If you are like a lot of people right now, you are weighing up different options and having to make decisions and choices about things that you wouldn’t normally come up with.
It can be easy to either:
- get overwhelmed
- overthink and stuck in a state of paralysis
- make a bad decision.
Or a combination of all three!
I always used to commend myself on my ability to process obstacles and make sound judgements, because I looked at every angle, all sides and possible outcomes were checked. Clearly, I am not a cyborg, so when I am falling down the rabbit hole of potential answers something small can take days, and either fall by the wayside if something more pressing comes up, or when I finally come to a decision I realize that was my gut instinct first choices anyways.
Then the other side, sometimes we make snap decisions under pressure (real or imagined). Oh look that playground set I had my eye on went on sale, there is only one left in the store… I should pick this up. I am saving $300. Well, if you wouldn’t have bought it you would have saved $600. On top of when your kids put that on their wish list was two years ago and now they will probably use it a minute and climb right back off to do other more “teenage” things. You are also working on knocking down your credit card debt since this purchase is so last minute, there is no cash, and no sinking fund to use. Another large purchase put back on your credit card. Not even going to mention the fallout with the spouse that will occur because they fail to see it was an emergency purchase.
How often did you regret a decision? Not only that, but how often did you waste plenty of time, money, and energy because of it? The job that turned out to be a dead-end, the partner who’s a douchebag but you decided to stick with, the investment that tanked?
Fortunately, there is a very simple and quick tool you can use that is very effective when under stress or duress. It will help avoid making decisions and choices that are bad in the longer term, even if they do bring you some immediate relief. It works great in business or your personal life, small or large decisions. I ran across the source article. It was an article written by Suzy Welch in the September 2006 issue of O! Magazine. I have found it a great guideline and tool when facing a difficult decision. I will paraphrase it here:
The 10-10-10 Rule
As you face a difficult decision (and this works for any aspect of your life), ask yourself the following questions:
Will it matter in 10 minutes?
Will it matter in 10 months?
Will it matter in 10 years?
What is the impact of my actions within these timeframes?
How we feel about something in the moment isn’t always the best predictor of how we’ll feel about it over a period. The thing that we’re focused on today and tomorrow may not be the thing that matters most in the scheme of things. For anyone that has delved into weight loss will find when you have to pick food on the fly, when you are out and about or even at home, compared to when we meal prep and plan, we make better choices with thought and time. We can plan to eat healthier, buy better food and eat better. When we wake up every day with the plethora of food choices available to us, even with health in mind, we tend to overdo it. 10-10-10 is the stopgap it is the pause we need to think of how this decision will affect us, not a two-hour web search of WebMd on this new rash we have developed, a quick stop, will this matter now, in the close and distant future?
Being able to step back from the immediacy and use high-level thinking to evaluate the effects of your actions and decisions beyond just the initially visible cause and effect relationship is an indispensable quality, and it’s how smart people make good long-term decisions.
Naturally, the problem is that it’s hard. It’s not intuitive to how we think and feel, and as a result, even if we know the idea, it doesn’t always register. Of course, we don’t check our emotions at the door; the same emotion rebalancing is necessary at work/home. That shift can help us to keep our short-term emotions in perspective. It’s not that we should ignore our short-term emotions; often they are telling us something useful about what we want in a situation. But we should not let them be the boss. If you’ve been avoiding a difficult conversation with a coworker/friend, then you’re letting short-term emotion rule you. If you commit to having the conversation, then 10 minutes from now you’ll probably be anxious, but 10 months from now, won’t you be glad you did it? Relieved? Proud?
You will find that, by using this technique, decisions are often much clearer and easier to make. Issues that we perceive as having a long-term or more significant impact on our lives or the lives of others often don’t matter as much as you think in the big picture. The quality of your daily decisions informs the quality of your life.
Whether it’s at home or at work, high-level thinking enables a kind of objectivity when considering options. It allows you to balance the conflicting forces in your mind with the incentives of reality.
You’re obviously not going to solve every problem you have using this method, but you would be surprised at how well you can diagnose most of them.
Whether it’s sticking to a diet, managing your priorities, or finding the courage to face a fear, all you have to do is ask yourself three questions.
