How Do You Make Important Life Decisions?

Throughout the years, we have to make important decisions in life. But instead of choosing consciously, we just pick the things that are convenient or seem like the logical thing to do. You take a job you don’t like because you need the money, and before you know, that will be your career. The same thing happens with choosing your partner — many people decide to marry because they are together for so long. Instead of making decisions based on their beliefs or standards, they go for what is convenient and don’t require much effort. Often, people mistake easy decisions with gut feeling. Convenient decisions usually go against your gut feeling — deep down you know it’s not the right decision.

How do you make decisions?

• Do you imitate others?
• Pick classes and degrees that your friends choose?
• Do you take a job because of the pay?
• Do you marry because you’ve been together for so long?
• Do you buy a house because that is what normal people do?

Most people just ‘do’. The result is that they live the life of others. So when you make important decisions in life — think about what you want. Know yourself. And have a system for making important life decisions. Have standards. For example: if you value your health and mental well-being above all, you shouldn’t make decisions that bring that in danger.

That means you won’t take a job that you are not passionate about because a job you hate impacts your mental wellbeing. Similarly, if you value your health, that means you can’t be in a relationship with someone who hates exercise and loves to drink alcohol and eat unhealthy. The reason is that people influence each other’s behavior — you probably take over the unhealthy standards of your partner.

Decide consciously. Set standards. And live up to them. You will save yourself a lot of time, money, and hurt. It’s better to take some time to figure out what it is you want from life. Discover what you value in life and make your decisions accordingly.

More by Darius Foroux (hey, that’s me).

I research how to (1) overcome procrastination, (2) improve productivity, and (3) get things done.

I teach how to do those 3 things in my online class ‘Procrastinate Zero.’

And every Monday and Thursday I publish an article related to those 3 topics at DariusForoux.com.