Beware of indecisiveness. It's a silent killer.
This video is going to tell you how to overcome it.
I just got back to Vancouver after my trip in Costa Rica, and we have tons going on here at the office. New quarter, new goals, looking ahead, clarifying the vision. And I want to send you a message today on indecisiveness.
If there's one thing I see as a common attribute in unsuccessful people, it's mulling over decisions.
Brooding over your options and being indecisive. And being stuck, unable to move forward.
Don't let this happen to you.
Even in this office, even our team here, we can suffer from that. In fact, we had a decision to make on how we were going to focus on his quarter coming ahead with my company.
We had a couple of meetings on it. And it got to a point where I finally said, guys, we are not leaving this meeting, this door is staying closed, until we come to a decision.
It's so easy, it's so tempting, it's comfortable, to not be decisive. It's uncomfortable to make decisions because you're cutting off all options.
You have to predict the future. There's a fear of making a mistake. And if we let that discomfort overtake us, we end up stuck. We don't move forward, and we ultimately don't achieve what we set out to.
Lack of decisiveness means lack of action.
Lack of clear-cut, focused action moving towards your goals. A mentor of mine used to say, ready, fire, aim. Not ready, aim, fire, like you're instructed to do when firing off a weapon.
You need to move first, get in motion. Start the engine. You can correct as you go.
You can correct your course as you're moving forward, as opposed to analysis paralysis where you're just sitting there, indecisive, not taking action. Wondering, oh, is this gonna work out? Oh, I don't wanna make the wrong decision. Oh, well what about this other option?
That's called being stuck. And decisive people—leaders, people of action, people who get shit done—are decisive. They make decisions quickly. They move forward. They correct as they have to, and they don't let their ego and their fears get in the way of making the wrong move, of looking foolish.
Stop endlessly oscillating between your options.
Stop swaying back and forth, constantly being anxious about making mistakes. And don't let yourself fall prey to that.
Endless meetings, endlessly brooding over your options, endlessly doing research online. It's not the place you wanna be. Those are the habits of losers. Those are the habits of people who do not win, who are not successful.
Like anything, chronic indecisiveness is a habit. And mulling over all the things at your disposal comes from the habit of doing that. And like a muscle, your decisiveness muscle strengthens the more you use it.
No matter how much planning you do, no matter how much thinking you do, it's almost impossible to predict future outcomes.
Don't get me wrong. Plan, calculate, think things over, think things through. End of the day, though, you have to pull the trigger.
So a few quick tips for you on how to be more decisive:
#1 - Seek counsel.
Seek the advice of someone you respect or is knowledgeable in the situation that you are facing. You can't always depend on yourself.
Look to those you trust, you respect, you admire, that have expertise in the field you're dealing with.
As a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you need to surround yourself with people smarter than you, people you can rely on to give you the answers you require to make calculated decisions moving forward. I was able to meet John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, in person, and I'll never forget what he said. "Be the dumbest person in the room."
That's what he said his key to success was with Whole Foods. He was the dumbest person in the room. Crazy to think about right?
As a business leader, often it's our egos that get in the way, we have to have all the answers, be the smartest, that's erroneous. That is erroneous. Put your ego aside. Seek the counsel of others.
#2 - Make a list of two columns. Pros and cons.
And all the pros of the decision and all the potential cons of the decision if things were to go right or things were to go wrong.
And let the numbers decide. More pros than cons, that's a good decision for you to make.
#3 - Do what scares you.
The uncomfortable path. The path or the option that scares you is often the best one.
Those that follow the path that has the least risk or is the safest, most comfortable option, do not amount to much in life. It's the biggest, scariest decisions we end up facing and making that define the course of our lives and how much we're able to achieve.
So if it's a matter of what's more uncomfortable versus what's safer, my advice? Do the uncomfortable.
#4 - Trust your gut.
Now, that's not to say to act on impulse. Impulse and gut are two different things. We want to follow the other three rules. You want to seek the counsel of those older, wiser, and more experienced.
You want to make a list of all the options, and then a list of the pros and cons comparing the viability of one to the other. The one that is more likely to succeed and has more potential upside than the others. And third, you want to take into account if you are acting based on safety and comfort, versus fear of the unknown—stretching yourself and moving into uncomfortable territory.
When you take all those things together, and you think it over, not too long, go with what your gut is telling you.
At the end of the day, you know what is right for you.
Your heart, your gut, has taken in your whole life experience, has a certain sense of intuition that I nor anybody else can talk you out of. Never go against your gut, that's number four.
So put these to use, be a person of action. Any high performance, highly effective business leader, entrepreneur, person of action who is successful, is decisive.
So stop mulling over shit, staying stuck. Get out there, take control of your life, and decide.
Thanks for watching. Thanks for subscribing. And remember to stay strong.
