All of us know the importance of the right decision in our careers and lives. But many people do not realize the importance of decision-making strategies.
In simple language, decision-making strategies are our action plan before choosing a course of action out of all the options.
Our choices define our position in every situation. It is one of the most primary traits in our professional lives and personal lives.
The decision-making skills are a much-required thought process to evaluate each pros and cons of every alternative option. Analyzing through information and process the outcome is difficult. It requires skills and patience and practices over the years.
All of us have taken some wrong decisions in our lives in time. Taking the wrong decision may be fatal with our career lives.
That’s why decision-making strategies are important parts of the journey to the right decision.
14 strategies for making the right decision
Here I have noted down some useful strategies that would be helpful before making the right decision.
1. Learn yourself
Knowing oneself is the first step towards the right direction of any decision making the path. When it is about your career, then you have to be more careful before taking any decision. Without knowing yourself, you’re never can take any decision that is eventually ought to be the best for yourself. That’s why knowing yourself is even more important than you can imagine.
There are a few parameters to test on the way of self-assessment.
If you get stuck in a career where you find no interest or passion for growing, then you are probably never going to be the best in that field. People should always choose their career as per their choices.
Thoughts about their lives, the interests, the values, the work-life balance, their skills are the features those talk in silence about the best-fitted field for themselves. These are the basic points that people should analyze before taking any decision about their careers.
Knowing yourself or learning yourself means accepting the truth. When you analyze reports of every parameter, then it will show you the real shadow of your personality. You can make it useful only when you are ready to accept it as it is rather than what you want it to be.
2. Your Skills
A large no of people does not know what their real skill lies. They get stuck in some field where some other skills would have been better help. When you are good at teaching or explaining the complex theory, and you are working in some area where your job is to follow the directions, then it is a 100% chance that you will feel not going to the office every morning.
When you have no scope to showcase your skills, then it is the wrong field for yourself.
3. Values affect
Values are those strong hidden beliefs that you may not be aware of. We pick some values from our upbringing and some others on the way of our journey to life.
Values affect our decision-making strategies most. From career decisions to big life decisions, our values decide if we are happy with our decision.
One of my friends is a person who wants lots & lots of money. So he takes a huge no of calculated risks in his career. Most of those risks bring him the result that he always wants.
Now, if you are the same person and you choose a stable low-risk life, then your desires always will remain desires. To make them real, take the right decision for that.
Such as if you are a person who works for job satisfaction, then you can’t work somewhere, you may not get that chance of doing something innovative.
For most people, values are mostly unconscious mind game, unless one takes the time to read that unspoken truth.
4. Find your Interests
What is your interest in expertise?
Are you a person who loves arts and music?
Are you a tech person?
Do you love to motivate people on their worst day?
What do you enjoy doing?
Have you ever asked yourself these kinds of questions?
If you love and find interest in fashion and takes a job in it-company, then how you would expect to be happy in the job. Also, there is a higher probability that you might feel dissatisfaction with your decision in the long run.
Realizing where your passion lies makes it easy to make the right career decisions.
It helps you to detect and choose the field where you may enjoy your work.
5. Personality
What type of person are you?
Have you tried to figure that out?
Many people do not even realize the importance of personality in career choice. If you are a leader by your personality, then how you can be happy on desk jobs.
Imagine you are someone who loves to challenge people’s opinions and judgment, then becoming a lawyer would have been a well-suited place for you.
6. Imagine Future
What do you want for yourself soon?
You can be happy with your job. But shortly, you want to see yourself as an independent entrepreneur. How can it be real by working in a 9 to 5 job?
Place yourself on the point where you want to see yourself in the next 5 or 10 years. Then ask yourself if you are on the right path to that dream or not. You will get a much-required answer.
7. Your gut feeling
This is something that always speaks in our minds. But most of us choose to ignore that voice. When we work on a field for a longer time, then our subconscious mind gets to know if we fit there or not. In every small to a trivial incident, it says that we may not fit in that field. Don’t ignore that. Listening to your intuition is very much important before you take any decision regarding your career.
8. Identify and Research
Now you already know what your skills and interests are and where you see yourself in the next 5 years. Also, you get to know what your intuitions speak. Now it is time to identify every person who has marked his presence in a similar field where you want to join. Analyzed them and studied them.
Read about all the wrong decisions they have taken before they come to success. This will help you develop your list of target employers when you join them. Also, it prepares you to speak about your preferred field and your interest when networking and interviewing for positions that you may have aimed for your whole life.
9. Evaluation report
After your exploration of various career options, now it is time for a reality check.
You need to understand and check every pros and con of that field which you have chosen, and you might join in the future. When you get to read about your colleagues and opponents from your chosen career path, then you also get to know the hidden secrets and truths and lies of that industry.
It is time for you to evaluate the report and ask yourself about how much percentage you are ready to take every positive and negative challenge that the field will throw at you.
After researching, if you think you are not ready for that chosen career, then you should not feel upset or low. It is also a good sign that you realize the wrong path before wasting your time there. On the next step, move to another career option and also research thoroughly about that. In this process, you will get a good fit for you.
10. Search for every option
After researching and evaluating of choice of the career, it is time to gain some real experience. Do thinking about career and interviewing the professional of the same field gives you inside of that industry. Still, if you want to gain some Real Experience, you have to work on that field for that you can take internships and workshops on that area of interest. In addition to that, your skills regarding that field will develop further. After that, when you will join the field as professionals, then you can have good use of that experience.
In the 21st century, every industry is booming with opportunities. So for gaining real in-hand experience, you will get lots of experiential learning stuff and internships to join. There are also many ways to gain relevant skills and experience without even leaving your current jobs and studies. From part-time jobs and work from home internships to workshops, you have lots of new and fun ways to test a variety of roles and develop your inbuilt skills.
11. Don’t hope magic to happen
Like silver screens, you will never get to meet a random person on the street who will share his brilliant innovative ideas with you. After that, you will get the chance to work with him, and without previous knowledge and skills, soon you will be master in that field, and both of you will get a billionaire after some months. This does not happen in real life. In real life, you will never get signs from God to understand which field you should be the boss of your own life.
Instead of searching for signs in your boss’s anger or your client’s dissatisfaction, confront yourself about uncomfortableness on your current job. Because when we find for signs in the silliest thing happening around us, it also means that we probably have already decided. Why are you running away from a second opinion on the most crucial change, i.e. your career in life? Find out your fear and the reasons for being so unsure and challenging with your choice making.
12. BFF talks
For every confusion that you face before making any tough decision, always consult the most mature and trusted person in your life. I call it BFF talks. Though, it does not mean to have a conversation with your actual BFF. It also can be the most experienced and trusted person you know in terms of professional mentorship. Then you can have a conversation with your parents or your favorite person from the office or your friends whom you can trust in their opinion.
Sometimes, it becomes so difficult to decide after in-depth researching and testing so many times. When you experience anxiety or pressure regarding taking any decision, your mind plays out worst-case scenarios as consequences. Thoughts of negative consequences like damaged family emotion lost the expectation of them, angry HRs at the office, etc. can make you paralyzed. Even it can lead you to the wrong choice. At that point, we need some heart to heart positive conversations that will eventually give you the strength to take the much needed right decision for your career.
13. Keep calm
The time feels so short when you need it most. Why does it happen every time before any big and crucial decision making? Does it happen to you too?
If you think you need more time before facing your boss on the failed client meeting, request him for that. Also, if you think you need more time to decide before replying to the recruiter, ask for more time. Never make yourself pressurized under the burden of a shorter time at the end moment. In this situation, you might make the wrong choice. After that, your previous hard work would have no more values.
Instead of that pressure, you need to keep yourself calm. It may sound impossible to implement. But with practice and self-discipline, you will master the skill of keeping calm under any amount of pressure.
14. Make your decision
Yes, now you have analyzed and tested every outcome of your decision. So you are ready to make it real.
It has seen that after in-depth research and every calculated step, people fear to decide because of what other people might think of themselves.
Only this fear prevents them from making the right choice for their career. People will say whatever they want to. You actually can’t do much about that. But rely on your intelligence. Just decide and do everything to make it the best choice of yours. There is no place of regret in our lives.
Conclusion:
If you are still with me, then I can understand that you have realized the importance of the right choice of career decision. Making a wrong decision is not bad. But the worst part is when you repeat making wrong decisions repeatedly. Now, you know every step to reach the right decision towards your goal. All the best!