Making a decision whether to do this or to do that when options abound can be terribly difficult. An inability to make decisions can put your dreams on hold for so long that you may never reach for them. This happens because you either end up taking no action at all or make many starts, but keep changing direction. If decision making is a problem for you, take heart, there is a fix.
When we can’t make a decision, the reason is based on the fear of making a mistake. Some decision making problems are easier to resolve than others. For example, deciding whether to buy corn flakes or Cocoa Puffs is easier than trying to decide whether to get a job or open a business. Let’s look at both scenarios closely.
After we have lived a few years we learn that life is a crapshoot filled with opportunities and traps. In our attempt to avoid the traps (fear) we often miss opportunities. So, how do we conquer fear? The short answer is we don’t conquer it, we push through it.
Fear is a survival mechanism that we need. Let’s take a look at one possible conversation that might take place between my friend Helen and her internal fear animal we’ll call Ogzy.
Helen: I think it would be fun to open a bakery.
Ogzy: That’s expensive. Most businesses fail. You don’t know anything about running a bakery.
Helen: Maybe so, but I have a lot of experience as a baker and I can learn how to run a bakery.
Ogzy: You can’t afford that. It’s too risky. What happens if it fails? Think of all the money you will lose. Besides, there are lots of good bakers out there. Some are a lot better than you.
Now Helen has a choice. She can succumb to Ogzy’s fear mongering and give up on her dream of making a living as a baker or she can push past him. Let’s see how she pushes Ogzy out of the way.
Helen: Yeah, you’re right, I might fail and it’s probably true that there are other bakers that do some baked goods better than mine, but I think it will be fun and I’m going to do it anyway.
Ogzy: What about all that money you will probably lose? There goes the retirement nest egg. (Now he stabs Helen in the stomach with his fear spear.)
Helen: I’m going to learn everything I can about the bakery business before I invest. That will lower my chances of failure. And, if I do fail, that’s just one failure out of the way on my path to success.
Ogzy: I’m warning you. Don’t do this. Think of how awful you will feel if you fail. (He pokes Helen again with his fear spear).
Helen: It is what I want to do. It will be fun doing it and that’s what I’m going to do if everything checks out okay.
Helen’s not stupid; she knows there’s more to opening a business than just a decision. The decision is just the first step. How she moves on to making a final decision you’ll read below.
Ogzy says nothing, but he’ll be back. He may even try other tactics using guilt (another face of fear). He may try and convince Helen that the risk to her family is too high or that she will be stealing attention from her kids. The nagging is endless. Unfortunately, we all have an internal Ogzy and he is usually the reason we don’t reach for our dreams.
Now let’s say Helen is faced with a different situation. She has to choose between two options where both look equally good. In her mind it’s like trying to pick between two lottery tickets. Both look equally good, but she believes (notice the word “believes”) that only one is worth a million dollars and the other is a loser. In fact, both tickets might be losers and both might be winners, but Helen is afraid to choose. What if she picks the wrong ticket?
Examples of situations like this include:
- Getting a job or starting a business
- Career A or career B
- Business A or business B
- Buying house A or house B
What is Helen going to do? How will she decide? Because Helen knows her decisions in these situations will have significant impact on her life, she doesn’t want to make a mistake, but she’s a smart lady and knows the work has just begun.
There are three factors that come to play in order for Helen to make the best decision: emotion, logic, and experience.
We’re going to use the example above to see how Helen moves forward with her idea to open a bakery.
Emotion – Her initial decision was based on emotion. She likes to bake, so she reasons it would be fun to open a bakery. The idea is exciting.
Logic – Helen is no fool. She knows she’s never started or operated a business of any kind before. She reasons her first step is to gather information. What are the pros and cons of starting a business? What are the pros and cons of operating a bakery? How much money will she need? Will there be enough business for the bakery to survive?
To learn more about starting a business Helen goes to:
SCORE to learn the basics of business (free)
She reads the following books: (free if in library)
- The Founder’s Dilemma by Naomi Wasserman
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- The Peter Principal: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull
Experience – Helen has no experience operating a bakery business. Helen decides to get that experience through surrogates. In Helen’s case those surrogates would be people who already had bakery experience. To do this, she visits local bakeries that are not her competitors and talks to the owners about what they like and don’t like about the business. (She and Ogzy have another discussion about this. Talking to strangers is scary, so Ogzy unsuccessfully tries to talk her out of it.)
One thing she discovers is that most of the bakers are up and at work by 4 A.M. which gives Helen pause. Going to bed at 7 or 8 in the evening in order to get a good night’s sleep is a problem because Helen likes to work at night when the house is quiet and the family is in bed. Plus by having to go to bed so early she will sacrifice time with her family. Would she be willing to make these sacrifices?
After gathering all the information, Helen decides opening a brick and mortar bakery wouldn’t be near the fun she thought it would be. She’s disappointed, but believes she would have to sacrifice too much in time and money. Now she has a dilemma. She asks herself, how can I couple my love of baking into a means to support myself?
She explores her other options. Perhaps delivering baked goods to local businesses for resale or special events might work. Maybe an online store where fresh baked goods are shipped to customers would work. She carefully weighs each option using the same methods used to determine if she should open a bakery.
She asks these questions:
- Am I excited about the idea?
- Am I willing to be fully engaged in the activities needed to make it a success?
- Am I willing to tolerate the risk?
- Am I willing to learn some things that may bore me such as understanding a balance sheet and profit and loss statement?
- Am I willing to pay the price? Any choice you make in life has a price in time and effort. If you choose one thing, it’s at the expense of doing another.
Notice I didn’t use money as a consideration. That was on purpose. If you have a good idea that’s well thought out and planned, there are ways to get the funding, but that has to wait for another post.
One last word (okay few words): Never make an important decision based on how much money you will make nor how much perceived status you will gain.
