Have you ever noticed someone in your life who makes amazing decisions? It seems like every choice they make ends up being the right one, one that positively impacts them.
They’re not supernaturally intelligent. They’re just good decision-makers, and you can be too.
Today, we’re bringing you what makes some people good decision-makers! We’ll explain which qualities they possess, how they think, and what you can do to become a better decision-maker yourself.
They’re Not Overconfident
Good decision-makers aren’t born this way. It’s not this mythical innate ability that they’re born with. This is something you work on to gain a realistic understanding of your ability, knowledge, and performance.
The first reason why some people are good decisions makers– better than others– is because they’re not overconfident. Good decision-makers have the ability to recognize their limits and talent– and adjust their behavior and thinking accordingly.
The truth is that nearly everyone overestimates themselves. They overestimate their abilities, their knowledge, and their performance. They overestimate what they can get done in an hour and over a year.
Overconfidence is the first downfall when it comes to making a correct judgment.
Blink
⏱ 14 minutes reading time
🎧 Audio version available
They Know Their Goals
Most of us don’t even think about most decisions.
That’s right. Most of our decision-making is made unconsciously. There was an actual scientific study in which researchers could predict what choice people would be going to make 7-10 seconds before people were even aware that they had made a decision– all because the researchers were looking at their brain activity.
People think they’re making a logical, conscious decision when they have already unconsciously made that decision; thus, we aren’t even aware of our process.
What makes a person stand out more than their peers is their ability to think through and know their goals, which pushes them to make drastically better decisions.
When someone has a goal in mind, their decisions are often all working to achieve that goal. They also have individual and business goals that direct them to make the best choices.
Good decision-makers’ choices tend to be more straightforward. Whenever there comes a time when they need to make a choice, they stop and think if this will further their goal, their career, their company, their relationships.
If it doesn’t, then they’ll make a decision accordingly.
They Calculate the Risks
Great decisions are made depending on longevity and the benefits that decision can bestow upon your life. Good decision-makers know the risks and the benefits. They’re somewhere between being risk-taking and risk-averse.
See how you can straddle the line yourself, too.
Often, familiarity breeds comfort, so people make poor decisions because they’re comfortable with what they have always known. Just because you’re accustomed to some habits doesn’t mean you can’t change them. And that doesn’t mean those habits aren’t dangerous or harmful.
For example, some people eat fast food lunch nearly every day, solving the temporary issue of filling their stomach, not wasting time cooking, and they don’t think about the long term consequences when they don’t immediately show any signs of ill health, so they believe they’re the exception to the rule.
They’re not. Over time, they’ll gain weight, or their health deteriorates.
Or to get to work faster, they speed on their way. And every time they arrive on time and without a speeding ticket or any accidents, they become more comfortable with driving fast. At the end of the day, you’re jeopardizing your safety and don’t even realize it.
Good decision-makers identify harmful habits. They stop and logically evaluate which of them are dangerous or unhealthy, and they develop better ones.
They Acknowledge Their Mistakes
Ah, I bet you didn’t see that one? Good decision-makers can sometimes be bad at making decisions– and that’s okay because they take time to reflect on their bad choices and acknowledge their mistakes.
The next time they have to make a choice, they’ll take the time to take into account what went wrong last time so that they don’t repeat the same mistake twice.
This makes these people better because it’s almost like a daily habit to review their choices throughout the day. If something didn’t turn out well, they ask themselves what went wrong and why. And they learn from every single mistake and own up to it.
Most importantly, they also don’t dwell on those mistakes for too long to affect their future decisions.
The Label Their Emotions
Most people aren’t comfortable talking about their feelings, but did you know that labeling your emotions is the key to making better choices?
Your emotions play a dramatic role in the choices you make. When you feel anxious, you make safe decisions. And when you feel anxious, it spills out and over from one area of your life and into another– even without you realizing it. If you’re too nervous about something at work, you’re less likely to ask that person you like on a date because, in your head, that sounds too risky.
On the complete opposite of this spectrum, emotions like excitement can negatively affect your decisions. Excitement makes overestimating changes of success easier. This is why habits like gambling come easily to some people. Good decision-makers know it’s best to calculate the potential payoffs and the risk before taking a leap.
They Know That Not All Decisions Are Equal
This next quality is something successful people and great decision-makers possess. They recognize that in life, sometimes there are small, medium, and big decisions.
They know what’s worth sweating over.
Small decisions are the ones whose impact lasts for a day, such as what you wear. Medium decisions affect your life for about a year, such as deciding which roommate to take. Medium decisions are significant, but they aren’t “crash and burn” moments.
Good decision-makers don’t sweat the small stuff. Out of the 100-something small decisions we make daily, they know not to dwell on them.
On the other hand, they know that the big decisions— the ones that are made once or twice a year– are made with their goals in mind to direct them. These savvy people have strategies in place to help them define exactly what they want from the outcome.
They Consider All Their Options
When you put several conflicting decisions in front of a good decision-maker, they stop and consider all their options.
They consider all the alternatives, and this is why they’re most likely to make successful decisions.
They Consider the Opposite of That Decision
This psychological principle is known as belief perseverance, which can be defined as “maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it. Such beliefs may even be strengthened when others attempt to present evidence debunking them, a phenomenon known as the backfire effect.”
So after some people have decided that something is true, they’re most likely to cling to that belief without considering anything else.
What makes some people good decision-makers is that they challenge their own beliefs and argue the opposite. This way, they’re able to look at situations in another perspective under a new light and act differently if their first instinct led them astray.
They Imagine All the Different Scenarios
Instead of just thinking about what the opposite of their decision will look like, good-decision makers go the extra mile and think about the different scenarios of what could happen. Before they act, they imagine what could happen– and which scenario leads towards the best outcome.
They make pros and cons lists– even if they have to write them down physically. This way, they can recognize every advantage and disadvantage of that choice, if the drawbacks are worth the benefits or weighted equally.
Everyone likes to think that each choice they make is logical and that when we make a decision, we’re carefully weighing all the options. Still, moreoften than not, we end up making decisions irrationally and illogically.
Emotions rule over logic– or the opposite, logic ruins something that could have been great. And that’s perfectly normal. There are hundreds of decisions that we make every day, so many don’t have the time to think logically through every single one.
A good decision-maker carefully chooses actions that provide the best outcome for themselves and the people around them. When they enter the decision-making process, they do it with an open mind, and they don’t let their own biases come in the way.
They think rationally, they research, and they understand the consequences. They use others’ help to gain perspective, and they use knowledge and data to shape that final decision. They know why exactly they made that particular decision over another, and afterward, they’re confident in the choice they made and are rarely hesitant after reaching that conclusion.
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