As humans, we are continuously making decisions. Some are ordinary and don’t take much toll on or life, but others are crucial and can decide the course of our lives. Studies have shown that we make approximately 70 decisions every day. Most of these are minor, related to day to day living. However, we seldom make big decisions, such as changing jobs, moving to another city, or avoiding someone who fills your life with negativity.
If we are in the place that we want to be, we see our past as a big success story that led us to where we are. On the other hand, if we are not satisfied with the current circumstances, we would surely regret some of those life choices that led us to where we are.
8 Life Choices that You Might Regret in 10 Years
1. Wasting time
Laziness is nothing short of a disease. You don’t want to put in the extra effort required to accomplish your dreams. If you don’t control your laziness and deferring decisions, you will lose valuable time – time you’d wish you used in a much more productive manner. You have to start doing and stop daydreaming. You have to motivate yourself to start working on your goals and take action. Step out of your comfort zone before you lose sight of your dreams.
2. Being a bad company
A bad attitude is contagious. It is very hard to preserve your modesty if you surround yourself with arrogant and angry people. Being around a negative person will make you negative too, which is bad for you in many ways. It’s not healthy and it might make you miss out on the good things in your life.
One sure shot sign of a bad company is that they make you feel bad about you and it’s best to be away from these people. Instead, try to fill your life with people who are positive, have the same tastes as you and respect you. Try finding people who are compassionate, generous and patient, instead of choosing to be with those who are overly materialistic.
3. Living your life on other’s terms
You would really regret it if you live your life according to someone else, maybe someone you admire, or because of your peers. You have to release yourself from thinking that someone else’s thoughts are yours – or you think you should do as others wish, to fit in, and be welcomed in their company. Don’t ignore your inner voice, and be courageous enough to follow your intuition.
4. Not discovering your true self
The greatest test of life is finding yourself. Discovering your inner self and being happy with yourself is very important. It helps you grow in all areas of your life – material and spiritual. You would also be clear about your life goals, workwise and about relationships. You must follow your passion, anything which you love doing. When you start doing what you love, you’re not afraid to put in hard work and reap rich dividends, both emotionally and financially.
5. Being self-centered – one of the worst life choices to make
Life is not only about work and achieving your goals and earning pots of money. What you are as a person also matters, whether you are selfish and cannot be bothered about the rest of the world. But your generosity towards others, sharing your love, time and money can enrich your life – your good actions speak more about you than anything else.
6. Not finding time for your loved ones
You have to work long hours to achieve success in your work. But what most people regret is not taking out time for their loved ones. Finding a work-life balance is extremely important so that you do not regret it later. Remember that there are only a bunch of people who would stand by you during tough times. Most of the times these are your parents, children, siblings or your partner. If they truly love you, you don’t even have to do too much. Just spend a little time with them and make them realize that you care. That is enough.
7. Trying to impress others
There are many reasons why we wear a mask in front of others. We fear that we would be judged by them and are afraid to be thought of as less than perfect. We try to live up to their image of us, instead of being true to ourselves. This creates a dichotomy within us, which grows with time. You might think that being yourself would make you lose a bit on your reputation, but that’s not true. You just have to identify the qualities of your true self that other like, and then bring them to the forte. If you succeed at doing this, it would definitely add up to your reputation.
8. Giving up
Giving up on your dreams and settling for failure is one of the biggest regrets you’ll have. JK Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter wrote in abject poverty and faced rejections several times. But she never gave up. There are many such examples throughout history, and you should try to be inspired by them to not consider failure as a possibility.
Let yourself be happy, in all situations as all things pass. After you reach a certain age, you inevitably learn that everything that comes into your life is important and makes you the person you are. Reacting positively to all situations is tough but possible, and helps you grow.
Before you go
Read on to discover 8 ways through which you can make better life choices – both personal and professional.
Decision Making: 8 Ways To Make Better Choices In Life And Work
Learning Good Decision Making
Research in psychology has revealed that many of our decisions are disrupted by an array of biases and distortions. We overpower the correct decision by our overconfidence and we seek information that supports our opinion and reject information that doesn’t. This does not make us good at decision making.
Unlike good scientists who make testable hypotheses, most of us tend to look for evidence that simply confirms our preconceptions.
There are over 100 biases that cloud our judgment, and unless we’re aware of them, we are going to continue to make decisions that don’t give us the best outcomes and we’re missing out on opportunities that good decision making can give us.
Here are 10 Ways To Make Better Decisions and Life Choices:
1. Expand Your Spotlight
We’re very good at paying attention to things that are focal in our minds. This spotlight effect means that our decision making suffers from a tunnel vision. Better decision making is the process of moving your mental spotlight to shine on things that we wouldn’t otherwise look at.
2. Find The Right Options
Sometimes indecision can be caused by narrowing our options to only two choices. In decisions applied to health decisions, career decisions, business decisions, a bias is known as ‘narrow framing’ causes us to limit our choices between A OR B when in fact there are many other choices we should consider. Chip Heath suggests that instead, you should ask yourself if there is a way to do A AND B.
3. Expand The Time Frame to Make Better Life Choices
When making decisions based on the amount of time you could save, we often find that we’ve made the rash choice. Sometimes the suggestion to “sleep on it” is great advice—it helps to quiet short-term emotion that can disrupt our choices but this takes 8 hours and may still not give you the best decision, even though it may have removed short-term emotional biases.
When making decisions that have a long-term effect, its important to ask, ‘What would convince me, six months down the road, to change my mind about this?’. This only requires a simple shift in attention.
4. Consider It All
Kathleen Eisenhart, co-director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program found that teams in Silicon Valley that made the fastest decisions were the ones that considered lots of information. “The things that slow us down,” Heath explains, “are having one option, so we waffle about that option, or we invest a lot of time and money on a project or a relationship and can’t bear to abandon it.”
5. Consider The Opposite
For each option you are looking at, ask yourself, ‘What would have to be true for the opposite to be the right answer?’. This is a powerful concept in business when negotiating from two different perspectives and will help in analyzing the options instead of arguing.
6. Get Some Distance
In many personal decisions, it helps to ask yourself, ‘What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?’. This can help remove any personal emotional connections you have to the decision and give you a distant perspective so you can make a better decision.
7. Use A Trip Wire
The tripwire refers to being prepared to be wrong. This is something we do to make sure that past decisions get revisited periodically. This is especially important in reminding us that we have a choice in our actions and we are free to revisit those decisions from the past to ensure they’re still the best option for us.
8. Be Decisive
After you have considered the right things and you have used the processes outlined here, you have to be confident in making a decisive decision.
When making important decisions in life, its important to consider and practice these strategies. Good decision making can make or break your future goals and aspirations, so it’s an important skill to learn.
Having confidence in your ability to make good decisions is an attribute that many professions look for in an employee. One course that can instill this skill set is a bachelor of science in organizational management. This will give you the edge you need to separate yourself from the herd and succeed in the work industry.