15 Ways Improve Your DECISION MAKING

Making decisions is part of life. But it’s not always easy or straightforward. From career moves to relationships to simple choices like what to eat for dinner, we face decisions every single day. While some choices might seem small and inconsequential, others have the power to change the entire trajectory of our lives.

Here’s an uplifting secret — there’s really no such thing as the single right decision. Life is complex and ambiguous. For every door we open, others close off. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to identify that mythic optimal choice.

Rather than frantically hunting for a flawless decision, it’s healthier to accept uncertainty as part of the process. A wiser approach is to focus on optimizing our decision-making skills.

1. Give Yourself Permission to Not Know

We live in a world that glorifies sureness and confidence. Marketing slogans tell us to “Just Do It” while social media pressures us to share curated opinions on everything. With so much focus on projecting certainty, it’s easy to feel ashamed about having doubts or not knowing exactly what we want. Especially when facing major life decisions, we mistakenly believe we should have it all figured out already.

But the truth is, that ambiguity is an integral part of the human experience that should be embraced, not suppressed. Permit yourself to admit “I’m not 100% sure” without judgment. Saying “I don’t know yet” out loud relieves internal pressure rather than being a sign of weakness or hesitation.

You don’t have to force clarity on a situation that requires more careful thought.

As the saying goes,

sometimes the hardest decision is knowing when not to make one yet.

2. Separate Preferences From Values

It’s easy to conflate desires with principles when evaluating options. We assume that chasing ambitions and attractions aligns with our values. But short-term wants are often misaligned with deeper needs. Before making major commitments, take time to distinguish mere preferences from core values.

Ask yourself:

• Will this choice still make sense 5 or 10 years from now?
• Does it enable my long-term goals or provide momentary gratification?
• Am I picking this path because it’s truly rewarding, out of obligation, ego, or peer pressure?

Separating preferences from values provides clarity.

3. Widen Your Options Before Narrowing Down

It’s tempting to make decisions by immediately ruling out alternatives that don’t perfectly match hopes. But this tendency to default to “no” closes doors and limits possibilities. Before eliminating choices, widen your options first.

Catalog all potential paths without prejudice even if they seem unrealistic. Creative decisions emerge from imagining expansively without constraints initially. Don’t censor yourself by dismissing options too fast. First brainstorm, then refine.

Once you’ve opened your mind to a spectrum of scenarios, then start prioritizing and narrowing options using rational criteria. Making decisions is a process of funneling diversity into decisive action.

But the funnel works best when the initial pool of choices is broad, not narrow.

4. Redefine Success and Failure

We’re conditioned to label decisions as successes or failures based on superficial outcomes rather than effort. Getting the promotion means success while getting laid off signals failure. But this binary view overlooks the complexity of how life unfolds.

Rather than treating decisions as pass/fail tests, redefine success and failure in terms of learning. A choice that teaches you something valuable about yourself is success. A decision that leaves you feeling stuck in false assumptions is a failure.

With this growth-focused mentality, apparent missteps contain hidden opportunities to refine your judgment. Equally, “slam dunk” decisions could reinforce harmful thought patterns if you become overconfident. Tying decision quality to understanding rather than external validation brings a sense of agency.

5. Question Either/Or Thinking

We often limit options to binary choices — either this or that, one way or the other. But reality isn’t so black and white. Forcing complex dilemmas into a simple “Pick A or B” frame inevitably overlooks middle paths. Before concluding that you must choose between two extremes, question that limited mindset.

• Is there really no compromise or third option?
• Are those truly the only possibilities or am I missing something by framing this as binary?

Break free from false dichotomies by proactively seeking integrative solutions. Some of the best decisions fuse options together with the best of both.

Nuanced thinking opens doors closed by simplistic either/or perspectives. As leadership guru Mary Parker Follett said,

“When we have learned to seek integration rather than unicity, then the either-or decisions will begin to fade away.”

6. Don’t Let Perfect Be the Enemy of Good

Voltaire famously defined perfect as the enemy of good. How does this apply to decision-making? In chasing idealized outcomes, we often sacrifice opportunities that are good enough. We deny ourselves perfectly acceptable choices because they aren’t perfect.

But real-life decisions rarely come with guaranteed perfection. If you wait around for the flawless dream job or relationship to just appear, you could be left waiting forever. Learn to embrace options that are good enough rather than holding out for perfection.

Of course “good enough” doesn’t mean settling for misery or ethical compromises. But between realistically acceptable and unrealistically ideal lies the potential for fulfilling choices better than paralysis.

7. Trust Your Intuition — With Discipline

Intuition provides a rapid way to synthesize complex information into coherent feelings guiding our decisions. But left unchecked, intuition can also reinforce biases.

Here’s one suggestion:

Set a timer for 5 minutes, close your eyes, and sit quietly noticing any intuitive pulls you feel about a decision. After 5 minutes, interrogate your intuition before acting on it. Does this align with facts or am I projecting emotions? Will this choice seem sensible in a week?

Approaching intuition with curiosity rather than blind faith prevents rash choices. Over time, this disciplined ritual trains intuition to become a refined decision-making tool. As Steve Jobs, who heavily trusted his intuition, stated,

“It’s not something you can learn in business school. It’s more of an innate sense you’re born with.”

8. Aim For Satisficing, Not Maximizing

The urge to maximize and optimize can paralyze decision-making. Analysis paralysis sets in as we obsessively weigh every imaginable option seeking the absolute best one. But we know, the mythical “perfect choice” doesn’t actually exist.

An alternative approach is called satisficing — choosing the first option that meets your standards or is “good enough.”

Satisficing doesn’t mean settling or apathy. It just means abandoning idealized perfectionism.

Once you identify a choice that satisfies key criteria, you pull the trigger rather than getting mired in overthinking. Satisficing leads to faster decisions that still align with values by ignoring unlikely marginal gains. Sometimes good enough really is perfect.

9. Remember That Who Decides Matters As Much As What’s Decided

Many perspectives treat decision-making like a computer algorithm — coldly rational and impersonal. But human choices depend heavily on personal factors like intuition, emotion, and values. The psychology of a decision-maker is inseparable from the decision itself.

Ask yourself:

• Who exactly is making this decision?
• What assumptions am I carrying?
• What life experience shapes my worldview?

In the words of Hunter S. Thompson,

“There is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”

The same holds for decision-making — own your subjective truth.

10. Every Decision Converges Past, Present and Future

Decisions link experience, present-day needs, and future aspirations. Like strands of DNA, choices integrate where you’ve been with who you are and where you hope to go. Before deciding, reflect on how a potential path aligns with your timeline.

• Will this decision honor the efforts of my past self?
• Does it meet my goals in the present moment?
• And does it set me up for the future I envision?

Choices that tightly weave together these temporal threads lead to an integrated life experience.

As Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov,

“The more senior a man gets, the farther he looks back.”

11. Give Scary Choices Special Attention

We often avoid confronting decisions that evoke fear or vulnerability. Career changes, relationship risks, and relocations all provoke deep-seated anxieties. But running from these pivotal choices out of terror leads to regret and missed potential.

Instead of fleeing, scary decisions deserve extra attention. Create space to process why this choice unsettles you. Face fears that feel hard to face. But also connect with the growth opportunities ahead if you dare to leap.

As Anaïs Nin wrote,

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

Scary decisions, when made thoughtfully, can massively expand your horizons.

12. Don’t Decide Alone

Major decisions can feel lonely if you think you need to make them solo. But gaining other perspectives often sheds light on angles you’d miss alone.

Don’t just describe surface options — get vulnerable about fears, competing motivations, and doubts. Their outside view will challenge assumptions you take for granted.

The key is picking advisors who know you deeply but offer honest feedback, not just validation. Alone we see less. Together, with patient listening, collective wisdom emerges.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

13. Imagine Your Deathbed Perspective

Try imagining yourself in deathbed. Mentally transport yourself to the very end of your life looking back. From this imagined perspective of hindsight, what choice aligns with a life well lived?

Some options that seemed pressing fade in significance while deeper rewards stand out.

Of course, very few decisions are truly life or death. But taking this wide-angle view stretches your frame from immediate worries to long-term fulfillment.

14. Make Tough Trade-Offs Explicitly

Some decisions require sacrificing one value for another. Choosing a job for passion might mean less stability. Having kids could trade freedom for family. There are rarely perfect solutions — all options demand trade-offs.

Rather than making implicit sacrifices you later regret, have the courage to explicitly articulate the trade-offs involved upfront. This prevents subconscious denial.

Say it out loud:

“I am choosing X which means I must sacrifice Y.” This willingness to name sacrifices openly leads to more conscious, aligned decision-making without resentment over what had to be given up.

15. Remember That Time Changes What Matters

The passage of time constantly reshapes what we value. As we age and evolve, priorities that once felt non-negotiable fall away while unexpected passions emerge. Making decisions is not a one-time locked-in choice but an ongoing series of course corrections.

Trust that no single decision defines you for all time. It’s never really too late to pivot based on new insight. Life grants do-overs.

Rather than agonizing about trying to perfectly optimize every decision for all eternity, stay open to how your values fluidly shift. Unexpected growth hides in all directions if you remain flexible.

Remember what Aristotle shared centuries ago —

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

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