This or that?
Coffee or tea?
Classic dress or casual?
Decision, decision, and more decisions. How to avoid making bad decisions?
That’s how half of human life is spent.
And these small decisions are just tip of the iceberg. What about the big ones?
Who to marry, choosing a career, building a business?
One wrong decision can completely ruin your whole life.
Is there a way out of this???
Is there a way we can make decisions without regretting them later ???
Well, after my fair share of wrong decisions and failures and regrets, I’ve finally figured out a filter system for myself. And believe me, it has completely changed my life.
Let me share it with you and explain how it works.
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the greatest actors in the history of filmmaking.
He’s the only actor who has won 3 best-actor Oscars. No one even comes close to his method acting. He’s unbelievably good.
So, when Steven Spielberg (one of the greatest directors of all time) reached out to him to play Abraham Lincoln for the film ‘Lincoln’ (2012).
What Daniel Day-Lewis did was the complete opposite of normal human behavior.
He said NO.
What????
Who says no to Steven Spielberg! Why would someone in his right mind even think about something like that. People can give their kidney to work with Steven. I mean he’s the same guy who made movies like Jaws and Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List and Indiana Jones and ET: the extraterrestrial.
Then why did he say no?
I mean you have the greatest actor, you have the greatest director, you have an almost unlimited budget to make a movie, what could possibly go wrong?
Let me explain.
Under the layers of his answer lies the art of decision making.
Daniel Day-Lewis is not super rich. He’s got a net-worth of about $60 million. All that money has come from his acting career. He’s never done any ads, magazine covers, product promotion or anything else to make money. And he is soooo picky that he does only one film in about 5 to 8 years.
Which simply shows he’s a man of values. He doesn’t see movies just as a medium to make money, but as a medium of authentic expression of his art.
Here’s what he said when asked on the Oprah show why did he initially say no,
“I thought I wouldn’t do justice playing the role of a man who’s such a monumental figure in the history of America. And the screenplay was badly written.”
And if you dig under the surface of his words, you’ll see his decisions was based on 2 important filters:
1) Instincts
2) Values
And if you learn how to use them correctly, you’ll can completely avoid making bad decisions with almost 95% accuracy.
Let me now explain how use these filters in your daily life to make high quality decisions:
1. Instincts
Trust your instincts.
Our instincts have helped us survive for 200,000 years. Floods, tornados, epidemics, ice age, wars, wild animals, and whatnot. You think you cannot rely on them for making a decision?
Avoid over analyzing any situation. When you start over analyzing it, you disconnect from your instinctive powers. You get lost in the spirals of worldly information.
You lose sense of where you are going. And then you end up either delaying it forever or making the wrong decision.
So remember this: whenever you get a really strong hunch about something, you have to trust it. Because it’s coming from a place of higher intelligence inside you.
Imagine it like this, your conscious mind is like a calculator, but your instinct is like a supercomputer.
It’s doing all these complex decision making processes that your conscious mind cannot even imagine.
It takes care of dealing with all the complexity and gives you a simple answer. Yes or no.
Choose wisely.
2) Values
Find your core values.
Why do we make wrong decisions?
Most times it’s because we do things opposite to what we believe.
Daniel Day-Lewis’ core value was to act in movies with great scripts. And that’s what made it so easy for him to say no.
It didn’t matter to him who was making the movie. He remained true to what he valued.
Stop getting influenced by everything you see, hear, or read on social media.
Your decisions should come from the deep place inside. Completely aligned with your core values.
Let’s say one of your core values is that you’re loyal. So now, whatever may be the circumstances, no matter what happens, you will never cheat on your partner. Because that’s something you deeply value in your heart.
So take some time out and introspect what it is that you deeply value.
Things like integrity, honesty, authenticity, dedication to one’s art are some old school values that can come in handy in times of making big decisions.
Your core values are your inner compass, your north star that shows you the right path whenever you find yourself lost in life.
That’s it, my friend. That’s all you need to make decisions that you’ll be proud of in the long-term.
Here’s your TOOL:
The key to make right decisions = Instincts + Your core values
Use these two as filters and let every decision pass through them.
Trust them, and they’ll do the rest for you.