How do you make decisions?

I'm finding this tougher than I realised.

Happy Monday.

Let me start by saying something you might think is grandstanding.

I’m a great decision maker.

More than that, I actually love making decisions. My personal motto is ‘sometimes wrong, never in doubt’.

So much so that I’m more than happy to fuck things up as long as it was based on decision making.

I made the decision about 10 years ago to build a life around promoting creativity

I have some early people in my life to thank for that.

My Nanna was a great decision maker. She was decisive and even though she was wrong many times (often with consequences) she always moved forward. To her decision making was a sign of strength.

One of my first bosses gave me a job and said these words “We want you to fuck up”. The idea being that I would learn from my mistakes and become more skilled at my craft and better able to handle bigger challenges.

I’m also very strong with my kids making their own decisions. I can obviously help them make good choices - but the decisions should be theirs. They will be entering a world way more complex than I did as a teenager so in my view trying things and learning from mistakes is way more beneficial than me protecting them.

So here’s my current dilemma.

I have a decision to make (a big one) and I genuinely don’t know what to do.

Won’t give you the full context here (as some of it relates to confidential information) but I’ll tell you it’s career/work related.

With some changing dynamics in my business I need to pick between doing something I’m good at (but am becoming bored by), or something that I’m also good at but could be riskier.

A few months ago I posted here about making a 3 year business plan - and that included ensuring that I focused on helping my kids finish school.

That hasn’t changed in terms of financial goals, but the path to get there has two distinct options.

If I stay on the safe path I know my interest is likely to wane further; and the biggest skills I bring to anything I do is passion, enthusiasm and commitment.

If I take the ‘riskier path’ it really is a roll of the dice. It could work super well quite quickly, or it could fall flat.

The classic exercise here is to think about what I would say if someone came to me with this dilemma. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

“Nothing is forever. If the riskier thing doesn’t work out you can revert back to the safer thing easily enough.”

Alternatively…

“You need to focus on your role as a provider for the next critical few years of your kids schooling. The price you pay might be boredom, but the gain is for others not just you.”

As a ‘decision maker’ this one is leaving me puzzled. I know to move forward I need to not get stuck in the muck here and actually move forward.

So what I thought I’d do is ask for your help. How do you make decisions?

I’m not asking for you to give me the answer to my dilemma here. That’s something I have to work out for myself.

What I’d love to know is any decision making processes that have worked for you. What stories can you share?

See you next Monday Morning,

Wade