Decision Making

Three Invaluable Life Lessons I Learned From My Mother

With Mother’s Day approaching, I’d like to reflect on three invaluable life lessons I learned from my mother.

But first, I’ll mention that next month it will be eleven years since she left us. Last year, I reprinted the eulogygiven at her funeral. I miss my mother. But I’m the person I am today because of these three very important life lessons that she lovingly and generously gave me: independence; making choices; and responsibility.

Thanks, Mom! I love you and miss you!

Gumption, Decision Making & Affirmations

Are you using Gumption to be a better decision maker?

Are you a good decision maker?

What attributes make a person a good decision maker?

Want to be a better decision maker?

Decision making can be described as the mental process of choosing a course of action from multiple options. Decision making produces a final choice.

When you?re presented with a chocolate box, you scan all the choices. You mentally evaluate, analyze, and use your best experiences, and gut instinct, to guess what is inside each chocolate. Your goal is to choose the single chocolate that will provide the most joy in a delicious morsel.

All decisions you make follow this same simple pattern. There are x number of options (A, B, C, or D, etc.). You get to choose one. This holds true if you?re buying a car, a computer, or making a career decision. It?s true if you?re picking a spouse, buying a new pair of shoes, or deciding whether to watch American Idol or read a book.

Here is how applying the three principles of Gumption can help make you into a better decision maker ? and achieve better results in the decisions you make. I?ve included my daily affirmations that help me be a better decision maker.

Stories of Gumption ? My Father, the Family House, and Another New Chapter

stories-of-gumption
Stories of Gumption is a regular column that profiles individuals who admirably demonstrate Gumption as we define it. These are the stories of real people who exhibit gumption in overcoming personal challenges, and validate the spirit of Gumption during their journey. Let?s take inspiration from those who seize 100% personal responsibility and show us how to live a life that exhibits Gump-like character traits worthy of applause!

Historically, the elderly would stay in their homes until they died ? at least the fortunate ones. Oftentimes, they were forced to leave the family house and live out their remaining days with either caring relatives or in a nursing home. This unpleasant relocation became necessary when they reached the stage of life where caring for themselves was simply no longer possible.

The family home of 58 years sold as Dad moves to retirement community

The old house was filled with 40, 50, 60, or even 70 years of memories, antiques, memorabilia, and lots and lots of junk. Wading through all of the stuff, giving mementos to family members, finding charities to benefit from still usable items, and filling a dumpster with everything else was a job left to the survivors. That process, while potentially therapeutic for the memories, was a task more necessary than fun.

Thank you, Dad!

Thank you for doing today what we won?t have to do tomorrow … or in five, ten, or in seventeen years, three months, and twenty-one days when you celebrate your 100^th birthday. God willing, that is what we will do on your 100^th birthday ? celebrate all together!

This week, my father will complete the sale of the family house of fifty-eight years and move into a retirement community.

Today, I salute my father as a man who is still living his life with Gumption. At age eighty-two, he is making a bold move. Any time one starts a new chapter in life, it takes courage. Starting the closing chapters takes foresight and shows great compassion.

Thanks, Dad, for doing today what will make your next five, ten, or seventeen-plus years more comfortable for you, Amy, me, and my siblings. You are a man of Gumption. You are my hero.

Here are a few more of my personal thoughts about Dad, the family house, traditional elder care, and a new way for the elderly to care for themselves.

Front Porch Thoughts

Front-Porch-Thoughts ?

In my previous post?I wrote, ?It sure is safer if you simply stay seated on the front porch. But, then think about all the living you?d miss.? ?This was a direct reference to Forrest Gump?s run across America. The run started when Forrest (who was deep in thought on the front porch), tired of sitting, stood up, and simply decided to go for a little run.

In that single moment, everything changed.

Front porch thoughts are quiet and reflective thoughts. They are thoughts focused on the big picture, the meaning of life, and how life?s thousands of details fit into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Just before he started to run, Forrest was seated on the front porch deep in thought. He probably felt some despair over Jenny leaving him again. He might have been feeling sorry for himself. He no doubt was wondering, what was the purpose of his life?

From those front porch thoughts, Forrest made a single decision that changed everything. He stood up and started running. The run started to energize him. The run gave him a new purpose. The action of running offered a new perspective that eventually helped him put the past behind him.

Action is what ultimately makes things change. But the front porch thoughts are where the plan for action originates.

What are your front porch thoughts telling you what to do with your life?

Are you willing to follow your front porch thoughts and start running toward your goals?

Or, are you going to stand up and walk back into the safety and mediocrity of your house and television show?

Next Blog Title:? Steve?s Front Porch Thoughts ? Summer 2011

Next Blog Date:? July 28, 2011

Good Decisions with Bad Results ? and Vice-Versa

Decision-Making-Results-Matrix

Inspiration for today?s post comes from the audio version of Highroads Media?s?What Would Napoleon Hill Do?? While my previous blog was about Gumption and Decision-Making, today?s post will contrast the quality of the decisions you make with the results you get from those decisions.

I believe the quality of your decision-making process needs to be evaluated separately and differently from the results you?re getting ? despite the easily envisioned linkage.

Gumption and Decision-Making

Forrest's decision-making was instinctive

In its simplest form, decision-making is a choice between A or B ? and sometimes C.

When the decision is trivial or unimportant, we normally just decide A or B using our past experience and/or knowledge. Deciding is not difficult ? it?s just instinctive. We know what the correct choice is, and we make it without deliberation.

Sometimes we?re uncertain or uninformed about what choice to make. We take time to educate ourselves about the pluses and minuses of A and B. Filled with new information, we then decide. The more important the consequences of the choice, then the more time we spend gathering information before deciding.

But often, even in complicated matters, we already know our choice instinctively. The time spent researching isn?t to decide, but rather to justify our already-made choice. We are simply pretending that we haven?t yet decided ? we?re seeking confirmation. We try to prove the choice correct prior to publicly committing to it.

People with Gumption?understand this human tendency and do the following:

Make decisions quickly and don?t waste time second-guessing themselves.
Make new decisions if and when previous decisions don?t get the expected results.
Spend only the minimal time necessary on research prior to making a decision (and then they repeat #1 and #2).

It seems to me that most decisions are made in the blink of an eye, as Malcolm Gladwell proffered in his best-selling book Blink. Somehow we just know.

Recall the war scene in the movie Forrest Gump. Forrest first decides to save himself when attacked. He then decides to go back and save his fellow soldiers. In the blink of an eye Forrest knew what to do. There was no deliberation. There was no second-guessing. He decided and he did it.

Do you make decisions quickly?

Do you spend (or waste) time second-guessing your decisions?

Do you have a regular way to conduct research so that your decision-making process is efficient?

Next Blog Title:? Good Decisions with Bad Results ? and Vice-Versa?

Next Blog Date:? July 7, 2011

Decision Making

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