How to Make Better Decisions

This article is about how to make better choices by asking yourself 3 or 4 questions before deciding which option you want to choose. The choices are based on a video series and workbook by Andy Stanley, a Pastor at North Point Community Church.

We all have to make choices in life. And sometimes we’re put into situations where knowing which choice to make is very difficult. But if you ask yourself these three questions (4 if you’re a Christian), then you will undoubtedly make better choices in those situations.

The first question you need to ask yourself is: “What is the real reason why I would want to choose each option?” We are all experts at deceiving ourselves and rationalizing our decisions to choose options that we know deep down aren’t the best ones to choose. Do you really want to eat everything on your plate even though you’re full because there are starving children in Africa so it’s not right for you to waste food? Or is it really because you like the taste of it? Do you want to tell your friend that you can’t help them move because you really have something else more important to do? Or is it because you just don’t want to do the work?

When you are faced with a decision to make, ask yourself what the real reason for your choice would be. I’m not saying that this will guarantee that you’ll definitely choose the best option if you ask yourself this question – but at least you won’t be lying to yourself about it anymore which is a good start.

The next questions to ask is: “What is the story I want to be able to tell?” When you have a decision to make – especially a big one – think about what the probable result will be months and years down the road. How do you want to be able to tell that story?

As time passes in our lives, all events no matter how big and important they seemed while they were happening, get boiled down to a few sentences in the story of our lives. If you’ve made poor choices in the past, if you were to tell your story to someone you’d probably gloss over those pretty quickly, leave out the details about the poor choices you made, or be somewhat ashamed, embarrassed or regretful about them. Those aren’t fun stories to tell…

When we tell our stories, we want to be able to tell good stories. We want to tell stories that make us look like good people, where we had adversities but overcame them because of the good choices we made. So think about what your story will be like depending on the option you choose before you make your decisions and choose the one that will result in a story you will want to tell.

The third question you need to ask yourself when faced with a decision to make is: “Is there a tension that needs my attention?” Many times when we are about to make a decision to choose one option rather than the other(s), we’ll feel a little uncomfortable about it for some reason. Maybe your conscience is nagging you about it for some reason, or you don’t feel quite right about one little aspect of that option, or it just doesn’t feel quite right.  Pay attention to that tension you’re experiencing – it may be because that’s not the best option for you to choose.

When you feel a tension about a particular option, pay attention to it! Don’t just dismiss it and move on. Stop and dwell on it for a second and let it get as big as it can get. If after you dwell on it for a little while, you don’t feel right about it then that should give you an idea of whether or not that’s the right option for you to choose. Or maybe after you dwell on it for a bit, you realize it’s really no big deal or you just need a little more information to ease that tension. Either way, in order to make the best choice you can, you must pay attention to any tension you feel before you make your choice.

Lastly, if you are a Christian, there is another question you should ask yourself. This one can be a little dangerous though because it may cause you to do things that you would otherwise not have done, and that may seem strange to non-Christians. This question is: “What would be most honoring to God?”

When you ask this question, you are really getting to the heart of being able to make the best decision possible. Our lives as Christians are dedicated to being as much like Christ as possible, more and more each day. We are to be obedient to God in all our thoughts and actions. Obviously, we fail at that pretty often since we’re not perfect. But our goal is to strive for perfection nonetheless. So when you ask this question, you may find that it would be most honoring to God to do something that you would not have done otherwise. Maybe if your decision is about where to go on vacation, when you ask this question, the thought about the single mother you met in church the other day. The one who just lost her job because her car broke down and she didn’t have the money to get it fixed so she couldn’t get to work and you overheard praying for help from God to help her with her finances so she could get food and clothes for her kids, get a new job, and fix her car. Maybe you’d realize that it would be most honoring to God to give her an anonymous gift of the money you were going to go on vacation with and skip your fancy getaway vacation this year and just spend some more time with your family and friends during your vacation instead.

Most non-Christians would think that was crazy – nice, but crazy! Even many Christians would likely be surprised. But God would be proud and would undoubtedly bless you in ways you couldn’t imagine. You’d have a good story to tell, and the single mother would have an even better one, and both stories would bring glory to God as they should. You would feel good about yourself and have no tension in the decision you made, and you would have no problem admitting to yourself what the real reason you made that choice was.

So the next time you have a decision to make – especially a big one – stop and ask yourself these questions first. They will help guide you towards making more good decisions, and your life and the lives of others will be better because of them.