Decision Making - What is The Real Need ?

Last time, from Spencer Johnson’s book Yes or No, we learned that we need to use both our head and our heart to make the best decisions. We use our head by asking the first question: “Am I meeting the real need, informing myself of options and thinking it through?” We must answer either “yes” or “no” to the question. No “maybes.”

If the answer is “no” we keep going. We ask: “Is this something I merely want?” or “Is this something I really need?” We may want a Ferrari, but what we really need is a car to get to work. We have to make the decision based on the real need. We can go back and work on what we want later.

We need to focus on the results in such detail that we can actually see ourselves at the point where we have achieved them. This focus helps us say no to everything else until it is achieved. Once we have made this decision, the daily choices are easy. Does this action help me achieve my goal, my real need, or not? If the answer is no, then we don’t do it.

Spencer Johnson gives us a great way to separate the needs and wants: To see what we merely want, we ask “What do I wish I could do?” To see what we really need we ask “What would I like to have done?” looking back on it from the future.

Once we have done that, we need to be sure that we are looking at all the options. When we think we don’t have any options we need to remember that we just aren’t aware of them right now. We need to gather information, but only what is actually needed to make the decision. It is too easy to get buried in facts that don’t focus on the need. They just distract us. We need to gather information and then validate it for ourselves.

When we feel frozen with fear we need to just get started. Ask “If I don’t have the information, who does?” “What is the best way to get it?” “Have I verified it myself?” That will lead to more information and so on. Pretty soon we are able to see that there are choices we weren’t even aware of.

The last step in this part of the process is thinking it through. We can start by looking at our past decisions and learning from them. When we got bad results what had we done wrong in making the decision? When we got good results what had we done right in making the decision?

We can improve our future results by asking “then what? … then what? … then what?” for each of the options we are looking at. We often make the mistake of assuming that it is only a short-term decision, but quite often there are long-term repercussions. So carry each option out to the future.


Stay tuned for the next installment, Feelings.

Debby Riddick

http://DRiddick.bigmlmtruths.com