I once read “the quality of your decisions can be measured by the quality of life resulting from those decisions”.

Some people make decisions based purely on the need for survival or for security. Others will take their emotions into account. How you feel about your decisions is extremely important, because ultimately you have to live with your choices. Feeling good about a decision or a choice is probably a good start, but there is a pitfall. Emotion-based intuitive decision-making can also be seriously defective if it’s based on inaccurate or irrelevant information.

Your intuition may tell you not to hire a person because of your prejudice against people of a different race or sex, even though they may be much better qualified for the job. Making a decision based on your intuition alone may also be a problem in a group situation where you have to consider other people’s opinions. Trying to convince them to go along with your choice simply because of your intuition alone, clearly would not sway them.

People’s gut feelings about what to do may sometimes emerge from integrated unconscious judgments about the actions or activities needed to accomplish the goal.

Making decisions are not always easy. We are influenced by our environment and others’ opinions. Gather as much information as possible. Ask the opinion of the other people involved. An educated intuitive decision is a lot better than making a decision purely because it ‘sounded’ or ‘felt’ right.

Once you know all the facts, take Dr Phil’s “litmus logic test”. Write all your thoughts and all the facts down on a piece of paper and ask yourself these questions:

If the answer is no to any of these questions, then you should consider an alternative.

By Elsabé Manning

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