Life is nothing but a collection of choices. Whether made by us or made for us, options are what brought us here. Not choosing is even a choice, as you are ironically choosing “no choice” or a personal boycott by not choosing. As such, choices and decisions do make the world turn.

Aside from the “no choice” decision, some decisions are made under pressure and in a hurry. These decisions are usually made because of emergencies and to fight for our lives. People are generally left with these decisions due to extreme cases. War is an example of such a case. You often see people kill people because of war. Grey Feathers, which is Dewald’s Book on decision making under fire, has a significant segment on this when they are forced to face an enemy they are having difficulty facing. They must find a way to survive, even if it means doing the most unsavory things.

However, some of the most complex decisions to fathom are those you have no hand in making. These are decisions made by groups, organizations, and even nations and can have a significant impact on you. Making tax laws, going into war with another country, or even deciding to stop being friendly or cooperating with nations are some decisions that an average citizen cannot change.

Faced with such decisions, it is up to the ordinary citizens how to deal with such baffling policies. But then again, outside of dictatorship and other authoritarian rules, it is the majority of the people who decide who can sit at the highest seat of the land and run the country. In a way, if you think about it, it is still the choice of the people that made it that way.

It is said that individuals in a pack, herd, or mob tend to adopt and act on specific behaviors that they wouldn’t do individually. This herd mentality essentially assumes emotional rather than rational decisions. Emotional decisions are not often recommended as they are made with a clouded mind.

For important decisions, it is often recommended to think individually. Not only does this help you avoid considering things with other people’s emotions and opinions involved. Thinking individually also allows you to think rationally. This reasoning thus enables you to come up with rational decisions. Decisions that are based purely on logic and are not tainted by emotions (though they are not always perfect.)

As such, it is crucial to be good decision-makers who are able to think hard and fast about things that are currently happening. They must be able to see how their decisions will pan out, or at least predict the following situation that will be born out of these decisions.

A good decision-maker will also be able to stand up and stand by his decisions even though the outcomes are not the things they have hoped for. They are brave enough to stand by their choices and know ways to fix problems born out of them.

Good decision-makers, thus, also have good backup plans. They have already known what emergencies might happen and how to remedy them. In short, they have contingency plans for whenever everything goes south.

So how do you become a good decision maker? Well, the first thing that you should do is allow yourself to be informed as much as possible. Proper decisions need accurate information. This is because good decisions often require good information.

It is often a bad idea to decide things whenever you are lacking information. Doing so would lead you to many holes that might come to bite you back later. Protect yourself at all costs before deciding by making sure you have all the available information you can have.

That said, getting complete information is often a rarity, and as such, we are forced to make decisions with what we currently have. And we have to do just that. Make do with the information with that we have and proceed with the best possible courses of action and choose a decision that we may see as the best one among the pile. 

In the end, good decisions are heavily decided by the mind and not from the heart.