I am in the market for a new home. It wasn’t by choice but due to my landlord returning to Adelaide. So I’ve found myself in a situation I didn’t want to be in and there is a clock ticking. The current property market is not overflowing with supply of beautiful properties at affordable prices. In attending inspections I’ve had to really get clear on my baseline non-negotiables and what I actually need over what I want. Because, let’s be honest, what I want has been inspired by ‘Selling Sunset’ and what I need is just a functional home. Everything becomes a decision and I am the only one who can make the right decision (and then need to live with it if I get it wrong).
It made me ponder how often we all make big and little decisions in life and how do we ever know we’ve made the right decision?
For my house hunt, it was inconvenience vs waiting. As a wise man once told me ‘there will always be more houses’ and there will be. Waiting is not my biggest strength but being patient for the right property is better for long term happiness over the inconvenience of a short term living arrangement. We can all appreciate that making a decision when under pressure is very hard.
Now this isn’t to say that all decisions made under pressure will be poor, as pressure can make us laser-focussed. But, for many people, when they feel too much pressure the brain tends to shut off the networks involved in creativity, planning and thinking abstractly, which often leads to poor decision making.
I had been wishing for a crystal ball, the kind that would tell me the future of the property market and which home would best suit my future life - I was looking to outsource the decision. These types of life decisions that only come down to ourselves, can be very overwhelming and the fear of making the wrong decision runs high. A decision made under emotional stress will often not be the right one because we soon think in a fog or attach unwarranted emotions to various outcomes of the decision. We will quickly realise being under emotional stress when all our imagined outcomes are catastrophically bad.
So how do we know if it’s the right decision? Well, here are my top four tips and the best advice I ever received is outlined at the end of this post.
What would you say to your best friend? If your best friend asked for your advice, what would you tell them that comes from a place of keeping their best interests in mind? Or ask your most honest friend, knowing what they know about you, what would they do in your shoes?
Take a step back. Consider if you even have to make the decision right in this moment. Often we put our own deadlines on ourselves or others but they are not fixed, so if time is the pressure, see if you can find a way to alleviate it or negotiate.
Take another step back. Make a pros and cons list to take some of the emotion out of it and make the decision from a logical frame of mind.
Trust your gut. Human intuition has helped us survive, use it to your advantage. If you are feeling uneasy about a decision, ask yourself why 5 times and get to the root cause. Sometimes we are influenced by others in our decisions but your gut will help guide you to what is the right decision for you.
At the start of the house hunting process, the list was long and as the clock counted down, I began to make compromises and trade-offs with myself. However, the more I traded off my list of what I wanted, the heavier the whole process felt. I worried that I would end up with a decision that I was unhappy about, to the point of thinking one property was just good enough and I should accept it. I started to believe that accepting ‘just good enough’ was the only way – which didn’t sit well with me. I soon realised that making a decision that aligns with your life vision will always make you happy. I have previously written about manifesting what you want, so keeping that life vision at the core and assessing each option is the best approach to making right decisions.
Even though it may feel like the current decision you are facing is all consuming, it’s important to keep perspective. You’ve made big decisions in the past, you will make them again in the future. The right decision is the one you make today, with the information you have now, and being the person you are in this moment.
It's what happens in the days and years that follow which determines how right the decision is. No matter what option we choose, our efforts to make ourselves happy following the decision will always be more important than the guesswork that led to our choice.
This post is dedicated to my dear friend who had to make a whole bag of mini and major decisions. SB, you came through it and everything looks bright for the future.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free reach out to share your own experiences about the hard decisions you are facing or if you would like to share when you made the ‘right’ decision. If you are interested in more ways to Think Ascend, please subscribe to my mailing list. No spam, just regular inbox gifts to keep you ascending.