimes the most powerful decision is the right thing to do but we won’t feel good about doing it. And sometimes the the most powerful decision means we have to put away childish, selfish or unhealthy thinking to do what is right or best.

No matter what the powerful decision is, we have to practice letting power lead our decision making. Powerful decision making takes practice and if we practice using the ingredients for powerful decision making, we can consistently produce powerful results in every area of our life. 

The three ingredients of powerful decisions:

1. Create your power decision making rules. What will provide the greatest amount of assurance that you are being objective and rational, fair and reasonable, true to your faith and yourself, and uncontrolled by childish emotions. For example, I won’t be bullied into making decisions that don’t benefit me, or I will not let guilt, pride or ego work against me making the right decision, or I will not make major life decisions without sleeping on it, praying on it and considering the truth. Write as many rules as you can to give yourself some boundaries for powerful decisions. 
2. Create a power decision team. Don’t always think you have to make powerful decisions in a vacuum or with just the knowledge or information that you have. Find someone who you can trust to tell you the objective truth to bounce powerful decisions off of. Use more than one person if you can but never use people who aren’t familiar, knowledgeable or capable of increasing your effectiveness, or whose advice you won’t use. And don’t use more than three people. If you have to go to 10 people that means that either none of them are the right one or you are looking for someone to agree with you rather than correct or point you in a right direction. Your best three will usually be in agreement with what is strategic, sound or effective. To be clear, I’m not leaving the bible out of the “Decision Team” I’m adding to it.
3. Turn it inside out. Look at the decision from another perspective. From a customers perspective, from your spouses perspective, from God’s perspective, from the banks perspective or from whatever perspective that will be the most impacted or important to the decision. Intentionally and deliberately turning the the decision inside out can be the source of soul searching and honest, objective appraisal from all sides.

We won’t eliminate emotions and we don’t need to but what we can and must do to make powerful decisions, is be intentional.

Today’s Power Challenge:

1. Take your most recent wrong or worst decision — pick any but be ready to be honest and vulnerable about it.
2. Write down how you decided what to do. In essence, what did you base your reasons on or not. For example, a lack of information, impulse,  emotional control — fear, anxiety, desperation, people pleasing, etc.
3. On a scale of 1–5, how aware at the time were you of the basis of your decision and the consequences — with 5 being completely unaware
4. Which decisions are more likely to be handled in that way — Family, finances, business opportunities, relationships, self-care, faith, boundaries, saying no, emotional wellbeing, when disappointing or hurting someone’s feelings, etc.
5. Now, define your 2 powerful ingredients for power decisions — Powerful Rules and Powerful team. Turning it inside out is always apart of your powerful decision making. Define your rules and create a team that would insure that you make effective and powerful decisions for your difficult area in the future.

Today’s Bonus Exercise

Use this checklist to evaluate your foundation. Good decisions, powerful decisions, come from a strong foundation — any and all.

Click Here to View/Print the Strong Foundation Exercise

 

Bless You!

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