Making Decisions

Today I talked with a sponsee and I shared with her some advice I learned a long time ago about decision-making. Not that I always follow it—or even remember it --but this is good stuff.  This is one of the benefits of sponsorship: you hear yourself say wise things and sometimes you use them yourself.

Here are two strategies to use when making a decision:

1. “The 10-10-10 Rule”: Imagine that you have to make a decision but you can feel yourself struggling. First imagine that you are going to say yes to the choice. Then sit down and ask yourself: Will this matter in ten minutes? In ten months? In ten years? Then imagine the opposite, that you are saying “no” to the choice, and again ask yourself will that matter in ten minutes? In ten months? In ten years?

 And here’s another way to discern what you really want to do. I call this one Yes!! or No.

2. “Yes!! or No” goes like this: When confronted with a choice you say to yourself,  “If it’s not a Yes!! then it’s a no”. What that means is that you should only honor choices, actions or decisions that are clearly Yes!! (With two exclamation points.)

If your internal response is just yes or a yeah, or maybe, or “I guess I could do that” then it is not really a Yes!! And anything less than a clear, strong Yes!! is really a no. We all know what a clear Yes!! feels like, so if you don’t feel that, your answer is no.