How I Make Tough Decisions | 101
Sep 29, 2023How I Make Tough Decisions
They say the quality of your decisions shows you the quality of life you’ll live. The older I get, the more and more I agree with this.
Each day, we face hundreds of decisions.
Do I hit the snooze or get out of bed?
Do I order takeout or make something at home?
Do I raise my rates on this client or keep them the same?
Some decisions are easy to make - they’re no-brainers.
Other decisions feel as if the wrong decision will destroy your life.
Over the years, I’ve used multiple frameworks to make the best choices, and I’ve landed on something that has served me well.
Decision-Making Framework
My decision-making framework is simple: Decisions through the vision.
Let’s break down what this means.
I’ve got a crystal clear vision of where I want my life to go. It took me a while to create a vision for myself and here’s how I did it.
I got crystal clear on what my goals in life actually are. I wrote down everything I wanted to accomplish in the next 5 years.
The goals I set out are both big and scary. They’re out of my comfort zone. They’re goals that at my current skill and experience level, I can’t achieve.
These goals force me to grow. They’re big, and they’re directionally correct.
When setting goals, you don’t need to be hyper-specific, but you do need two things. The goal has to feel somewhat scary, and it has to be directionally correct.
Spend a day working on your goals with these things in mind.
Once I became clear on what my goals were, I created a vision for myself. What is my North Star? What’s the one thing I want to accomplish?
This is my vision:
Create the best training for creative entrepreneurs and serve thousands of students.
It’s a simple statement, but inside there are nuances.
I’m building the the best training for creative entrepreneurs which requires me to become the best in the field at this. Already, I’m seeing evidence that the training is fantastic since students are landing $10,000 dollar deals with clients.
But my vision isn’t to build a fantastic training.
My vision is to build the best training.
And that takes hard work.
On top of that, I want to serve thousands of students. Meaning I need to earn the trust of thousands of creatives and show them that it’s worth it to invest in themselves. Since the training is fantastic already, I slap a guarantee on the program which makes investing in themselves an easy decision.
So where does decision-making come in?
Now that we have our vision, we go back to this simple statement: Decisions through the vision.
Simply put, does each decision bring you closer to your vision or farther away?
Does snoozing my alarm bring me closer to my vision? No. So I don’t snooze.
Does scrolling social media during work bring me closer to my vision? No.
Does writing this newsletter every week bring me closer to my vision? Yep.
Every single decision just has to go through the vision, and the answer is usually clear.
It makes decision-making so simple.
The faster we can make quality decisions, the faster we’ll grow.
I used to sit on unmade decisions for days or weeks. Now, almost all are instant.
But what about the toughest decisions we have to make? Those irreversible decisions that affect the trajectory of our lives?
How To Make The Hardest Decisions
For this, I use the Ray Dalio framework from Principles.
I’ve used this to make some of the hardest decisions of my life. I wouldn’t trade my current lifestyle for any other lifestyle. This framework has been life-changing for me.
Ray Dalio’s framework goes like this:
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Know what the best decisions are and
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Have the courage to make them.
On the surface it’s simple. Because we already know what the best decisions are. We just lack the courage to make those tough decisions.
If you’re going to have one takeaway from this newsletter, make it this:
Every decision through the vision.
The best part is you get to test this every single day. You get to prove to yourself that you’re the type of person that executes on their vision. It’s an incredible feeling.