Choose your side: either it's yes or it's no.

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Every day we have decisions to make.  Some days the decisions are simple, do I wear a cardigan or a hoodie?  Other days the decisions are monumental, do I leave or do I stay?

Some people have made an art out of making difficult decisions.  Provide them the information they need and they are quick to decide and more often then not, the decision is the correct one.  On the other side of the coin is the person who vacillates between doing something or staying put, saying something, or remaining quiet.  You also have the ones who jump from side to side on decision making.  One day it's simple, and the next excruciatingly difficult.  I wish I could tell you that making decisions is always simple, but alas I cannot.  What I will say is that the mistake most people make is they are tossed about by what others think, by what others say, and the decision that is made is often not in their own best interest, but in that of those who have tried to have input in the decision making process. I learned a long time ago, that following my heart, my intuition, was the best formula for finding success in the decision making process.

I have been guilty of putting off decisions.  Mistakenly, I felt that if I could just not look at the issue, it might somehow magically just go away.  Well, not so much, I still had to contend with what was in front of me, and more often then not the problem got bigger and more complex with each passing minute.  Now there might be a bit of dramatic flare in that last statement, but the point I want to make is that you need to relax and just decide.  Problems are never going to go away simply by ignoring them, and if you are able to jump right into them, making that decision to handle whatever it is that you are facing, well then, most of the time things tend to work out, and work out better then you thought possible.

When we choose sides there can't be division.  Either you're all in, or you are better off not taking the leap.  Fear and trepidation are sure ways of having a mis-step and then it's ass over tea kettle as you try to gain back your balance.  Fear and worry are things that can never be allowed into the decision making process.  Fear and worry never brought any good to anything, least of which your own sanity. I've made decisions out of fear or worry and I will tell you all it got me was more fear and worry.

I've known people who were so afraid to make a decision for fear that they would make the wrong one and so did nothing, and what would happen, chaos.   We're all going to wind up making bad decisions from time to time.  If you are depending on information from others to help in making a decision, and that information that you received was flawed in some way, chances are you are going to make a bad decision.  That doesn't make you bad, it just means you weren't provided what was really needed in the moment.  Goodness gracious, very rarely is any decision final.  I mean you can always go back and fix things.  We have so allowed the fear of failure to stop us in our tracks that the only outcome because of that fear is more failure.  When did it become a sin to make a mistake, or to mess something up?  We're all going to fail at one time or another, so don't let that stop you from taking a stand and doing what you feel is right.  Those who can't accept failure or mistakes are idiots.

Certainly there are times when decisions are made that can and often will change one's life in a dramatic way.  It is in those times when you have to know what your heart is telling you to do.  I have seen people frozen and unable to come to a decision for fear that it will alter things in such a way that they are no longer recognizable.  To allow fear of the unknown to sway your decision one way or the other is nothing more then asking for trouble.  I guess there are people out there who feel it better to just stay in the place they are at verses take the risk of making the wrong decision and then what will they do.  I will tell you that indecision is just as bad as making the wrong decision, and often the results are far worse then if you simply move forward and if a mistake happens simply fix it.


So what do you think?  Do you think you have what you need to make the difficult decisions about things?  Is you can do attitude largely dependent on the nature of the decision, or the complexity of the issue?  For me decisions are decisions, and the difficulty of a situation or the complexity of the issue is not something I really concern myself with.  There are times when I may have to work through a problem, one step at a time, but taking a little step is far better then taking no steps at all.  The bottom line is either you are in, or you're not.  Either you are willing to take a stand, or you are going to be beaten down by the comments, actions, or feelings of someone else.  I am of the mind that if I am going to wind up in a mess I would rather it be at my own hand and not someone else.

So what's it going to be: are you going to say yes or say no?  Are you going to tell fear and uncertainty to take a back seat and move forward in those decisions that need to be made?  I promise you that any decision good or bad is better then no decision at all.  Remember, you can always fix a mistake, what is more difficult to fix is "Stupid".  Think about it...