Here is the Overview:
The lesson goal is to empower you with the ability to make efficient and effective decisions, even in challenging situations.
Key Concepts:
- We make numerous decisions every day.
- Some decisions must be made quickly and with inadequate information.
- Making decisions from an emotionally balanced and coherent perspective helps achieve the best outcomes.
Regardless of our job, or position, we are all decision-makers, making a staggering number of big and small decisions each day. In the fast-moving, sometimes complex work environments, we can be faced with making important decisions quickly and often without having all the information we want or need.
For many people, a high level of mental and emotional performance is required because of complex and urgent decisions that must be made. Those decisions can have broad effects. In some jobs like law enforcement, first responders or nurses, some decisions affect your own safety and those around you. By slowing down your inner mental and emotional responses, you can create a timeout that allows you to think more clearly from a more balanced and coherent perspective.
This does not mean you have to disengage from what you are doing and have to go off somewhere and think about a decision that you need to make, although sometimes that is appropriate. It means more fully engaging in the moment from a more coherent place so that your body, mind and emotions are aligned, allowing you more access to the part of your brain that does the “smart thinking” and to your intuitive intelligence.
Sometimes We Don’t Feel Like It
“Sometimes we don’t feel like stopping for a stop sign, but we do it anyway out of integrity and awareness of the consequences.”
–Doc Childre
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Most of the time, however, you do not have to make such “big” decisions in the heat of the moment. More than likely, you have a constant stream of choices to make throughout the day that can have significant short-and long-term consequences for you, your friends or family. Sometimes, the sheer number of decisions being made creates a stress overload that compromises the quality of choices.
Some decisions may be more important than others, while some may have an emotional charge. Others simply may be more difficult to make. Bigger decisions require focus and the consideration of a lot of information and opinions. Some are made based on intuition, or what we call a gut feeling or an inner sense of knowing. Some decisions, whether personal or professional, can create a low-grade anxiety of which you may or may not be conscious. There may be some decisions you may not want to deal with them and you end up putting them off. When it comes to a more important decision, sometimes it is appropriate to “sleep on it” and get input from others who may have more experience than you.