How to make a wise decision?
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Make a Wise Decision.
It’s a popular myth that women are more emotional than men. Perhaps in some circumstances this might be true, or maybe women tend to be more outwardly emotional, but in my experience as a success coach, I’ve found that nearly everyone—women and men alike—let their emotions guide them when it comes to making decisions.
Even people who are logical and who weigh the facts, figures, pros, and cons of a situation before making a decision still tend to make their decisions based on emotion at the end of the day. This is a problem when it comes to achieving success. You can’t focuses on what feels good now and not what is going to help you in the long term to find success and happiness. You will need a good balance between being emotional and being logical when it comes to making decisions.
The truth is we are all emotional creatures. A big part of having passion and having that fire inside of us to succeed is having emotion. However, too much of anything is a bad thing. Making good decisions requires you to get the right mix of emotion and logic. You first must know and understand your emotions. Then you have to separate yourself from them to make a logical decision with all the tools at your disposal.
When I still owned my computer networking company I encountered this dilemma many times. I was working in a male-dominated industry and any time a client or competitor challenged me in a business meeting—whether they were questioning me or my product—my first instinct was to be defensive and angry. That is a perfectly natural emotion to have. But as a business woman I had to let that go, take a deep breath, exhale, release the emotion and look at the situation logically. That meant understanding my emotions, but also stepping into the other person’s shoes and understanding their emotions. That is a huge part of making good decisions: being an empathetic thinker.
We rarely make any decision in a bubble. Our decisions impact those around us and oftentimes the decisions we have to make are in response to someone else’s actions or words. If you can first understand your emotions, then step into the other person’s shoes to understand their emotions, you now have all the tools to make a well-informed, rational decision.
In those business meetings where I was challenged, I wouldn’t allow myself to get angry. Instead, I would step into my client’s shoes. Why weren’t they happy with the product? Was it because I had not explained it well enough? Was it because it didn’t provide the services they needed? Was it the price? Why weren’t they happy with me? Did they feel threatened because I was a woman? Was I overlooking one of their needs as my client?
Asking all these questions requires having both emotion and logic. You must be empathetic and understanding. If you can do that, you will have all the tools at your disposal to make a good decision. More importantly, you’ll have already distanced yourself from your own emotions by seeing the other person’s emotions. This will make it easier to make the right decision. Don’t go for the quick fix and what feels good now, but instead go for what in your mind and heart you know is the right decision for you to be successful and happy in the long run.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Related articles by Zemanta
- A little thing called happiness (myventurepad.com)
- Logical prescriptivism (languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=84d2b46a-3e55-416a-940a-87de4586b515)
I really enjoyed this post, Giovanna. I especially like what you saiad about we don’t make decisions in a bubble. That’s so true.
Thank you Giovanna,
Such good information that we can all use in many ways in our lives.To use logic and emotions to help make the decisions. Thinking about the needs of the other person also helps.
Asking them questions can help greatly to get past objections that they may have. Objections are not the end of the deal, just the beginning-asking questions is the next step. Answering the objections is the part the gets you to the end of a deal as far as the other person is concerned. It can even get you to create a better product in the long run. You have a better understanding of what others are looking for. Do not get angry. It will help you in the long run to ask questions and get the feed back.
Dan and Deanna “Marketing Unscrambled”
Great post Gionanna!
Funny I have always accepted I was emtional and reason played a equal role in all decision making in my life in business as well as a mother of four boys. My son said to me on day this week “yeh dad says he is not emotional the one he lives out towards us is anger. Nothing else! Out of the mouths of babes! In a professional atmosphere I too have worked in male dominated field in the care dealership industry. Most had the ability to keep there anger in check at least until they could vent it out later being a high stressed industry that it is and long hours too and their prifeesional commitments within there own styles of management.
I was wondering if logic and reasoning is different to you? To me when I reflect on those words one infers objectivity within like logic. But doesn’t reason which includes objectivity and subjectivity and may even include emotion to some degree in past experience a more broader picture so to speak in decision making skills?
OOPS for so many TYPOS..one day this week
and car industry…others I think you can figure out easily. Sorry!
You made me think a lot with this post. It’s true that we put a lot of emotions when we make decisions. Right now I’m trying to limit myself to 1 minute to find out a decision. This ensure that I put the right mix of emotional and rational thoughts in my thinking.
Good stuff, and I agree. Most people make emotional decisions and then find logic to support their decision. It takes a trained mind, and high EQ to break out of the pattern.
There’s a related issue where folks use their intuition. Your intuition works great when you have the right experience for effective pattern matching. When you don’t, your intuition can easily misfire. Really it’s about knowing which scenarios to trust your gut, and which to trust your brain, and when to phone a friend
I like what you are saying about putting yourself in other people’s shoes to help to make better descisions. It helps to get the communication flowing too.
Hi Giovanna. This gets me to thinking that it’s simply about responding and not reacting. In business especially it’s challenging to not let emotions take over and interfere with professionalism. Stepping into the other person’s shoes is an excellent perspective.
Hey Giovanna, great article! for some reason this brought to mind the story of the guy you had in your blog a few months ago, Brian Boyle. i was just looking around online about his story and found out that he has a book out now called “Iron Heart”
do you think you can setup something with him, like an interview or something? i think his story could help a lot of people, especially when it comes to making tough decisions and overcoming adversity.
thanks! look forward to reading your next article!
I think, (for better or worse) emotions will always dominate a large percentage of the decision making process for men and women alike, regardless of how consciously aware they are. That being said, I think when you ARE consciously aware of how much of an influence your emotions are playing in your decisions, that you can use that as an additional guiding force.
“Why does this make me feel the way it does? “Why do I get anxiety every time I think about this particular subject?” And so to a degree, these emotions can be used to help you better analyze what it is that you’re doing in a manner that standard logic often cannot.
Hi Positively Present
Everything we do, does something to another person.
Thanks for your comment and support.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Deanna
Thanks for your comment and sharing your wisdom.
I am glad you like this post. Asking question is the key to making clients and people happy.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Diane
For me balance between emotional and logic is the key. I feel that we need both, the thing to look out for is not to be too one sided.
A reasonable person is one who is use both emotion and logic, which is a great way of being.
Thanks for your comment and joining the conversation.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Oscar
I like your idea of 1 minute. Most often, the more time people have the more likely they let their emotion talk them into or out of a decision.
Thanks for your comment and sharing your tip.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi J.D.
I agree with you my friend, most people don’t know what feeling to listen to. Support system like friend and mentor are great ways to go.
Thanks for your comment and sharing your wisdom.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Ben
Communication is an important tool, for fact finding. And to make a good decision we need facts.
Thanks for your comment and adding to this post.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Davina
Well said, Not Reacting! That is the point.
Thanks for your comment and sharing your thoughts.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Gerry
Thanks for your comment.
Funny you mention Brian Boyle. I did try to get an interview with Brian after my blog post about him. But I was unable to set up a time with him and last email I sent him I got no reply. I hope he will get back to me, I would love to see how he is doing.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Travis
Yes, we are human with emotions. So we have feelings and understand our feelings is a big part to be able to think clearly.
Thanks for your comment and sharing your wisdom.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
[...] How to make a wise decision? (imperfectaction.com) [...]