Decisions Shape Your Destiny

I’m sure you’ve heard the statement “Life is a series of choices.” To some, that’s too simple, but it really is true. Your decisions determine your destiny.

Decisions are made when you make a choice and cut yourself off from any other possibility. It is when you choose to move in one direction and not in any other possible direction. It is the cut-off point. It is a commitment to one particular action. The word "decision" comes from the Latin roots "de" which means "from" and "caedere" which means "cut off." Thus, you cut-off from any other possibility.

Everything starts with a decision. Your history is connected to decisions and your future is connected to decisions. Thoughts are the byproduct of how you see yourself, others, and the world around you. One of your biggest challenges is getting your thoughts in order. When you get your thoughts in order, you will get your words in order. These two things will start to change your world.

The power of your decisions is then what moves your life forward or holds it back from fuller expression. A proactive choice is a momentum-building decision. A reactive choice is an inertia-sustaining decision. Even not deciding and letting conditions control you is a decision. It is during your moments of proactive decision and the desire to sustain that decision that creates all that is good and worthy in your life. Every decision you make is a matter of choice. You may not like your choices – but it is a choice. You can choose to do nothing and see what happens, or you can choose to do something and hopefully end up with what you want. You always have a choice. Your choices define who you are. I know I can’t control everything that goes on around me. I know most outcomes are out of my hands. But I do know that I can control how I choose to react in any given situation. Think about what it is you want and then choose to act in a way that will help you get there.

Decisions are a part of life and while they range in complexity, we face various decisions on a daily basis. But how can we best make decisions that lead to optimal outcomes? With an ever-growing wealth of research on the topic, decision making is being transformed into a science that can aid greatly in guiding decisions. However, undoubtedly useful in certain circumstances, the application of such research highly depends on the kind of decisions being made, especially in the business world.

Decisions vary along two dimensions: Control (Ability to Track Outcomes) and performance ( Ability to Change course and Improve). Control considers how much we can influence the terms of the decision and the outcome. And performance addresses the way we measure success. Combining them creates four categories of decisions:

1. Lifestyle Decisions: These are the daily decisions you make on your choices of what you eat, wear, drive or where you invest in. The prime motive is performance and you look forward to choose products which enable you gain profitable outcomes.
2. Behavioural Decisions: These are decisions where you directly or indirectly influence the outcome. This could be through your work environment where you are enabling your team through your leadership attributes or it could be as a responsible member of the family providing guidance and visibility moving ahead.
3. Competitive Decisions: Success is no longer a matter of absolute performance but depends on how well you do relative to others. The best decisions must anticipate the moves of rivals. That’s the essence of strategic thinking, like it is said in some of the published journals that “the art of outdoing an adversary, knowing that the adversary is trying to do the same to you.”
4. Strategic Decisions: These are choices businesses make to survive and are largely aligned to their Vision and Goals. Like the choices a company makes to invest in a business domain, envisioning the probability that an opportunity could be created where you could be an authoritative supplier/ solution provider, hence creating an early movers advantage or a monopoly.

In our daily lives we face a multitude of options where complex and inter-woven decision are to be made. Sometime a type of decision leads to another decision tree and vice-versa. Certainly decisions also do have an element of probability and impact related to it and hence could be also looked at as effective risk management techniques.

When we can influence outcomes, it is useful to summon high levels of self-belief. And when we need to outperform rivals, such elevated levels are not just useful but indeed essential. Only those who are able to muster a degree of commitment and determination that is by some definitions excessive will be in a position to win.