When you are a young child, most decisions are made for you by your adult caregivers and teachers. As you grow up, you become more and more responsible for making your own decisions. Sometimes this can feel a bit scary! Or exciting! The ability to trust yourself to make good decisions for yourself is a key part of becoming a well-functioning adult. This means that decision-making is an essential lifeskill to develop.

In this blog, we are going to look at:

what is decision-making and why it is important
how to make good decisions for yourself
common challenges with decision making
some practical examples
tips for smarter decision-making
how your own values and ethics influence your decision-making

‘You cannot make progress without making decisions.’ - Jim Rohn

What is decision-making?

Decision-making affects every aspect of your life - health, work, study, relationships, family, ambitions - everything you decide to do or not do will have a ripple effect into your future. You make choices between different options that would each carry you forward in different ways - whether it be what you choose to eat for breakfast every day or what course you choose to study. Some decisions are easier to make, but in the course of your life you will also have to make some very important decisions such as where to live, who to live with and how to spend your days. Therefore, understanding how to make decisions is an essential lifeskill to develop in order to optimise your life satisfaction.

Decision-making is one of the most important executive functioning skills, as it directly affects motivation, self-confidence, happiness and success. The making of a decision is a very complex cognitive process that involves your brain working hard to evaluate options, weigh up short- and long-term consequences, and then make a choice. Interconnected neural circuits communicate across different regions of the brain, involving planning, reasoning, memories of past experience, evaluation, awareness of future goals and emotions. For young people in the teen years up to the mid-20s, brain development is also a factor. Your brain has not yet completed its initial growth and development phase, so it can often be more of a challenge to fully consider long-term consequences. Generally, teens’ actions and choices are guided more by their emotional reactivity rather than by the more reasoned, logical frontal cortex of the brain. It’s important to be aware of how your brain works, and to take the time to learn how you can slow down in order to make good decisions, especially those that will directly affect your future life options.

(Look out for our next blog on Brain Development!)

*‘Life is a chess match. Every decision that you make has a consequence to it.’ -* P.K. Subban

How to make decisions

The following steps provide a useful framework for making decisions, both big and small. For smaller decisions - like choosing what to eat, where to go, or how to spend your free time - it can become a very quick, almost automatic process to run through these steps. When you start to make more important decisions, like choosing a career path or handling personal challenges - each step might take a little longer. The more you practice, the more confident you will become in making decisions!

Step 1: identify the problem or choice - what is the problem to be solved?

Step 2: clarify what matters - what is the point of making this decision? Do you understand why this matters? Who will this decision affect?

Step 3: evaluate the options - what options are possible? What is the impact of each available option?

Step 4: weigh the consequences - what are the short-term effects? What are the long-term consequences? Are there any risks involved? What rewards are available?

Step 5: make a confident choice - once you have gone through the above steps, and know why you are making the decision you are making, be confident in it!

Bear in mind that everyone makes mistakes, and that every mistake is a lesson rather than a failure. This outlook will help you bear the inevitable regrets and disappointments of being human. The more decisions you make, the more you learn.

If you make a decision and it goes wrong, take responsibility for yourself rather than blaming others. It’s almost always possible to make a new choice that sets you back on the right track. Learn to trust your own instinct - after going through steps 1-4, when a decision ‘feels right’, it usually is!

‘Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.’ - Mark Twain

Common difficulties with making decisions

Impulsivity

Some people are more impulsive than others, and younger brains are often more impulsive than older ones! This is because prefrontal cortex maturation continues right into the mid-20s. Acting without thinking first, or making an immediate choice based on the immediate reward available, can sometimes turn out ok. But, often it can lead to trouble! Learning how to pause can help you to consider the longer-term consequences of your choices, and help you to make decisions that you feel better about.

Peer pressure and influence from friends/family/society

Peers are people who are part of the same social group, so ‘peer pressure’ means the influence that those around you may have on you to do things that you might not otherwise choose to do. In order to resist negative peer pressure, it is important to be clear on your own values, trust your own gut instincts, and be assertive.

Family and community members may also have expectations for you that cause them to seek to influence the decisions you make. Usually this is done with good intentions, but it may not fit with your values and future plans. Again it is important to be able to identify the pressure, be clear on what is important to you and to find a way to have a conversation in which you can explain why you wish to choose a different path to the one they would like to choose for you.

Fear of failure and overthinking

One of the scariest parts of making decisions is the knowledge that you might get it wrong. This fear of failure can sometimes become paralysing. You can then feel caught in a trap of overthinking all the possible eventualities, without taking any actions. That can become exhausting. Reframing how you think of failure may help: if you can accept that being human means that mistakes will be made, then you are ‘less stuck’. Any decision you make will teach you a valuable lesson, no matter what the outcome.

‘Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility.’ - Michelle Obama

Decision-making Scenarios

Everyday decision-making that you can practice:

Deciding what to eat, wear and buy - these types of decisions help you develop your own preferences, understand your own needs, and spend within your own budget.

Deciding how to spend your free leisure time - this helps you to learn how to look after yourself, and become aware of what kinds of activities recharge or drain your energy.

Managing your homework - these decisions help you to learn how to manage your own time and prioritise. You can decide whether to do homework now or later. You will soon learn which works better for you, and how long different tasks may take.

Choosing which extracurricular and sports activities to do - this helps you to explore your interests and learn new skills, and also helps you to learn what energises or drains you.

More complex decision-making that will become more frequent the older you get!

Deciding which subjects to study in your senior school years - these decisions involve considering longer term plans, what subjects you are interested in and what subjects might be required to support your future plans.

Choosing a college or university course - this requires considering career paths, future plans, the pros and cons of different courses at different institutions, how you will pay for your studies/living expenses. This may be the first major life decision that you make.

Deciding to apply for a job - if it is a part-time job alongside studying, you will need to weigh up the financial and other benefits of working with the time and energy you need to devote to your studies. In the case of full-time work, this may be another major life decision as you choose how to spend your days and where to live in order to be able to attend the job.

Handling peer pressure about alcohol and drugs - do you understand the potential health and other consequences of conforming to peer pressure? What does it mean to make a responsible choice that is right for you?

Managing money and budgeting for yourself once you have started college/university/job after school - this requires lots of decisions to be made on a daily basis about how you spend and how you budget. You may have a grant or financial aid that you need to account for, and you may need to plan ahead to budget for a term or year at a time.

Deciding whether and how to use social media - whether and what to post, what to read, how much time to spend - there are many decisions to make that require a good grasp of the potential benefits and risks of using social media.

Making decisions in relationships (friendships, romantic or sexual, or family dynamics) - for example, choosing to make friends, end friendships, pursue or end romantic relationships, manage challenging family dynamics. Many decisions require to be made in and about relationships.

*‘Your life is a result of your choices. If you don’t like your life, it’s time to make some better choices.’* - Zig Ziglar

Tips for making smarter decisions

Feeling stuck with a particular decision? Try one of these top tips to see if you can get unstuck!

Make a list of pros and cons - make two vertical columns on a piece of A4 paper, with the heading Pros at the top of the left hand column, and Cons at the top of the right hand column. Under Pros, list all the positives or advantages you can think of to making the decision you are considering. Under Cons, list all the negatives or disadvantages. Sometimes the length of the lists will show you the choice to make! Even if it’s not that straightforward, this exercise can often help you to clarify what is important to you and take you a bit closer to being able to decide.

The 10-10-10 rule - consider how this decision will affect you in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years. Taking this pause to consider the potential effects of this decision over these three time-frames can be a very helpful strategy for dealing with choices that may feel overwhelming in the moment. Take a step back and think about it - how important is this really?

Mindfulness and emotional control - sometime when we feel stuck with a decision, we can feel a lot of anxiety, fear and have lots of thoughts and emotions whirring around in our heads. However, it’s usually more effective to make decisions from a calm, centred state. Take some time to pause the decision-making and do whatever makes you feel better. Get a good sleep, go for a walk, brain-dump your worries about the decision into your journal, or take your mind off it for a while by doing something else that you enjoy. A useful technique for grounding yourself in the present moment is to take some deep breaths while focusing on what you can see, hear, taste, smell and feel right now. Once the sense of urgency is calmed, you will feel better and may gain a fresh perspective on the decision to be made.

Seek guidance and advice from mentors and trusted adults - most older adults are more experienced at making decisions than you! Ask people who you respect to share their perspective, but make sure you don’t let them dictate your final decision. While guidance can be supportive, it’s your responsibility to decide for yourself. It can be helpful to hear stories of ‘wrong’ decisions and how people have coped with the consequences of those, how they got back on course and dealt with any regrets.

Set yourself a deadline - this can be one way to help you ‘bite the bullet’ and make a decision. Give yourself the time you need to think about the pros and cons, seek guidance and whatever else feels helpful. A deadline can help you to stop getting too caught up in all the what-ifs, and move you forward. It will also allow you to ‘sleep on it’ - it’s amazing how much unconscious thought can help you to tune into what feels right for you and to make a decision that you are comfortable with.

Believe in yourself - it’s impossible to make the ‘right’ decisions 100% of the time, but the more decisions you make, the more confident you will become in your ability to make them. It is essential to build this trust and confidence in yourself - after all, it’s your life and you are the one who gets to decide how to shape it. Trust and believe in yourself. This way you can be confident in your own independence as you grow up.

‘When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.’ - Roy E. Disney

Values and Ethics

Values and ethics are the core beliefs and moral principles that guide your actions and behaviours in life. When you are clear on what yours are, it becomes a lot easier to make decisions. People hold different values and ethics depending on their culture, beliefs, education and upbringing. Some common ones are:

Honesty
Persistence
Work ethic
Education
Gratitude
Respect
Equity
Empathy
Financial ambition
Courage
Creativity
Integrity
Kindness

You may be influenced by the religion that you follow, or the values and ethics that your family lives by. However, as you grow up and practice making your own decisions, you will learn that only you know what truly feels right for you and aligns with your values.

You can use your values to help you make decisions, and to support you when you have to make difficult decisions about what is the right thing to do in tricky situations.

Have a think about which of your values you might consider to help you decide what to do in these difficult scenarios:

A friend shows you that she’s been self-harming her arms. She swears you to keep it a secret but you are very worried about her and can’t sleep because of it. Will you keep it to yourself or tell a trusted adult who may be able to help your friend get the support she needs?
Your boyfriend wants to have sex with you but you are not sure. It feels scary and it’s also not completely aligned with your religious beliefs. He says if you love him you would agree to do it. You do love him, and you don’t want him to doubt your love, but something feels very uncomfortable.
Your parents have always wanted you to go to university to become a doctor. You would be the first person in the family to go to university and it’s a big dream that they have for you. They have been saving up for years to support you through it. But although you are very capable at science subjects at school, you don’t really want to become a doctor. You are much more interested in maths and economics. The idea of an accountancy apprenticeship really appeals to you because then you can learn and work at the same time. Your parents are very upset that you don’t want to follow their dream for you.

*‘Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right.’* Phil McGraw

Asking for help

If you are finding it difficult to make decisions, do consider talking about this with a trusted adult. A parent, guardian, older sibling, friend, relative or teacher may be able to listen and provide valuable support - after all, they all make decisions every day! Try to choose someone who you know is a good listener.

Some things you might like to discuss:

what are the particular problems you are having with decision-making?
whether you need some support with some specific aspects of making decisions
how does the trusted adult make decisions?
whether the adult has any useful advice or guidance to give you about the decision(s) you are grappling with

If you are struggling to identify someone in your personal life to have this discussion with, get in touch with us!

Our challenge to you

This week, try to notice how many decisions and what kinds of decisions you are already making for yourself. For example, when you sleep, what you eat, who you choose to spend time with. Some decisions are small and some are big! Are you more impulsive, or do you tend to overthink when making decisions? Have you made any decisions recently that you have felt regret over? Which of your values influence your decisions? Taking some time to reflect on your decision-making style, what aspects of that are working for you and whether there is anything you’d like to improve, is a great first step in becoming an excellent decision-maker. Once you’ve noted some observations about your decision-making, talk it over with someone you trust.

Decision making