Life is all about decisions, sometimes those made for us, and those we make ourselves. Many fall into the former camp, after all, few of us decided the infrastructure and layout of the cities we live in; someone else decided that long ago. But you do have a great amount of freedom to act and to react regarding your own story. This can be both a blessing and a curse from time to time, but accepting responsibility is a great place to start.
You may not have one single unbeatable formula for making decisions in life, especially because it’s all so context-dependent. Some may turn to faith, some may turn to their rising sign and astrology, some may ask for help from friends.
In this post, we hope to recommend other ways to make this easier on yourself:
Consider Your Three Main Priorities
It’s good to consider the main priorities, up to three, that you hope to achieve with the choice. If you’re torn between two job offers, you could ask yourself which one aligns better with these core priorities and that might make the choice clearer.
This approach works because it cuts through all the noise and smaller considerations that can make decisions feel like two much. You can often work that out later. You don’t need to overthink every little detail if you have these bigger guideposts to refer back to, and it helps you stay consistent with what you really care about, as opposed to what seems appealing in the moment.
Flip A Coin & Consider Which Option You Hope For
This old trick isn’t really for letting chance decide for you, but about paying attention to what you’re secretly hoping will happen as that coin spins through the air. You may just discover that you’re quietly rooting for heads or tails, which tells you something important about what you actually want beneath all the logical reasoning and pros and cons lists you’ve been making.
Sometimes we already know what we want to do but we’re second-guessing ourselves or looking for permission to make that choice. The coin flip can reveal those feelings pretty quickly, and then you can decide if you want to honor that instinct or if there are good reasons to go against it. Either way, you’ll have learned something valuable about your own preferences and desires.
Be Willing To Accept The Pros & Cons Of Either Choice
Decision paralysis can come because we often see the downsides as much as the upsides of either direction. You could try writing down such downsides of each choice and asking yourself which negatives feel more manageable or which ones you’re more willing to deal with. This can be surprisingly helpful because it changes your focus from trying to avoid all problems to choosing your problems wisely.
Accepting that every choice comes with some drawbacks can actually make decision-making less stressful because you’re not searching for an impossible perfect solution. You’re just looking for the option that feels right for where you are in life right now, knowing that you can always adjust course later if things don’t work out as planned.
With this advice, we hope making a life choice feels more possible for you, even during the tough moments.
