The most critical decision you make.
“Don’t make decisions too hasty – major decisions should take time.” – Typical guru
The reason why “big” decisions are so tough is because all the options have similar outcomes overall. It’s usually the smaller decisions that pile up that start to matter the most for people as opposed to one single decision.
Tough decisions usually don’t matter. – Truth Cake
A decision can be a major decision, but they’re often a lot easier to spot what the correct answer is. If it’s a decision on to divorce an abusive spouse, that’s a pretty ‘easy’ decision despite it being a major one. Trying to decide whether to take a job at one company offering $100k vs another offering a similar amount is hard, because both outcomes are likely to be good and/or similar. Maybe it’s better to flip a coin and just move forward and worry about the piles of micro decisions that go along with it. It’s usually not one big decision that affects your life anyway, it’s the thousands of small decisions you end up making that gets you in that situation where it feels like the next one is a big decision.
Decisions that feel the hardest usually mean the probabilities and expectancy is likely to be similar with each option.
Worry about your unending micro decisions that gets you in to these situations. Many of your best and most important decisions you’ve made in life are easy because there was only one option that was massively better than the others. That decision was the most important, and the biggest decision most likely, but it didn’t feel like it because it was so easy.
It may be a hard decision on whether to get the chicken or the steak at a restaurant when you love both options, but it’s only hard because both outcomes are similar and the decision doesn’t really matter. Flip a coin and move on. Think about your micro decisions more often, and you’ll get into situations where larger “tough” decisions don’t matter because they’re often equally as good.
What decision have you been stressing about that when you take a step back that either: a) one option is clearly the best and you should take it or b) no option is better than the other from what you can tell, and in that case, why bother stressing or wasting time on it? Just pick one and move forward.
