How to make decisions and not procrastinate

Are you a procrastinator?

Do you take forever to make decisions, often for the fear of making the wrong ones?

Early on in my career, like so many others, I did this. I was often afraid of letting both myself and others down by making the wrong decision. And especially when it’s a 50/50 split, you’re always going to make the wrong call. Right?

So I used to um and ah about it forever.

As I got older, my decision making improved – after all, I had deadlines to meet and I needed to make decisions to hit them. And I did, whether they were good or bad (thankfully, they were normally good), but the deadlines were there for a reason.

I couldn’t have been as successful as I was while making wrong decisions all the time.

But it was only when I started my own business that I realised what REAL decision making was all about.  

Because when you’re building your own business, there are multiple hats you need to wear and all of them require decisions to be made. Decision making suddenly shifts into overdrive!

But this was now MY business. Every decision made a difference that affected ME and my future directly.

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• How much money I should spend.
• Whether I landed a client or not.
• The time I spent with my family.
• Should I outsource or do it myself.

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The list was endless.

But then I realised something fundamental.

They were JUST decisions.

Whether they end up being good or bad is irrelevant at the time you make them. They’re not good or bad decisions. They’re just decisions.

What may appear at first sight as the wrong path, may end up being a good decision made. You don’t know until it happens, so stop worrying about it. You can’t affect the outcome.

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So trust your gut.

Make the decision.

Move on.

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“But Dan”, you may be asking me, “what if it turns out to be the wrong decision?”.

Well, if it ends up being so, then just make ANOTHER decision.

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Trust your gut.

Make another decision.

Move on.

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Don’t concern yourself about all the things that are outside of your control – they will just delay the decision making process for all the things that do matter. The more you focus on what you can control, the faster and better you will become at making the big decisions. And if the decision can be reversed after it is made, why are you being indecisive?

When you start realising that all you’re doing is enabling yourself to move forward in your business and personal life by making decisions, the process becomes much easier, you’ll have much more confidence in your ability to make decisions and you’ll be making better decisions faster.

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