What if decision making was easier?
Discover 4 simple questions to ask when faced with a decision.
Decisions are a part of everyday life. Many times as you navigate life you will come to a crossroads. A place where a decision must be made. Discerning the right decision to make often weighs very heavily on your heart and your mind. Do you quit your job and take another one? Should you start a business? Will moving to a new city give you more opportunity? Is this the right strategy to find new clients? Sometimes those decisions are simple and easy to make. At other times they are down right hard.
In a Sunday homily, Father Mike Schmitz spoke about 4 doors for decision making. Each door asks a question. The answer to the question guides you to a decision or to the next door. These 4 doors can help you make decisions in your life….religious or not.
Four Doors
1. Is this a good door? If you know what your purpose is, what matters most to you in life, and your values you can use those as guides for discerning if the option in front of you is a good door. For example, if your faith or religion is something that is important to you and your faith prohibits saying yes to this opportunity then the answer is no this is not a good door. If going through this door would mean that you would be compromising your values, this is not a good door. If going through this door would lead you away from living your purpose, this is not a good door.
Father Mike says, the challenge is often that many doors are good or neutral. For many of the decisions we are making in our life, discerning if the door is bad is not that difficult.
2. Is it an open door? This is where we can ask ourselves, is this door even an option for me? Example: I am trying to decide if I should go to a conference in New York and I live in California. If I don’t have the time or the means to get to the conference the door is not open. If I want to be a Nascar driver and I don’t know how to drive, that door is not open to me.
Now, this door may also only be temporarily shut. Perhaps this year I don’t have the time or the means to go to the conference in New York. Next year, I might be able to go as my situation may be different. Then this door would be open.
3. Is this a wise door? Here lies the importance of knowing yourself. Make a decision by tuning in. Ask yourself, “Knowing my past, knowing who I am now and knowing who I want to be in the future, is this a wise door for me to walk through? Would it be wise for me to say yes to this choice?”
The answer may be I don’t know, maybe? That’s ok. You may have to make your best guess here. The reality is you might not actually know. If it is a good door and it is an open door you might have to go through this door and see what happens.
4. Is this a door I want to walk through? A powerful question that we often forget to ask. Is this something you even want? If not, it is perfectly acceptable to say no and not go through this door. If it is something you want and you have been through doors 1 – 3, then say yes. Choose this option. Make the decision to walk through this door.
No perfect plan
Keep in mind that there is no perfect plan. Life is one big experiment. We keep moving one step at a time along the path. Continually faced with new decisions to make. Just like in a “ choose your own adventure book” this is the “choose your own adventure” of your life.
We ask the questions, choose an answer, decide if we are going through the door or not, then we have to move. We have to take action on our decisions. Without action it isn’t really a decision.
Taking Action
There are a couple of ways to take action. Often we think of action as all in, full steam ahead. I made the decision to start a business, so tomorrow I will quit my job and go all in. Yes, that’s one type of action and there is another option.
One form of action might be gathering data. Perhaps based on your current level of information you have said yes to all the doors. You have discerned that the right option for you is to start your own business. You have come to the conclusion that yes this is a good door, it is an open door, you think it’s a wise door and it is a door you want to walk through. Your action may be to gather more information at this point rather than quit your job tomorrow and go all in on this business venture.
Maybe you need to seek some guidance and wisdom for someone you trust who has started their own business in this industry. Maybe you need to test the waters to see if anyone will buy what you want to sell. Maybe the next step is to start part time while you are still working. Gathering data and information is a form of action. As long as you are continuing to take steps forward.
According to Father Mike, “ Faith is rarely a leap, faith is simply a step.” Take the small steps.
What if you make the wrong decision?
You may be worried that you will make the wrong choice in the” choose your own adventure” of life. And you may make the wrong choice. Think of your life up to now, you have most likely made many so called wrong decisions. And you are still here.
Maybe you even screwed your life up big time from some of the choices you have made. And you are still here.
Meet yourself where you are at now. Ask yourself the questions and keep walking through doors or closing doors and choosing another path to a new set of doors.
The Easy Life
We are often led to believe that life is supposed to be perfect, without challenge or struggle. That the goal is to have an incredibly happy, perfect life and there is something wrong with you if you don’t. That is not the case. What I have discovered is that most of us want a meaningful and fulfilling life.
To obtain this type of life you must remember that you are a unique individual. You are here for a reason. Your life is to find out what that reason is and then once you do spend the rest of your days doing what you are called to do. Fulfilling your purpose.
It will not always be easy. There will be challenges and struggles, ups and downs, highs and lows. You will make some wrong choices. You will make some perfectly times choices. And as long as you keep going, one simple step at a time, you will make it.
Just keep walking.