How to understand that you are making the right choice. How to Make a Tough Decision: Eight Sure Ways to Make the Right Choice
Each of us sooner or later faced the problem of choice. Some draw lots, some tell fortunes using a daisy, some take out cards, and some carefully write down the pros and cons on a piece of paper. The state of choice should not be prolonged, as it takes away energy, devastates, prevents you from concentrating on other important matters, and can lead to depression and complete apathy.
Remember yourself at the moment of choice. How I wanted to find a simple and correct solution from two possible options! How did you feel? Excitement, restlessness, anxiety, perhaps drowsiness and depression? The energy flowed away in a stormy stream. But as soon as you made a decision, your strength returned, doubts disappeared, and your mood lifted. To make the only right decision, it is not necessary to go to Tibetan monks for advice, it is enough to learn to receive answers from your unconscious, i.e. yourself.
There is a very simple but very effective technique for this. And if you are faced with a choice today, then start doing it right now.
- Clearly formulate your desire: What would you like? What scenarios do you see?
- Stand in such a way that you have approximately 1.5 m of free space on either side.
- Standing on an imaginary border, determine for yourself which option you will have on the left and which on the right (example: option 1 - become a lawyer (left), option 2 - become a doctor (right)).
- Imagine the image of the first desire, then visualize the second.
- Turn your back on the first option and start slowly, taking your time to approach it.
Feel how strongly he attracts you. You can take a step “into the picture” and feel, “live” the moment when your wish came true (example: you have become a successful lawyer, there are a lot of people around, you answer calls, you are wearing expensive clothes, etc.). How do you feel at this moment? These could be some pictures, feelings, experiences. Then take a small step forward and get out of the image. - Turn around and begin to approach the second option with your back in the same way. Approach the image, take a step inside the picture. Allow yourself to “live” this alternative (example: you became a doctor, you help people, you smell medicine, you are wearing a medical gown, you are walking along the corridor of a clinic, etc.).
Feel how much you like it. When you sufficiently understand the prospects for development in this direction, also take a step forward. - You have been in two images and now, standing on the border between them, imagine that your left hand is connected with a thread, rope or rope to the first option, and your right hand to the second. Feel which of the images attracts more, try to walk: step to the right, step to the left. According to my feelings, “yes...yes...this will be so!” you will understand which option attracts your body. If you don't feel attracted to any of the options, then ask yourself what is important to you? In this case, you are deceiving yourself, you want neither one nor the other, or you asked an inaccurate question or the answer is not important to you.
This technique allows you to make decisions based on your bodily reaction, since the body has its own logic. In this case, you will not be able to deceive yourself; you are turning not to your consciousness and mind, but to deeper spheres, where there is only one correct answer to each of your questions.
If you are smiling now, a “weight has been lifted from your shoulders,” then you have made the right choice. Thank your unconscious mind for its help and begin to move confidently towards your goal.
Pavel Kolesov
Natural or fruity? Bio or regular? Is the packaging large or small? In glassware or plastic cups? It is impossible to count the number of questions that our brain must answer before our hand reaches for four small raspberry yoghurts in multi-colored packaging. And no study has yet established how many times we have to do this exercise before we fill the cart!
But once you think about it, it becomes clear why sometimes going to the store tires us so much. And why are there days when we don’t have the strength to decide which blouse to wear to work, or understand what exactly we want for breakfast...
Where one person sees a choice, another does not see it
We are forced to make a variety of decisions every minute. Our choice begins with a simple purchase of yoghurts, but also extends to such important things as a life partner, profession, conceiving a child, political beliefs, a mortgage loan to buy an apartment for a period of 15–20 years...
We make many other decisions, not so significant, but causing vague anxiety: whether to get a flu shot, whether to transfer a child to another school, whether to change a doctor, whether to break unwritten rules.
It's difficult to choose. Let's try to understand what choice is and how we make it. And also take a few steps towards learning how to make informed decisions.
We are afraid of losing everything
It often happens that where one person sees a choice, another does not notice it. For example, for some of us, the boss’s words are something that is not discussed, that does not allow one’s choice, a different position. Others consider the commandments, humanity, common sense to be the criterion of truth - and then options are possible. “But there was one who didn’t shoot,” Vysotsky sang. So there is a choice even where we don’t see it - we can’t or don’t want to.
“The choice lies in what we are already actually doing,” writes psychotherapist Elena Kalitievskaya. “It seems like we are still choosing, that we are still on the threshold, but in fact we have already chosen and are living...”
When a decision is made, uncertainty disappears - out of several options, only one remains. Sometimes you can beat him without any consequences, more often you can’t. In this case, we take the choice more seriously and choose more accurately, in contrast to the situation when the decision is reversible. But in both cases we lose something. It is this inevitable moment of loss that causes our torment. Because of it, we often perceive the need to decide as a burden, trying with all our might to avoid making a choice or at least delay it.
Who really chooses?
This is not an idle question. Often it is not committed by the one who has to deal with the consequences: parents with the best intentions do it for the child, a caring husband for his wife, a leader for the people. When something has already been decided for us, we often perceive it with gratitude. Yet the worst service you can do to your neighbor is to remove responsibility for your life choices from him.
It will, of course, be easier for him to live, but he will not invest himself in carrying out decisions that were not made by him. And as a result, life will pass by and will not become his own. This happens quite often: for some of us, the suffering of the heroes of television series is brighter and more genuine than anything that happens to us. But in order to use the chance given to us and live our own life, and not someone else’s, we must make decisions and make and correct mistakes ourselves.
What kind of elections are there?
Existential choice is a situation where alternatives and criteria are not predetermined. We must move forward without knowing what other opportunities will come along the way and how to compare them. This is how we choose a profession or a life partner.
There are situations in which choosing seems easier. This happens when the alternatives and criteria are obvious and all we have to do is carefully solve the problem that has the correct answer. For example, choose one of the routes around the city, taking into account the traffic jam situation.
Another case is more complicated: the alternatives are known, but they can be compared on different grounds. Which one is important for us? An example is any shopping. Let's say, when buying clothes, beauty, price, color, practicality, originality, etc. are important - but what is more important? There is no clear answer...
How rationally do we choose?
No matter how we try to build decisions on purely rational grounds, we deceive ourselves, says psychologist Daniel Kahneman, professor at Princeton University (USA). Irrational assumptions and prejudices always interfere with this process, which give rise to errors in our reasoning.
Thus, Kahneman showed that we are much more sensitive to losses than to gains: the pain of losing $20 is greater than the joy of receiving it. We are afraid of plane crashes, although they happen 26 times less often than car accidents, because reports about them are accompanied by impressive, memorable images, unlike road accidents, information about which is presented in dry numbers.
In the process of choosing, we convince ourselves that most people would do the same in our place, and no real facts can convince us otherwise. It turns out that it is impossible to accurately calculate “how it will actually be”; we simply unconsciously “adjust” the decision to a ready-made answer, prompted by intuition, our many beliefs and prejudices. Whether they turn out to be right or not, that depends on your luck.
How to choose correctly?
This is perhaps the main question. Answer: the right choice cannot be made. “Our life is completed only once,” states the writer Milan Kundera, “and therefore we will never be able to determine which of our decisions was correct and which was false. In this situation, we can only decide once, and we are not given any second, third, fourth life to be able to compare different decisions.”
We can only say whether the decision made was good or bad from the point of view of satisfaction with it, but we cannot determine whether it was better or worse - after all, even a decision that is good in its consequences may not be the best, and a bad one may be the lesser of evils . It is not uncommon to choose between bad and very bad. Yegor Gaidar's economic reforms had many negative consequences, it is difficult to argue with that. But was there a better option at that moment? None of his passionate critics mention this option.
Possible error
If it's impossible to make the right choice, doesn't that mean we don't care what to choose? No, that doesn't mean it. A choice cannot be right or wrong, but it can be good or bad, and the line between them is drawn in our minds.
No choice can be made absolutely rationally; irrational, uncalculated components also play a large role in it. We have a chance to make a good choice if we recognize that there is no one objectively correct decision and with any option you can make a mistake. In this case, we act at our own peril and risk. We accept responsibility, recognize the decision as our own and invest in the implementation of what we have chosen. And in case of failure, we do not regret, but gain experience and learn from our mistakes.
If we are convinced that there is only one objectively correct decision, and we believe in the ability to rationally “calculate” it, believing that everything else will somehow happen by itself, we are making a bad choice. So many of us vote for the “right” candidate in the elections, and then “lie on the stove” until the next one. If our expectations are not met, we will most likely begin to blame everyone around us except ourselves and will feel disappointed, irritated, and resentful.
Making good choices is difficult because it requires effort, energy and the ability to choose. The outstanding English philosopher of the 17th century, John Locke, wrote that people so often make bad choices precisely because, while they are well aware of the immediate, especially pleasant consequences, they are much less able to assess the distant, often not so rosy, prospects.
And yet, some of us make decisions so quickly that the illusion of ease and spontaneity arises. Those who have experience making decisions, including moral ones, who know how to put forward and evaluate arguments for and against, who strive to see the long-term consequences of their decisions, make more accurate choices even in the most difficult situations.
Is it possible to choose faith?
The conscious decisions we made in the past determine what we believe now, philosopher Julian Baggini argues in his blog: “At any given moment, we certainly do not choose what to believe. But we can resolve to make every effort to overcome our destructive tendency to believe what is convenient to believe, and develop the habit of believing only well-founded statements.
Then faith will be the result of thinking about what arguments are convincing, how willing we are to doubt our motives and analyze them. Our decisions become freer when they involve the ability to reflect and compare. We cannot decide whether or not to believe in God, but we can decide how much we will consider inconvenient facts and false motives. And in this sense, we are responsible for what we believe in.”
Ideal choice
To accomplish it, you need to go through and weigh all possible alternatives. But most often this is impossible, since this process requires a lot of time and energy - the psychological costs of the process itself grow faster than the benefits of sorting through options. American psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper proved this with this example.
When customers were asked to choose from 24 types of jam, the majority, even after trying all the options, left the store with nothing. They just couldn't choose. When the choice was limited to six jars, jam was purchased ten times more often. So the abundance of alternatives and the desire for perfect choice leads, alas, to negative results.
American social psychologist Barry Schwartz believes that in such situations, part of us (he calls such people maximizers) always strives not to miss a single option and collects comprehensive information before making a decision. The other part (optimizers), having gone through a certain number of alternatives, draws a line: they choose from what they managed to look at and evaluate. Which one do you think is happier and more successful in life?
“There are always several correct choices”
Yulia Latynina, journalist
I think there is no right choice in the full sense of the word. That is, there are always several correct choices. The main thing for us is not to make the wrong choice. For example, if I started studying physics, I would hardly make the wrong life choice - it would be terribly interesting. But if I were involved in prostitution, it would be the wrong choice.
If in doubt, even flipping a coin “heads” or “tails” - in the absence of other criteria - is not so stupid: according to classical game theory, in the absence of information, the best way to make a decision is a random choice. How to choose a partner for life? Just like the path of life - freely. Or overcoming what makes us unfree.
But even if we made a bad choice, we shouldn’t be upset about it - it’s better to think about what to do next. There is a rule that pilots once told me about: if an emergency occurs on a plane, the main thing is not to worry about why it happened, but to land the plane.”
Immutability or obscurity
Any choice ultimately comes down to a choice between immutability and uncertainty, as the outstanding psychologist Salvatore Maddi proves in his works. Stepping into the unknown creates anxiety, but also gives a chance to find meaning. Choosing immutability reduces anxiety, but generates guilt for unrealized opportunities.
In unimportant situations, the new, unknown is chosen by those who are distinguished by a meaningful attitude to life, resilience, and optimism. It seems that those who find the strength to choose an unknown future have much greater personal resources.
In the case of a key life choice, such as choosing a life partner, Barry Schwartz suggests considering it final from the very beginning: “Panging doubts about whether your love is “real” or whether your sexual relationship is truly passionate, and wondering whether your choices could have been better—that’s a recipe for suffering.”
Learn to choose
It's necessary! To make a decision in which we will not be disappointed, we need to accurately define our goal, understand our desires, and collect and evaluate the available information. The main thing here is not what exactly we choose, but how we make this choice - consciously or spontaneously. In the first case, there is real internal work behind it, in the second - intuition or simply the desire to “not worry.”
We have different attitudes towards choice: some are happy when it is available, others would prefer to receive a ready-made answer. The ability to meaningfully decide for oneself and for oneself reflects a person’s maturity, his adulthood. Children don't really know how to choose. Of course, they know perfectly well what they want at the moment, but they cannot take into account even slightly delayed consequences of their decisions. This skill comes with age, when readiness for choice gradually develops.
Choice in itself is neither good nor bad. It expands our capabilities, but does everyone need it? An increase in the number of possible options simultaneously means an increase in responsibility and demands on the person making the choice. An adult is no happier than a child, just as a queen is no happier than a pawn. It’s just that his happiness is much more in his own hands.
“Give children the opportunity to try everything to the maximum”
Tatyana Bednik, psychologist
To help a child find out what he really prefers, it is important to give him the opportunity to try as many different options as possible, explains developmental psychologist Tatyana Bednik. Tatyana Bednik works as a psychologist at a school and the Moscow Center for Providing Psychological Assistance to Children and Adolescents. She is the author of the training “Effective interaction between parents and children.”
Psychologies: At what age do children learn to choose?
Tatiana Bednik: Even the smallest children make choices many times a day, but for now they are intuitive and emotional. From the age of two, they can distinguish the taste of foods well and, therefore, can choose what they like. By the age of five or six, they develop preferences for certain colors and, therefore, preferences in clothing. By the age of 10–12, a teenager can be expected to make conscious moral decisions and actions: doing this is good, and doing this is bad.
Why do children need to be taught this?
A child is by nature a conservative. If he eats pasta every day, and one day he is asked to choose between pasta and, for example, cauliflower, he will inevitably vote for pasta! But this will be a tribute to habit, not a choice. Therefore, it is important that parents give children the opportunity to get acquainted with other options - gently, delicately, spurring their natural curiosity, attracting attention. Only in this way will children be able to understand what they like best and choose exactly that.
How to teach a child to choose?
Paradoxically, learning this goes through the stage of coercion. It is necessary for the child to try both borscht and fish soup so that he can find out which he likes best. Even if it is not in fashion now, we must confront children with necessity. In this case, we are talking about, say, what is the only dish for lunch today. And tomorrow it will be completely different. And only after this will he be able to ask for what he likes best - when he finds out for himself, when he stops “choosing” the usual. This science is being learned day by day!
Today we will talk about such a problem - in research we stated it as a problem of personally significant choice - in simpler language we could say: the problem of a vital choice.
The fact is that we cannot classify all elections as vitally important. It's not about choosing, say, a purchase or the problem of where to go today. Our focus is on the so-called turning point in life’s journey, when a person finds himself at a crossroads, when a lot of things in the future may depend on the decision he makes.
The simplest examples here could be decisions about marriage or divorce, about whether to stay in a relationship or leave, maybe even a decision when people are thinking about whether to take an adopted child or not, decisions about changing professions, etc.
Nowadays this is a fairly common situation when people who have worked for many years in one field, already at a fairly mature age, go to get a second, sometimes third higher education, and are sometimes faced with a difficult experience when, for example, you have already worked well for many years in jar, and then suddenly you want to do psychotherapy. It’s completely unclear how this will all happen, it’s scary, but I kind of want it.
The problem of personally significant choice is a topic of scientific research that has been conducted for several years, including with my active participation. Since we are not having a scientific conference here, I will not talk about methods and sampling, as we did, I will try to talk directly about the results that can be useful in our everyday life.
And first of all, these will be the results of the research that we conducted with colleagues Dmitry Drozdov, Polina Merkulova and Natalia Polyakova, relying largely on the approach developed by prof. Fedor Efimovich Vasilyuk.
Today we will talk about the stages of the process - the stages that a person goes through when faced with a vital choice, as well as some of the patterns of the choice process.
The agony of choice
Some of you may be standing at such a crossroads right now and want to make an important decision, while others may have had this in the past. And we can remember how sometimes painful and difficult this process is, what its obvious manifestations are.
People behave very differently. Someone is inclined to frantically make at least some decisions, just to close this topic, at least decide something, at least do something, calm down and move on. But such quick, jerky, half-baked decisions sometimes do not provide true peace. A person decides one thing, then another - back and forth. This can take quite a long time. The main thing is that there is no reconciliation, no such understanding: “Yes, this is what is needed!”
More often there is another strategy, when a person delays for a very long time and finds many reasons not to make a choice. You know, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of what I’ll do now, it will be somehow wrong, it can be so strong that just not to experience it, just to escape from this fear, and also from the potential feeling of guilt: “If I I will do as I want, but the other person will feel bad, he will suffer. How so? I have to take care of my neighbor, which means I can’t afford to do what I want. Oh horror...” – and then it’s better not to decide at all. And more often we are dealing with a strategy of such avoidance of decision making.
Sometimes this can take on such beautiful forms in a church environment; a person can persuade himself, say: “I surrender to the will of God, let the Lord rule Himself.”
This can be a very mature position, when a person actually does something himself and at the same time very authentically gives it to God. But more often we see such an infantile shifting of responsibility, in order to do nothing yourself, to put off and not make decisions, you can come up with a variety of excuses, one of them can even be religious, very seemingly noble.
What is a productive selection process?
What becomes the criterion for us that a choice has been made or not? What are the signs that I'm on the right track now as I move through this decision-making process, and what are the signs that I'm going somewhere wrong?
This question was important for us, including within the framework of the study, because we needed to highlight separately the selection processes that we called productive or, conventionally, in everyday life, these are “good” choices. And separately, we needed to identify unproductive, or “bad” ones, in order to be able to compare the patterns of those and other elections in the study.
And the results were even a little unexpected for us when we discovered some criteria - sometimes they may seem paradoxical - criteria for a still productive selection process.
At first we thought that productive choices are those that a person himself evaluates as correct. That is, you ask a person: “You once did something. Do you think you did the right thing?” - "Yes". And at first we calmed down on this, we thought that this was enough, that if the person himself says “yes” - it was the right decision for him, this means that the choice was made really well, from a psychological point of view.
But then it turned out in the process of long research work that, it turns out, this is not always the case. A person amazingly knows how to “deceive” himself, without noticing it, to hide some things that torment him, to sincerely believe that everything is fine, but there is something else sitting inside...
And before we move further in understanding the differences between “good” elections and “bad” ones, it is important to say a somewhat theoretical, but fundamental thing for us, that behind the problem of vital choice there is always a problem of intrapersonal conflict. And this is a very important point on which many further reflections will be based.
A man stands at a crossroads. And he thinks - and this is a very important and theoretical point, and it will later have very important practical significance for us - a person thinks that he chooses something– one life path or another life path.
What does a person usually do when he needs to make a choice? What advice is usually given to a person in a difficult situation, what is usually recommended to do?
–Write down the pros and cons...
–Make lists of pros and cons...
Great, you got it right the first time. Do you practice this? Does it help?
–No.
And we came to exactly this in our research. Look, it’s no coincidence that your first answer was: write down the pros and cons. And usually this doesn't help. This helps if you are choosing a washing machine or cell phone model, then yes. But when my life is on the line, and I apply a strategy to it, it's like I'm choosing something lying beside oneself , just like some item, it doesn't work. Why?
One of the important, fundamental theoretical points: in a situation of vital choice, a person chooses not something lying outside of him, not some items or objects, he actually chooses himself - the self that ends up here (walking one path), or the self that ends up here (walking the other path). This is why the strategy of pluses and minuses does not work. But the interesting thing is that it is very popular.
Before this, we talked about the criteria for a productive, “good” choice. So, it surprisingly turned out that a good choice is not only the one that I then evaluate as correct, but the one that leads to the removal of the conflict, to the resolution of the conflict. Only when this internal contradiction within me is removed can we say that the choice was made productively and well.
We had an example in our study when a person talks about a choice he once made, many years ago, and very confidently says: “Yes, I don’t regret it.” It was a serious decision, the woman wanted to get a divorce and leave for another man, but she still remained married to her husband, and many years have passed, she says: “I don’t regret it, the choice is right.”
But during this interview, she begins to cry, quite strong emotional experiences are activated, and upon closer examination, it became clear to us that, in fact, the internal conflict has not been resolved. Although the situation is over, the person evaluates the choice as correct, the conflict is not resolved. And this tells us that the choice was made unproductively.
The paradox of a “good” choice – go into acute pain!
Looking ahead completely, I’ll tell you probably the most culminating thing, which is not easy for us in life and for psychotherapy too. Usually, in a difficult situation, a person wants relief, reassurance, improvement of his condition - this is good and natural. But, in this case, paradoxically, sometimes, in order to make a breakthrough in a situation of choice, in order for the conflict to be resolved, we need to go through a particularly intensified aggravation of this conflict. And what does it mean? This means going through serious pain, perhaps through very painful, acute experiences.
The pain of choice is also different. It’s one thing, I sit and suffer: “Well, what’s there? I need this, I need that... Well, okay, I’ll think about it tomorrow, I need to sleep with it...” - well, somehow all this drags on, you know, it can drag on for years. It hurts slightly and stretches. And sometimes it happens when it becomes very acute.
Sometimes such acuteness is provoked by some external circumstances, when they push us, force us, when it is no longer possible not to choose, and then real suffering begins, then very serious withdrawal begins, very serious experiences, the conflict escalates to the limit. And then a fundamental qualitative leap is made, when the conflict is removed and the choice is made.
This is perhaps the most important secret of how to make a productive choice - whether you need to run away from pain. Most of the strategies that we use in a situation of choice are aimed at anesthesia, at removing this tension, removing the pain, and worrying less. This is understandable from a human standpoint, but, surprisingly, we have seen that such covering up, gluing, closing the eyes, softening interferes with the productive process of choice.
Three differences between productive elections and not so
We can list three criteria that indicate that the choice is truly productive:
1) Acute emotional state immediately before making a decision. It’s interesting that, as a rule, all these choices, which people evaluate as correct, and we evaluate as productive, there was this peak of a very acute emotional state. One of our subjects describes it this way: “It was pounding in my head in capital letters that I couldn’t go on like this, that something would probably happen to me, that I, I don’t know, would go crazy, get terribly sick, because I can’t live like this anymore.” “That was really the limit,” said another person. That is, the edge when this is no longer possible.
2) The second sign of productive elections - we called it phenomenology of correct decisions- that is some signs of what happens to a person after he makes a productive choice. And if you have had this experience, you have gone through the agony of choice, then you can remember what comes next. This is an amazing state of special freedom, such lightness, a weight off your shoulders.
It’s just that even physically it manifests itself in the fact that such freedom appears in the shoulders; for some, it feels like wings almost grow. “Doubts have gone away, courage and confidence have appeared, fear has decreased, somehow everything has become calm,” I am quoting some of the statements of our subjects. “Confidence, a feeling that this is how it should be, no doubt.” The fullness of the absolute “yes” arises. This is such a calm “yes” on the exhale, when there really are no worries or any acute experiences.
3) And the third point, which usually people themselves do not specifically monitor until you ask them. But if you look closely, you will find that after making such a right choice, certain things happen. personal changes, a person changes: me before and me after - this is already a different person. I became different, due to the fact that I made this decision, I myself somehow changed. When a person overcomes a serious crisis, that same intrapersonal conflict, if he manages to get out of it, the conflict is removed and a transition is made to some new stage of development.
Stages and stages of the process of personally significant choice
Depending on what stage a person is at, you can give some recommendations and understand what is best to do now. The stages in this case are of a mandatory sequence; the stages can occur in different orders. Was allocated three stages, the second of which includes four stages.
1) First stage – selection background, when there is some general dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs. At this stage, the person does not yet think that this is a situation of choice. He just feels some kind of dissatisfaction, something is wrong. Relationships, for example, are getting worse and worse. And even if once upon a time thoughts of separation came to mind, now they may come a little more often, but the person does not seriously face a choice. Well, whoever is married doesn’t periodically think about divorce, who doesn’t, right? This is not a reason to get a divorce right away. That’s why a person shrugs it off a little, he doesn’t experience it as a challenge, as a need to solve something.
2) Then the following: if this dissatisfaction accumulates, grows, if at the first stage these dissatisfactions are not removed, then the person switches to second phase- already directly actualization of the choice situation. Or - let's say a very important thing - actualization of intrapersonal conflict. And due to certain factors, internal or external, the choice now becomes clear. The person already seriously understands that yes, something needs to be done. But there is still no such acuteness when “I can’t do otherwise!” But the choice is clearly in the minds.
And in this second stage, four stages can be distinguished; they can occur in different sequences, that is, a person can move from one stage to another and back several times.
2 A) When we already have the actualization of choice, what happens first? Here’s my favorite thing to write down about the pros and cons: consideration of alternatives . That is, first the person realized that he was already choosing between “A” and “B”, and then he considered, compared, weighed the alternatives. And at this stage, this strategy of writing out pros and cons is very often used.
And at this stage reasons for selection, as it seems to a person, lie outside the person himself. That is, these pros and cons, they do not concern me, they concern the fact that What I choose. I think: this job has the following advantages: salary, good boss, close travel; but this work has such and such disadvantages. At this moment I am not yet thinking about myself, because, as we said, the focus of attention is not directed inward, a person thinks that he is choosing something externally.
The process of experiencing here proceeds in a circle: consideration of alternatives - no way out - an attempt to reduce negative experiences (different strategies are used, often leaving, attempts to rid oneself of the conflict) - return to consideration of alternatives. It's hard. And in a good way - it would be necessary to reach the peak. But who wants this? Therefore, when a person finds himself in some kind of dead end, he further tries to reduce his experiences so that this does not torment him acutely, to switch somewhere else, etc.
And it is interesting that in productive elections this painful experience and actualization of the conflict are more expressed, rather than avoidance from it. Of course, the fear of the new is also expressed; it seems to the person that “I can’t handle it, I can’t.” And he can bring up some arguments in favor of the old life.
This is already a little about strategies: a very convenient strategy for not making a choice is rely on external obstacles. This is my favorite pastime... Well, of course, maybe I would like to, but what about me? The conditions are such that I won’t be able to. Of course, I would dream of becoming such and such, but I won’t be able to enter a university, because now they only enroll through connections. Well, anyway, I’m already many years old, and it doesn’t make much sense anymore, who will take care of me? Well, in general, I live far away, and I don’t travel often. That is, a person, in order not to make a choice, drags in external circumstances, as if it were causes so as not to make a choice. Although, in fact, this is only reasons.
That is, a person persuades himself to leave everything as it is. Because going into something new is very scary. And here, the more anxiety we have, the more “desire” we have to leave everything as before. But what does this mean in terms of internal conflict? A person has an intention, he wants something new. And fear drives: leave everything as it was. The arguments are being dragged in: leave everything as it was. And it may turn out that this sprout of “I want something new” will be completely suppressed, amputated, extinguished, and the person will calm himself down, say: “Well, yes, that’s how it is...”
And he may also bring in some religious arguments here: “It is God’s will to leave everything as it is,” in order to completely calm down. But calm does not come, and this is the problem, because the conflict does not go away. One of the parties to the conflict is removed. But if I remove one of the parties to the conflict, this does not mean that I am removing the conflict. I remove it artificially, not for real, but then it still comes out.
This is the problem - it is very important to hold both sides of the conflict, it is very important to hold both alternatives that are tormenting. Because if, I repeat, we allow ourselves to live only one side, and push the other side according to ostrich politics, then there is no productive movement.
With a productive selection process, a person moves to the next stage.
2 B) Imagining yourself in the future , living in the imagination of different alternatives. This is a very important thing, not everyone gets it, and this is also a fundamental point. Very often, as we said, writing out the pros and cons concerns, for example, the choice of a husband: Vasya has such pros and cons, and Petya has such pros and cons. But for some reason I don't think what will happen to me when I live with one person for 20 years, and what will happen to me, - not with him, how wonderful he is, - but with me, when I have lived with someone else for 20 years. For some reason, few people ask this question, but sometimes there are such people too.
That is, it is very important to still allow yourself to imagine yourself in the future according to one and the other alternative. And this is a very important strategy - precisely imagining yourself in the future, the key word here is: yourself. Because people often imagine the future. For example, a neighbor on a bench even advises: “Just imagine, you quit, what will happen? If you don’t have money, how will you feed your child?” – and the person seems to imagine the future. It's very close, it's better than the pros and cons.
You can, of course, imagine the future, but in its structure it differs little from the pros and cons, because it is important, when imagining the future, to imagine yourself: who will I be who made this choice, and who will I be who made a different choice. And technically, this can be done simply literally in the imagination, living a piece of life, maybe even several years in advance, but with a focus on yourself. Not on him, not on money, not on circumstances, not on children, but on myself: who will I be when I live this or that piece of life.
This stage 2 B - the stage of imagining oneself in the future - not everyone reaches it, I repeat, it was usually lived by those people who came to a productive choice at the end.
And at the peak of this idea of oneself in the future, a person can get to the following stage:
2 V) which we called value insight . Maybe the term itself is not so important now, but this is a kind of peak, the very culmination. It is experienced emotionally, like an explosion, because these are the same acute experiences that I have already spoken about today, when it is simply impossible to continue, and this can be experienced hard and physically, a person can even get sick. In general, the conflict escalates to the limit.
And further, oddly enough, this was also a surprise for us in the process of our research and such an important result that if a person passes this peak, then a decision comes itself . It wasn’t me who sat and thought and decided, especially with my head. The head is not the best organ here. This is not because I really weighed everything completely and imagined myself in the future. And there is some kind of turning point, a transition, a pass, when I suffered and suffered, and then suddenly - once, I understood everything.
This was a godsend for us because we usually think that I make a choice. And in psychology we say: the subject, the individual makes a choice, how important this is in personal development... And here we are talking, of course, about the individual, but this culminating point seems to make the choice for me. Something happens on its own, with a click, a one-time act, a sudden insight. It can last from a few seconds to several hours. That is, it does not last a week, usually some very quick understanding. Sometimes called aha experience, however, in relation to the process of finding solutions to creative problems.
But when we now say that the decision comes by itself, and it is not we who make the choice, this, of course, does not mean that we do nothing. We've done a lot before. We experienced everything previous, imagining ourselves in the future, we experienced this sharp peak, torment, so that later it all happened. And after the peak and value insight - stage 2 B - a person quite quickly and calmly moves to the stage
2 G) when you're just going through this phenomenology of the right decision , which we talked about: this is lightness, freedom, joy, there is no doubt, all the wonderful fruits of a well-made choice do not take long to arrive, a person is visited quite quickly, because such a “yes” really comes, an understanding that now it is so right, and there is simply no need to do it any other way.
These four stages of the second stage may not necessarily occur in exactly this sequence, but when the decision is made, the person moves to the last - the third stage.
3) The third stage is the implementation of the decision made. The immediate environment plays a very important role here. Often both external circumstances and people around, especially close ones, are an obstacle to a person’s movement towards his true choice. And if a person gets stuck in the previous stages, then he often relies heavily on other people. He says: “Well, mom doesn’t want to, I won’t go. All my girlfriends say it’s undignified - okay, I won’t.” Relies on the opinions of significant others.
And when this second phase is lived with insight, then the person miraculously goes against the flow. Without any doubt. And this is not experienced as some kind of rudeness, or impudence, or something bad, it is experienced as something very appropriate for me. Sometimes there is not even a conflict with loved ones. This, of course, depends on the relatives; the topic of codependency comes up here, but that’s a separate conversation.
A little more about the patterns of the productive selection process
1) The situation of choice, when it develops gradually, and the conflict gradually matures, and with a productive process of choice external circumstances become not reasons for conflict, but reasons only for its actualization. Often, with an unproductive choice strategy, a person thinks a lot about external circumstances. He thinks: “the whole point is that he...”, “it’s all because I don’t live there” - the country, the school, the parents are to blame, the circumstances are such. And there is a lot of talk about the circumstances. With a productive strategy, circumstances fade into the background. They may be reasons of some kind, but they are not reasons for the choice made.
Often, when clients come with problems of choice, it is not he who comes, but the polyphony of those around him. Here’s a man sitting down: “Mom said this is it. And my husband thinks so. But I read this in the article. And my friends said this. But my neighbor’s is like that.” - “Well, okay, okay, and You“What do you want?” - “Well, I don’t know how, what...” That is, the lack of hearing myself, understanding what is important to me is one of the serious strategies, but at the same time the patterns of unproductive choice. Accordingly, it is important to focus on yourself, and not on external circumstances. It is very important to ask this question: who will I be doing this action, and who will I be making another decision.
2) It is the productive processes of choice that are accompanied by severe torment, surprisingly. This heaviness, hopelessness, fear, anxiety, sometimes some kind of rage, very strong mental pain. A person may even experience alienation from existing life for some time. And such a depressive state, quite painful: this life does not suit me, it is impossible to stay in it. Although it does have some objective advantages.
This is especially noticeable when changing jobs. Since I know many psychologists, I have observed when people from other professions come to psychology. A man sat in a bank, in a business environment, received a good salary, everything was going very well for him, and this stability holds him - the salary holds him, the well-worn path when everything is already known also holds him. But the soul can no longer, cannot withstand this internal conflict, I really want to do something else.
I even know people who, from a very successful social environment, give up everything and go, for example, to the sisters of mercy, to a monastery, or to social service. And when we talk about the patterns of the productive process of choice, this experience – “I can’t, I’m just rock bottom, it’s so unbearable”, it happens very often.
3) Completeness this relief after as a sign of movement towards good choice.
4) And this amazing phenomenon - involuntary moment of the turning point of choice. And even my colleagues and I laughed many years ago that, in fact, there is no choice, it’s just that a person is either moving towards what should have happened to me then, or he is not moving towards it. When I voice this, my colleagues usually start arguing strongly. We stood on free will, freedom of choice, freedom of the subject, and I do not argue with this, but I simply say from practice that in an amazing way the choice seems to be made by itself, as if I, as an active subject, were not participating in it.
There are other patterns of the productive selection process, I’ve just listed some of the main ones that may be especially important for our practice.
You can say a few words about the patterns of the unproductive selection process. Because we often encounter this too. Elections that were once imperfect can be a burden that we drag along with us, like this respondent about whom I said: “The choice has been made, everything is wonderful, I don’t regret it,” but there is still something sitting there, to this day the conflict has not been resolved. And it is important, even if many years have passed, to return to that situation, to internally live it again, so as not to walk around with this conflict as if it were an extra burden inside oneself.
1) If we talk about the patterns of the unproductive selection process, we can say that, accordingly, no personality changes occur. That is, a person seems to have made a choice, but he does not change within himself. This is due, among other things, to the fact that he chose not himself, but something lying outside himself, due to the fact that the crisis with this peak was not passed.
2) Emotions, feelings, experiences at all stages of the selection process, which we evaluate as unproductive, they not so strong and deep, They more superficial. Irritation and dissatisfaction dominate. But the peak does not occur.
During productive elections, people, when they already enter this region, say that “this is not my life, I can’t live like this any longer. I am different, this life does not suit me, life needs to be changed.” With unproductive elections, there is not even such an experience: well, mine, not mine - this question is not even raised. There is no such peak with impossibility.
3) In unproductive elections external circumstances become the reason for choice(not a reason). Since this conflict does not fully mature inside, a person may artificially find himself in the need to choose. He is simply pressed by something: quit or stay, leave or something like that. And he is pushed to a decision by external circumstances. He makes a choice not because he has already matured inside, but because simply external circumstances are already so pressing and they force you to make this choice. And perhaps the person doesn’t even regret it later, he says: yes, good, great. But he was not active there, he did not make this decision.
4) AND no obvious resistance to significant others. We said that a person goes ahead, he goes against the flow when a “good” choice is made. In unproductive elections, the weight of the importance of authority and other people is high, and you want to be in some kind of compromise all the time, so that both ours and yours will all feel good. Very often people describe it this way: just so that there is no conflict, just to maintain peace. There is such an illusion of this world, because it comes at the cost of stepping on one’s own throat and extinguishing the internal conflict.
5) AND No this vivid phenomenology of decision making in unproductive elections. Relief, as I already said, some comes, but the fullness of this relief - this lightness, joy - does not happen.
Questions:
– Imagining yourself in the future in these situations - how to do it correctly? And isn’t this a fantasy that we imagine for ourselves, it doesn’t always turn out to be true, right? How is it so right, to objectively do as much as possible so that it will help, there will be no spiritual delights later in fantasy: I will make a choice - and so it will be.
– It’s difficult for me to talk about spiritual delights - I’m on a psychological plane here. Of course, I say it easily: you need to imagine yourself in the future. But in fact, I’m talking mainly about psychotherapeutic practice, when in the joint work of the client and the psychologist, this living of the future is carried out in special ways, with special methods. You can probably do it yourself. I even think it is possible. What dangers could there be?
You said this word - objectivity. Of course, I don’t know anything about objectivity. What are we doing? Are we guessing about the future? We don’t know how it will be, but the point is not to live the future as it will actually be, that’s not the point. The point is that when I imagine myself in a few years, what I will be like if I make this choice, then due to this amplification, some kind of truth is highlighted, which is now hidden implicitly in this alternative.
They marry an alcoholic and think: now he will stop drinking, because he loves me, he promised me that when he gets married, he will stop drinking. And if there was psychotherapy, then, living this future, we would say: what if it doesn’t stop? And so day after day, and a year passes, and a few more years pass, you live with this person, and then 2020 comes, maybe you will have children, and maybe not. And the year 2025 comes, and you live with this person. Maybe he drinks as much as he does now, maybe he doesn't. Or maybe more, maybe less. AND who are you Then? What are you at the exit?
There are special techniques. It’s probably difficult for me to translate them into self-help techniques now. But consistent experience is important. It is very difficult to immediately imagine yourself in 2025. And it is important to live this path gradually. First, it is recommended to live through the first days, first in great detail, then, perhaps, to strengthen this temporary step. First - every day, then - every month, then imagine, click off the years. And at the end you definitely need to come to a representation of your “I”. Who am I, a person living this life? Who am I, the one who realizes this plan, the one who follows this life path? This is an important point.
– I am a foundling, and they took me to an orphanage, and then I was taken in by foster parents. Mom is bossy, well, you understand. Dad is soft, beloved. She inspired me that I, poor thing, if I get married, my husband will hit me on the head with a ladle on the first day... And, you know, I’m still not married, I don’t have children. I have two higher educations, but I am still terrified that I am an absolutely insecure person. Now I almost lost my job at the monastery. I refused, I said that I wouldn’t do it, because that’s it, I’m mediocrity, I’m nobody...
– Thank you for your sincerity, I can hear a lot of pain in your personal story, which seems to be breaking through now... It’s interesting that this is not the first time this has happened - no matter what topic you give a lecture on, the question always arises regarding the lack of parental love, about childhood traumas, about how I was once treated before, as a child, by my parents, how now it affects me, my life. The man, apparently, has been in the Church for a long time, and you are already many years old, but still...
This is absolutely not the topic of today’s report, but I never cease to be amazed at how relevant it is, and for me now your words sound, perhaps, as another argument in favor of my still very personal thoughts... I have ideas about how we can It would be possible to create prayer and psychotherapeutic groups dedicated specifically to working with childhood trauma, primarily from one’s own parents. This is me sharing my plans with you; they have not yet been worked out at all. It’s just that every time you come to talk somewhere, it comes out, and I see it with almost every first client in psychotherapy.
– Or maybe a series when you go with the flow, you understand: I don’t care - I just go with the flow, and then a series of such choices: one ended, the second began, in different areas? One - with my husband, with relatives - the second, socially, with friends - and everywhere it’s like this: one ended, the other began. Or is it still one unresolved one?
– If I understood you correctly, it may be both. It may be that this is a sequential series of different choices... But it may be that there is only one conflict, it may be such a trick, there is only one intrapersonal conflict. For example, the conflict between allowing yourself to be yourself or following the opinions of others is a very common story. And this conflict may gradually escalate.
A person wants to be himself, and then begins to realize it, act it out based on the material of different situations. First I’ll go against, I don’t know, my mother-in-law, because I want to realize myself. Then: I’ll make a choice - I’ll move out and live separately. Then: I’ll go get a new profession. Then I'll go do something else. It seems that there are different choices, but in fact the person is implementing the same strategy of internal conflict, which is still alive, this is the problem of dependence or freedom, for example.
Every day we have to make dozens of decisions - to do this or that, agree or refuse.
And almost every time this is accompanied by doubts, worries and postponement of decision-making.
So how? make the right decision and learn to make the right choice?
Here are 10 ways.
1 - Just make the decision that you like.
According to statistics, 7 decisions out of 10 managers of large companies turn out to be wrong. 40% of companies that were included in the list of the 500 best companies in the world 20 years ago no longer exist.
Even the most successful and experienced people make mistakes very often.
So relax, make a decision and start taking action.
You need to understand that while you are thinking, you are standing still and wasting time.
You are not a sapper for whom any mistake is fatal.
Even if you make a mistake, you have a second, third, or as many attempts as you like. Plus, every time you do something, you gain knowledge, experience and better begin to understand how to make the right choice.
2 - Determine the price of your solution.
What happens if you do this or that and the choice turns out to be wrong? Write down the possible consequences and make a decision based on this. But you should know that a decision with minimal consequences often produces weak results.
For strategic tasks, it is a good idea to write down the possible consequences of your decision. With Canva, you can create an online decision tree that will help you visualize possible alternatives and make it easier to make the right decision. - https://www.canva.com/ru_ru/grafik/derevo-resheniy/
3 - Determine the best result - Which decision will move you the most forward? Those who strive for more win in life. And those who are afraid to take risks are content with ordinary life. Think, maybe sometimes it's worth taking a risk. Yes, you can lose more. But you can get more. And even if you fail, you can always return to another decision. So go for it. Success loves the brave.
4 - Ask your subconscious - most people try to make a decision based on logic. But its capabilities are limited by the amount of information that is in the mind.
Use your subconscious. In the evening, think about your problem and possible solutions. And before going to bed, ask yourself - Which solution should you choose?
And in the morning you will wake up with a clear understanding of what is worth doing.
All our experiences are stored in our subconscious. And we only get access to it in our dreams. Plus, the subconscious can connect to the unified information field of the universe. Remember, Mendeleev discovered his table in a dream.
So ask your subconscious a question and go to bed. You will learn more about this technique in this video.
5 - Do something- To make the right decision you need to have certain information. But where can I get it? Books, videos, articles are just theories. The information you need will only be given by practical experience, which can only be obtained by doing something.
If you are in doubt or choosing from several options, just do something in the direction of each option. And you will immediately understand which solution is best for you.
6 - Ask a more successful person - Such a person can help you in literally 5 minutes. He knows and can do more than you. Look for successful people around you. Sign up for training. Ask your question on a thematic forum or group. The only thing is that you don’t need to ask everyone. Listen only to those who have actually solved problems similar to yours and have real life experience in overcoming them. But if there is no such person, then
7 - Imagine yourself as a super hero- Put yourself in the shoes of a person who is a symbol of confidence and success for you. And think about what solution he would choose.
Often, internal fears and doubts prevent you from making a decision. When you imagine yourself as a super hero, all this disappears and making a decision becomes much easier.
8 - Expand the number of options - Often people choose from 2-3 options. But there are many more possible solutions. Gather information, ask friends, think about other solutions. Such work will allow you to better understand the situation, expand your consciousness and allow you to choose the most informed decision.
9 - Let your brain sort everything out - Modern man decides a lot on the run, on emotions, in a time-poor mode.
But if you take a day of rest, calm down, stop thinking too much, then a lot becomes clearer and a decision is chosen by itself.
There is a good expression: morning is wiser than evening. So just disconnect from the problem, do something pleasant and make a decision with a fresh mind.
10 - Write down all the pros and cons and compare
Choose 2-3 options and write each on a separate sheet. And make a list of pros and cons. This clarifies a lot and it immediately becomes clear to you which solution is more beneficial for you.
That's all.
But remember, a decision is not a decision until you act on it.
To make it easier for you, here are 50 step-by-step instructions
The other day, two completely different people approached me with the same question: how to make the right choice from equal opportunities?
Would giving up one in favor of the other be a move forward, or would it simply be a sign of weakness and/or irresponsibility?
What if the first opportunity is still better than the second? How to decide and make a choice that you won’t regret later?
By the way, thinking people often encounter the problem of choice - this is normal. But sometimes this problem can cause an even bigger problem, like a nervous breakdown. And for some comrades, who are especially afraid of making mistakes and miscalculation, this process can drag on for many years of painful inaction. Up to complete Buridan collapse.
So. Let’s say you need to choose between a new, but unknown line of business, which in theory promises great prospects, and an old, but proven business, with boring methods, but with a predictable result. Or between cooperation with a new company or an old one. Or between guest participation in someone's event or creating your own. Or between the romance of a new relationship or the establishment of an old one.
The point is not what options you have to choose from. This can generally be a choice of where to go on vacation in the summer. The problem is that they will start giving advice. And then the problem begins, actually, weighing all the pros and cons and other moral vacillations.
On the one hand, your thoughts and/or feelings soar about new prospects, drawing rosy pictures, on the other hand: “What if it doesn’t work out?”, “There’s no going back,” “I’ll lose a lot of time,” etc. , and so on.
All these fluctuations will drag on from day to day, from month to month, from year to year. The biggest problem with this condition is not even that you cannot make a choice, believe me. The biggest problem is that It takes all your energy to make the right choice.. Those. You can no longer work with full dedication on what you have now and you cannot give it up to do something else.
And, if you think that the main thing is to make a decision, even according to the principle of “was it or was it not” and “in the deep end,” I have bad news for you. Downright depressing. It won't get any easier.
Because the problem will turn 180 degrees. Because there is no path on which everything would be fabulously easy and cool, you would not need to do anything except eat marshmallows and marmalade and wash it all down with nectar and ambrosia (ugh, what disgusting!) - there will be difficulties on any path, but there will be no turning back.
And then you start wringing your hands: “I shouldn’t have started this after all! What if it would have been better differently? instead of putting all your energy into creating a new business. You simply don’t have enough strength for this. This was the problem of the old woman with a broken trough - constant dissatisfaction.
In fact, the main problem is that It is human nature to believe that there is only one right choice even in everyday matters.
Illustration
So that you do not fall into seriousness, we will use Agafya Tikhonovna’s monologue from Gogol’s “Marriage” as an illustration. The actress who plays this role simply delighted me.
So, a person is ready to endlessly spend his precious time finding this one solution that will solve all his problems and thinking about how to make the right choice. But in reality everything is different from what it actually is: any goal can be achieved in different ways if you know exactly what your goal is. In fact, torment is more common to those who do not know exactly what they want.
Remember what happens when you make the final choice? Your inner world calms down, gets in order, you begin to look for ways to achieve your goals, you have the energy to achieve them, you are ready to learn new things, and be patient with temporary difficulties. You are determined to achieve your goal.
This question instantly throws you off balance and plunges you into a state of internal chaos. Because if you ignore the choice you have already made, you no longer invest energy in its implementation, you stop acting, and it naturally fades away and withers away - the second law of thermodynamics, to which there are no exceptions. And after a while it clearly seems to you that he is not really a fountain, and therefore you need to reject him and start something else.
But this choice was not objectively wrong. It was you who made him this way with your attitude to business, who destroyed him with your own idleness, irresponsibility or negativity.
It all comes down to the fact that people change throughout life. What was important and significant for him yesterday may not have the slightest meaning today. If at 15 years old girls dream of handsome and romantic princes, at 20 years old about flamboyant princes in Mercedes, at 35 years old, an already accomplished woman needs a partner whom she can trust and rely on. You just need to accept this fact and then the questions: right/wrong will disappear by themselves.
After all, in fact, this or that choice is a choice of a way to achieve some goal. And the main importance is to preserve inner peace and inner harmony when making choices. If you have made a choice and are endlessly tormented from within and are trying to explain it to everyone, justify it, prove its correctness, this is an indicator that you yourself are not confident in it, and this choice is uncomfortable for you for one reason or another.
You can, of course, consult with more experienced comrades, but as the wise Athos used to say: “People ask for advice only to not follow it, and if they follow it, it’s only so that they have someone to blame for the consequences.” The decision is yours to make in any case, even if you followed the advice of a friend. It's your decision not to think with your own head..
- Other people have a different worldview, different values, a different idea of “what is good and what is bad.”
- They do not know your situation fully, they do not know what would actually be best for you in this situation, they judge everything from their side and their experience.
Therefore, I would advise you in such situations to use a selection technique based on your current values. Considering that the problem of choice arises when there are several options, each of which is significant and attractive, has its own important advantages, You will simply choose a path that will correspond to your real values, etc. you can make a choice quickly and painlessly.
For a while, forget about which options you are choosing between. In any case, you have an understanding of what goals you want to achieve and what attracts you to it.
We take a piece of paper and write the benefits and advantages in the column of the table and horizontally.
It is advisable that the description of what you ultimately want to receive is comprehensive. There can be as many points as you like, but not less than ten. There is only one condition - all these points must be important and significant for you.
You will get a table with a complete list of benefits and advantages horizontally and vertically.
Now you need to shade one square of the table diagonally from the first point.
The next step, on a separate piece of paper, write down point by point those benefits that are significant and attractive to you for each choice option. Write down only those that are clearly inherent in this option. If in doubt, skip it.
Now prioritize your values by asking yourself for each pair of benefits: What is more important to me? Be sure to choose. There can be no 50/50. For what is more significant, we put one, and for what is less significant in comparison, we put zero. Those. If you want to create, but at the moment you feel that guaranteed income is more important than creativity, that means one in guaranteed income, zero in creativity.
And so on until all available options are compared. This is a great way to identify a huge number of fictitious values that are in fact of little significance to you.
Now make a calculation for each advantage and you will know exactly what is most important and significant for you at this stage for this goal and you will be able to make the right choice intelligently.
If you don’t know Excel and are too lazy to do all this manually, I have prepared a template for you that you can use to clarify your values for any purpose.
After you have revealed your true values using this table, you can compare which choice option these values most correspond to.
Now that the choice has been made taking into account your values,
- concentrate on your choice
- provide him with all the resources necessary for active development - abilities, energy, emotions, thoughts, lively participation.
- Act, act, act!
If you do this steadily, consistently, persistently, you will achieve your goal. No options.