Thank you for joining us. We are continuing with part two of our series How to Make the Best Decisions for self-sufficiency. Today is How to Sharpen your Decision-Making Skills.

Part three, next week, will be How to keep going when you made bad decisions.

This three-part series is not a part of a multi-post series we did sometime back on How to start a self-sufficient lifestyle and How to start a self-sufficient food supply.  However, both of these series have tips and insights to help you in your journey to have a self-sufficient lifestyle. You may want to check out these talks for more info and ideas.

Decision-Making Skills:

Are you good at making decisions? This skill is natural for some people, they seem to be born with a quick mind and logical thought process. While some people find it hard to make even basic decisions.

Personality types can play a role in your ability to make decisions.  What are your general life experiences?   Have you been making decisions for yourself?  Or have you always relied on others to make decisions for you?  All of these things can have an effect on your level of decision-making skills. 

Luckily, this is also a skill that can be learned. You can sharpen your decision-making skills and be able to make better choices for your life and for your family.

Sometimes it is not the ability to make a decision but the “I do not want to” factor.

One reason people do not want to make decisions is they do not want to be held responsible for what happens. This reluctance is an internal defense mechanism. People may criticize you if you don’t make a good choice.

Bad choices can hurt people’s confidence in you or even change the way some people treat you.  One bad decision can alter the way some people view you and your value.  This is the wrong way to look at people but that can be one of the results of a bad decision. 

Making a bad choice does not change your value and it does not make you less of a person.   But bad decisions can cause some people to look at you differently after.

 On the upside, you can take steps to help keep this from happening. There are ways to sharpen your decision-making skills so you can make better choices in the future. 

There is almost no way to 100 percent guarantee making good decisions. But there are ways to help yourself learn to make better ones.

Are you having trouble feeling confident about your actions and wishing you had an unwavering self-belief in your decisions? Maybe it’s time to look at your decision-making process. Decisions made impulsively or without careful thought might not always turn out the way you hope they will.

Of course, there’s something to be said for instinct and even dumb luck. Not the best thing to go with when decision-making for self-sufficiency.

But what if good decisions were more the usual rather than an occasional thing?  Or in some cases, a rare thing. 

We all know that one person that seems to always manage to say or do the wrong thing.  That person that always messes things up or gets themselves into “stuff”.

Or maybe you are one of those people.

Imagine how it would feel to know you were making the right decision from the start.

Steps you can take to help sharpen your decision-making skills for self-sufficiency:

1. Have an OPEN MIND

2. Confidence

3. Have the facts and info

4. Consider Options

5. List Pros and Cons

6. Play it out in your head, Run the scenarios

7. Get Another Opinion

8. Take Action

Start With an Open Mind

Do you automatically have all the answers? Probably not. Although some people think they do. But again, we want to avoid being the person that always thinks they are right no matter what. Understand you are human and you do not know everything about all things.

Confidence:

One of the main factors in decision-making is confidence.  So, building confidence will help you make decisions. Others will follow your lead because they will respect your confidence.  People will also have more confidence in you when you make your decisions with confidence.

Having personal confidence does not mean the person actually knows what they are doing, it just means they think they are right. We all know people like this and we need to avoid being one of them. Making bad decisions with total confidence still makes a bad decision.

Having Correct Facts and Information:

Good decision-making requires finding out the right information. You won’t get far if you start making decisions without the right information or with bad information. You need to be informed when making your decisions which means you have a bit of detective work to do. You have to get as many of the right facts as you can before making any decision.

Some of your “facts” might be biased, illogical, or just plain wrong. Accepting you might have things to learn is the first and most crucial step to making decisions. Take a step back from everything but the straight facts about what you are trying to decide. Try not to add your personal mindset into this process, just look at what is right now. As they say, the facts are the facts and the facts do not lie, though they may change with time or situation.

Many times, you do not get all the facts you need for one reason or another. In this case, you will have to take a leap of faith and rely on your confidence when making that decision. That is an unfortunate part of the process and one that can make people choose wrong sometimes.

As long as you make a decision using the information you have available, you can defend your choice, if it comes to that. 

Having all the right facts and information at the start is best. Or at least have as much info as you can to start out. You can usually change direction if you need to. If you get more or better information you can go back, reassess the facts and change your decision if need be.  You may want to continue on the tract you have already set if the new information really does not change what seems to be the best course of action.

Consider Other Options:

Part of the decision-making process is to consider alternatives. Are there things you need to learn and what about examining other options? Have you considered multiple solutions?  Take time to put the work in to gather what you need to proceed with confidence.

List out all possible alternatives based on the current information that you have. You can rate the alternatives on whatever scale you like to use. You can choose a star-rating system or a percentage system (0-100), etc.  Ratings like this can help you when making a decision.

Think of it as what would be the lesser of two evils or what would be the ideal situation. Would you like this more or less than that? You know, like those surveys the phone company sends you to feel out your interests in a new product or how likely you are to change companies.

Do a Pros and Cons list:

Another technique people like to use is to list out the pros and the cons. To do this, take out a blank piece of paper and write a dividing line in the center. Create the heading “Pros” on the left, and “Cons” on the right. Then, list out the pros and cons of each option. You can use this to guide you with your decision.

Try not to make this process too mechanical as the list may contain several subjective items. Do the best you can to think of all the options and list what is good and what is bad about each. Looking a the big picture as a whole may give you a better understanding of the situation.

Play It Out In Your Head: Run the Scenarios

Once you have some options in mind, try to imagine how they’re going to play out. This is, of course, not foolproof, but it is a way to see what could go right and what could go wrong if you think about it.

Sometimes what looks good might be a great temporary solution, but you’re going to need to do something different in the long run. Think about that. Would it be better to go with the long game now or will a quick fix do? If you make a decision right now, ask yourself if this will still be a good decision in the morning.

We have all had days like that, haven’t we? What about next week, or even next year? When planning and making decisions, we are not just thinking about the right here and now.  We must be thinking about the long term also. Especially when we are making plans and decisions that will affect our family and our futures.

Get Another Opinion:

Remember you are only human. If this is a situation you have never been in before, you are not expected to automatically know what to do. Do not be afraid to ask for help and rely on other people’s experiences.

Someone else may have already had to handle a situation like this. Whether their outcome was good or bad, you may learn something from their past experience. Have someone you can trust to whom you could talk about this “thing”.

Don’t blindly take everything they say and run with it. But do consider what they have to say, their experiences and their opinions. It is always a good idea to learn from other people’s mistakes and gain from other people’s successes.

While you might skip this step on the small stuff, it is worth having someone you trust to weigh in with their opinion whenever you make a big decision. They might see something you’re missing. Or have another suggestion to add to the list of options.

Take Action:

Now that you can start with an open mind. You have collected all the facts, looked at the different options, listed the pros and cons, and run the plays in your head.  Having asked for other opinions, and have now with confidence chosen a path, you must act.

For some, the hardest part of the decision-making process is making the actual decision. It is tempting to go back over the facts or keep looking for other alternatives.

It is good to be careful and take your time. But do not put it off and hope things will be different in the morning so you will not have to make the decision. At some point, you are going to have to act.

Take all that you have learned about the situation and with your best solution move forward with confidence. You’ve done all the work. Now comes the part where you trust in yourself and take action.

This process can and should be used often. The more you run through this process, the more confident you will become at making decisions. You may not need to go through this whole process for every day, small things, you may want to just to see what happens. Sometimes that can work out but sometimes, not so much.

If you apply this process to all your decisions, big and small, you will know without a doubt that you did all you could and made the very best choice you could.

Knowledge like that can be a strong weapon when things get out of hand. It does not matter if you are setting up a homestead, buying bulk for your family, choosing information books, or wanting to home-school your kids. This process will serve you in every aspect of your life, business, home, or zombie apocalypse ( not actual zombies of course).

We hope you have enjoyed part two, How to Sharpen Your Decision-Making Skills for Self-Sufficiency. Hopefully, you have learned some things and will be able to use some of the tips to sharpen your decision-making skills. We understand this is not a full layout plan to cover every situation but it is a place to start.  Stick around for next week’s part three, How to Keep Going When You Made Bad Decisions.

Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.