Life is full of choices. Some are easy, some are hard. From choosing your career to choosing your clothes. Deciding what to lunch or quitting your job.

Why is it important to make good decisions? What are the criteria for a good decision? And why self-awareness is essential to avoid overthinking?

Why making good decisions is important

People make tons of decisions every single day. Important conscious decisions, and a lot of less important unconscious decisions.

Important conscious decisions can be though. You can feel unsure and insecure. From that moment on, this takes a lot of time. And the longer it takes, the more insecure you become.

Fast and secure decision makers increase self-assurance. They feel more confident, and others around them acknowledge this.

Do you want to be confident or insecure?

The criteria for a good decision

There are criteria for a good decision. The four main criteria are:

• knowing what you want
• knowing where you want to go
• how definite the result is
• The time it will cost to apply or execute

We will zoom into each criterion and explain why it is important.

What do you want?

Knowing what you want is essential. If you know what you want, you also know what you don’t want. Saying no is maybe more important than saying yes. It is about making your boundaries clear.

This is an essential part of self-awareness.

Where you want to go?

Where you want to go is very close to what you want. Where you want to go will help you with long-term decisions.

It will boost your creativity as well. Once you have the ambition, you will start to see more opportunities. Dreams will appear and “crazy” ideas will pop into your head. It is an amazing way of positive thinking. It will be automatically activated once you dare to imagine the future.

Knowing where you want to go is an essential part of self-awareness as well.

How definite is it?

It is very important how definite the decision is. If you can switch your choice at any moment, it is easy. Just pick one and don’t waste your time struggling to choose.

If the decision is not definite, decide fast. Picking and switching options can give you even more experience.

How long will it take to apply/execute?

The duration that is related to the decision is very important as well. If a decision will take 5 seconds, and you have 3 choices, then it can be wise to try it all. But if there are 10 choices, and one will take you 5 hours, the choice will become more important.

Sometimes struggling to choose will take more time than executing all the options.

Self-awareness is essential to avoid overthinking

Imagine you are in the dessert. It is very warm. You are lost. You don’t know which direction to walk, and you see no surroundings in the distance.

This is how life feels if you don’t know where you want to go. You don’t have surroundings in the distance. So, you don’t know the direction to walk.

But what if you know yourself. You know what you want, and you know where you want to go? Suddenly the scene changes.

Imagine you are in the dessert again. This time, you can see a big mountain in the far distance. It has an icy top. You feel a desire to go there. You have direction. You know where you want to go, and you know what you want: straight towards the mountain.

Isn’t life easier with direction?

From the point when you know yourself, everything becomes easier. At every moment to decide, you can simply ask yourself: will this take me closer towards where I want to go? Will it get me closer to the mountain with the icy tops?

Conclusion

We make a lot of choices in life every single day. Making good decisions and limiting hesitation will result in confidence.

The criteria for making good decisions are:

• What do you want?
• Where do you want to go?
• How definite is the decision?
• How long will it take to apply/execute?

To make the right decisions without overthinking, you must know yourself. Seek self-awareness. Only when you know what you want and where you want to go, overthinking will disappear.