Making Decisions
The ability to make clear decisions with incomplete information and under pressure — understanding that momentum matters more than perfection and that the ability to decide and adjust is more valuable than waiting for certainty that never arrives.
What it looks like in real life
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Example 1 — Without this skill
A business owner needs to decide whether to raise their prices. They have been thinking about it for three months. They research what competitors charge. They ask people in their network what they think. They draft a new pricing page and then do not publish it. They go back and forth between two numbers. They tell themselves they will decide when they have more information.
Nothing changes. Not because the decision was genuinely difficult but because the discomfort of possibly being wrong felt more threatening than the cost of staying stuck. Three months of deliberation produced the same outcome as making no decision at all — except now three months have passed.
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Example 2 — With this skill
A business owner needs to decide whether to raise their prices. They spend an hour thinking it through. They consider what they know about the value they deliver, what the current price communicates, and what raising it would mean for the clients they want to attract. They make a decision based on the information available. They raise the price. They watch what happens over the next four to six weeks. If it works they keep it. If something unexpected comes up they adjust.
The decision took an hour. The information they had in that hour was not significantly different from what they would have had after three months of deliberation. The outcome is known four weeks later. The adjustment, if needed, takes another hour.
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Most decisions in business are not as consequential as they feel in the moment. The cost of making a wrong decision and adjusting is almost always lower than the cost of not deciding and staying stuck. But the discomfort of possibly being wrong makes the decision feel larger than it is and produces paralysis that is more damaging than the wrong answer would have been.
Momentum is the most underrated asset in business. A business that makes decisions quickly, learns from what happens, and adjusts accordingly moves forward faster than a business that waits for certainty before acting. Certainty in business is rare. The businesses that grow are the ones that learn to move without it.
Making decisions well is not about always being right. It is about making the best call available with the information at hand, executing on it, watching what happens, and adjusting based on reality rather than theory. That cycle — decide, act, observe, adjust — is how progress actually happens.
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You will know this skill is developing when decisions that used to take weeks start taking hours and decisions that used to take hours start taking minutes. The speed of decision making is a direct reflection of comfort with imperfection and trust in the ability to adjust if needed.
Another signal is when you stop revisiting decisions that have already been made. Constantly second guessing a decision after it has been made does not improve the outcome. It just consumes the mental energy that should be going into executing the decision and observing the result. When you can make a decision, commit to it, and focus fully on execution you are making decisions effectively.
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Waiting for more information before deciding. There is almost always more information available in theory. The question is not whether more information exists but whether more information would actually change the decision. In most cases it would not. The decision would still come down to the same factors. More research is often a way of avoiding the discomfort of committing rather than a genuine prerequisite for making a sound choice.
Treating every decision as high stakes. Most decisions are reversible. Most decisions do not have consequences that cannot be adjusted. Most decisions that feel enormous in the moment are forgotten two months later because the outcome was either fine or was adjusted without significant cost. Treating routine decisions with the weight of irreversible ones produces paralysis that costs far more than any of those decisions ever could.
Making decisions by committee when clarity requires a single perspective. Gathering input is useful. Making decisions by seeking consensus from everyone with an opinion produces outcomes that satisfy nobody and reflect no clear direction. Input informs decisions. The decision itself requires one person to be responsible for it.
Revisiting decisions already made. Once a decision is made the useful question is not whether the right decision was made. It is what is happening as a result and whether adjustment is needed. Revisiting the decision rather than observing the result is a way of avoiding execution while appearing to be engaged with the problem.
Confusing the discomfort of deciding with evidence that the decision is wrong. Deciding feels uncomfortable because commitment closes off other options. That discomfort is not a signal that the wrong choice is being made. It is the normal feeling of taking responsibility for an outcome. Learning to act through that discomfort rather than interpreting it as a warning is one of the most important things a business owner can develop.
The Exercise
Write down one decision you have been putting off. Something you know needs to be made but that you have been deliberating on longer than it deserves.
Write down everything you currently know that is relevant to making that decision. Not everything you wish you knew. Everything you actually know right now.
Now ask yourself honestly — is there information I do not currently have that would genuinely change this decision if I had it. Not information that would make me feel more comfortable. Information that would actually change the choice.
If the answer is no make the decision now based on what you know. Write down what you decided. Write down how you will know in four to six weeks whether it was right. Write down what you would do to adjust if it was not.
If the answer is yes identify specifically what that information is, where you can get it, and when you will have it. Set a date by which the decision will be made regardless. Do not allow the search for more information to become an indefinite delay.
Once you have made the decision do not revisit whether it was right. Focus entirely on executing it and observing what happens. Adjust based on what you observe. That is the whole process.
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