The aphorisms of TWD: The third one

Today’s aphorism concerns the principle of Deed (Effectiveness):

• Knowing does not come from thinking, knowing comes from doing. Decide and act, then you’ll know.

I have already written about this concept in some of my earlier posts. My emphasis then was on taking action. I will not repeat myself here. Instead, today we’ll focus on the mental step just before you act: the decision or choice.

Decisions, decisions.

A decision can happen in the merest flash of thought. The repercussions of that decision can affect everything from that point forward. It can be that single snowflake landing on the mountainside that triggers an avalanche that alters the environment forever more.

Sometimes the decisions you make seem inconsequential. Like what movie to see or if you’ll have the tuna or meatball sub for lunch. Other decisions are rife with consequences. Like whether you should stay at your current job or start that new business, keep renting or buy your first house. Small or large the need to make decisions is a constant in our lives.

Was it the right decision?

The thing about a decision is that you have no way of knowing whether you’ve made the right one until you’ve had a chance to act on it. You need to live with what you’ve decided, get comfortable with it, walk around with it on for a while, before you can know if you’ve moved forward, backward, or laterally.

The quality of a decision can sometimes be determined very quickly. We’ve all been there. “Oh, man. Why did I order the blue cheese dressing? It’s horrible.” More often than not, however, doing something new is outside that Self-Identity in which you’ve grown comfortable. Most decisions will feel wrong at the start simply because they are different from the way you’ve been doing things. This applies more to the big decisions. You have to break it in before you can know if it’s a fit.

There are ways to make wiser decisions. I’ve read some of the books. I know the theory: consider all the angles, be aware of possible consequences, know the pros and cons. The idea being that you want to have your eyes wide open as you check out the paths open before you. You do these things naturally when faced with a choice. What isn’t addressed by the theory is what it feels like to live with the decision. You can’t think yourself into that experience. It takes having made the decision to know that.

Pseudo-decisions.

You may even try to trick yourself into getting to that point. “Alright. I’ve made my decision. I’m definitely doing (whatever it is you’re considering).” And then you see how that feels. What you’re really doing is thinking some more. You’ve seen a shirt you like, declare, “I’m buying this one,” then carry it with you to continue looking for a shirt that may be better. You’ve pseudo-decided.

How to know a decision’s been made.

So how can you know when you’ve actually decided? When you take action to implement your decision you know you’ve decided. From the example above: you are at the register handing the clerk money. Now you know you’ve decided to buy that shirt. Up until that point you were leaning toward a decision. At any time you could have leaned away from it.

You postpone making a decision because you are afraid you will make the wrong decision. Remember, you are always doing the best you can with what you are aware. You can gather more and more information to help you make a decision but that unknown will always be there. It takes acting on the decision to discover if the decision was a good one.

A best practice: quick decisions.

From my experience the best practice regarding decisions is to make them quickly. The faster you make a decision the sooner you will know if the decision is right for you. If it’s right then you’ve implemented it as quickly as possible. If it’s wrong that’s good, too. Because you find out sooner than if you’d wavered back and forth and still made the same wrong decision. Now you are in a position to make another decision to move forward from there.

That’s the thing about decisions, you can make new ones. “Excuse me, waiter. Ordering the blue cheese dressing was a bad idea. I’d like to get the garden salad with ranch dressing. You can remove this one. Thank you.” Mistakes will be made as you make your decisions faster. They will be no different than if you made your decisions slower.

The advantage of quicker decisions is that you take action quicker. Therefore you get results faster. And depending on your results you enjoy them or adapt your approach. Either way you are further ahead, sooner, than if you’d made your decisions slowly.

Decide and act, learn, repeat. Such is life. Since life is short decide quickly!