How do you make the right choice when you’re not sure?
What’s the best way to choose the right path in life?
Are you the worst at making choices? Not sure what path in life to take? No worries, here are 10 ways to make the right choice. #Indecision #Procrastination #Confidence #Overthinking
Make a call on instincts alone? Or is there a better method to the madness of choices?
Do you follow your gut or weigh the pros and cons?
What do you do when you have multiple interests? Like seriously, tell me what to do because I definitely do.
Choice A or Choice B, you decide?
Table of Contents:
I’m the absolute worst at making decisions. Looking at a menu takes me ages so now I just order what I got the last time as long as it wasn’t horrible.
Seriously, please don’t ask me what my favorite anything is. The only thing I’ve firmly decided on is fruit. Mangoes and lychee in case you were wondering and even there I have TWO favorites. But in my non-defense, there are still fruits I haven’t tried.
And that right there is my problem.
I’m especially horrible at making choices when the decision is between a few more or less similar options. Case and point, I love coffee and tea. I love them equally and drink way too much of both (like every single day).
Listen, making decisions is hard! Your mind will always overthink everything and run to every possibility and the potential outcome. To help you get through analysis paralysis here’s exactly how to make a choice.
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Making Life Defining Choices
So if I can’t decide between beverages, how can I make a decision about my career or future?
If I struggle endless scrolling the Netflix menu just to give up without watching anything… how can I choose a path?
Life’s filled with decisions, some big, other’s relatively minor. We’re not talking about food and entertainment, but deciding what to do with your life.
Maybe you want to start a business or side-hustle, but you can’t decide on a business idea.
Perhaps you’re in a job you hate, but you’re torn about leaving your toxic workplace? Do your own thing, or get a new job?
How can I decide between two paths that are both appealing to you? Two passions, two possibilities or two paths (maybe more.)
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Don’t even ask me how I’ve even managed to make relatively drastic, life-altering decisions in the past.
Three biggies include:
- Going to a university on the other side of the country where they didn’t even have the program I was interested in.
- Going to live with complete strangers in Namibia, a country I knew no one, for a summer to do research for my MA.
- Deciding a traditional 9-5 career was not for me even though I didn’t have a plan or a dollar to my name.
Seriously, it’s a mystery to me. And maybe a miracle that each of these defining choices turned out pretty well.
But the more I think about it the more I realize that being able to make the “right” decision in the past was a combination of two factors: the pressure of having to make a quick decision + just making a gut decision.
Basically, the clock was counting down and I went with my gut.
The choice is usually simple when the other options “just don’t feel right,” or they’re “definitely NOT what you want.”
But, what do you do when neither choice screams “pick me, pick me”?
The Decision I Now Face
Like everything I write on this blog, it starts with something personal.
Right now I have a choice to make that would very much shape my future. I’m not entirely sure if the destination would be different, but the path surely would.
I need to decide what or rather how (or maybe both) I should establish my primary income stream.
If you’re familiar with my story, you know that I escaped the 9-5 to become a creative entrepreneur (the only title the really describes the melange of things I do). I made the choice to transition from employee to entrepreneur.
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In 2016, I saved up 10K from hustling freelance web and graphic design, photography and some PR-related work.
My goal was to be able to give myself the space I needed to explore my options decide in 2017 how I would stay free. And now I must decide.
Sure, I could have decided earlier, but I was still figuring myself out (and I still am, that never stops) and to be honest I’m a very “right in the nick of time” kind of decision-maker. Without the pressure of needing to choose like right “now now” (as my African friends say), I would never decide.
Choice A: Continue building It’s All You Boo as a “you got this” motivational blog and build my 1-on-1 consulting business for other dream-preneurs (ohh, I like that title, I’m going to use that again somewhere) aka entrepreneurs in training.
Choice B: Build and establish myself as a branding and design expert and work for entrepreneurs and businesses, well and dream-preneurs too (see I used it again).
Why You Need to Make A Choice
Maybe like me, you’re wondering why this is a choice at all.
“Hey girl, why can’t you just do both?”
Sometimes I question if I even really need to decide.
Maybe you also wonder why do you have to make a decision? Why can’t you just do both or all?
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Maybe instead of different paths, you can take a two-lane highway?
But frankly friend, all two-lane highways usually started as a dirt road.
I need to build my dirt road first, before expanding.
There is definitely some truth to the belief that you really can’t do things at once, that multitasking is a lie.
I don’t think I can actually go any further and take serious ground for my dream lifestyle without deciding. I’ve resolved that I must pour myself into one, establish it and then revisit my other passions.
Here are ten ways to choose the right path. Ten ways I myself am using right now to do something that is really hard for me, making a choice.
10 Ways to Make the Right Choice
#1. Weigh Classic Pros & Cons
What are the pros and cons of each choice?
There’s a reason making pros and cons list are still a thing. It’s a great place to start when making a decision.
Get it all down on paper and focus on the reasons why it’s the choice for you and why it isn’t. You can also think about this as a competition between benefits and the best reasons vs. the liabilities and let downs for each.
Most of the points you list here will likely be expanded on below.
#2. Pick the Path of Least Resistance
Are there any requirements or resources you need to follow a certain path?
Do you need capital, knowledge, help, or any other necessities to succeed if you go this way? Is one option easier to achieve?
Which option complements your talents, superpower, and skills? Which option has the least resistance or the least amount of hurdles for you to jump over?
It’s not about doing it because it’s “easier,” it’s about ultimately succeeding.
#3. Consider You Why(s)
Which choice connects to your most true (or your most valued) reason why?
You could do the five whys exercise which is basically you ask yourself why but you go five layers deep. Ask yourself why, then why to each answer 4 times.
A twist on five whys exercise is to think about your five types of whys to help determine the real reason why you would (or rather should) choose either option.
The five whys being your:
- practical why (your need to survive),
- selfish why (your wants and treats that you desire),
- ego why (your need to feel successful and important),
- compassionate why (your desire to help others or how it benefits another),
- funny why (your light and fun reason).
#4. Whichever Brings You Peace
Which brings your heart and mind peace and resolves a conflict?
You could choose a path based on which one brings you peace or rather resolves a conflict. Which option is least aggravating or difficult? Would one over-complicate your life and lead you down a path of many restless nights and a lot of stress.
Rather think about, which solves a problem or removes an obstacle from your way.
You’re going to have to walk this path, so choose the one that is more peaceful, if you value your peace.
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#5. Helps You Achieve Your Goals
What’s your dream? Which brings you closer to achieving it?
What’s your dream? And if you don’t know then you should discover that before making any choices. Does a certain choice bring you closer to achieving said dream or farther away?
Sometimes you never really know where a choice will take you, but you could make a choice on the basis of the hope that you have. Where do you want to be in a year, two or five? Which choice situates you closer to realizing that dream.
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#6. Follow’s Your Heart’s Desire
Which choice is more appealing to you?
Which adds a twinkle to your eye and a bounce to your step? If you start planning or brainstorming ideas for each, which comes easier? Your heart already knows where you want to go, but sometimes your brain won’t let it.
Close your eyes and envision each day and where you want to be. Which choice gets you there. Maybe you’re afraid of that choice? If you are, go where the fear is, there’s a reason you’re afraid and you should follow it.
👉🏽 RELATED POST: How to Face Your Fears Head On
#7. Follow’s Your Heart’s Desire
What does your coach, advisor, or mentor say about it?
It’s hard to make a decision when you don’t have all the facts or you’re in new territory. Sure you can google your heart out and find a million and one articles telling you what you need to do, but from personal experience that just leads to madness.
You need to speak with someone (preferably on the phone or in-person) who is where you want to be about what you should be doing. When making my own choice I am taking into account the advice of two expert coaches.
You need personalized feedback from an expert.
#8. Connects to Current Opportunities
Which doors are open or more accessible to you right now?
Do you have connections or an in with a certain path? Where have you already established a network or a reputation? If it’s a business or career path that you are contemplating, which choice has more potential clients or employment opportunities? It really is who you know not always what you know.
Timing is also an important factor, does one choice have more interest or a larger market at this time.
#9. Lines up with Intended Outcome(s)
Where will you end up if you follow either path? Take a guess.
Do a bit of fortune-telling and make educated, yet realistic guesses on the destination of each path. Be optimistic but also be honest in your projections, whether they’re financial, material, social, professional, or otherwise. Where will you end up if you follow either path? Once again this can come from speaking with one who knows. Which lines up with where you want to be.
#10. Go with Your Gut
What does your gut say? Use your intuition.
All the above are great indicators for the direction you should take, but what does your gut say? Not the gurgles because you’re hungry or nervous, but deep down in the pit of your stomach what does it tell you.
The right choice isn’t always the easiest, but it should produce a settled feeling in the depths of your intuition. It’s especially hard to change course when you’ve already invested time into the other option and it feels like a wasted investment. I’d take a settled gut and a peace of mind overdoing it just because you’ve gone this far any day.
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Making The Right Choice
What’s the right choice anyway?
I’m not sure that in life there really is a wrong choice. Either way, you’ll never know what would have, could have, should have been. What is, is what was going to happen regardless.
What is, is what was going to happen regardless.
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Making a choice and being confident in it is what makes it the right choice.
It’s only wrong if you doubt it.
It’s only wrong if you constantly question and regret your choice.
Even if you feel like you made a mistake, or took the wrong path, It’s not really the choice that’s the problem because you can’t change that. The problem is your perspective which leads you to regret.
No lesson learned is a mistake.
No wrong turn taken is a mistake.
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You are where you are because you’re supposed to be here. Changing space-time is not in your toolkit or is it an ability that you possess.
And even if you could change your past, go back and choose differently or even somehow tell yourself the choices you shouldn’t make, that “new and right choice making you” wouldn’t actually be you.
That’s the thing about choices is that “good” or “bad” they make you who you are.
Love you, love where you are and own the choices that you make.
Whatever you decide, embrace it with confidence and don’t taint it with worries that it’s not the right path for you or the fear that you made the wrong choice.
I know that I won’t.
How do you know a choice is right?
How do you know a choice is right?
Last Updated on July 11, 2021
