You sit down in a restaurant and look at the menu. It’s 10 pages long and takes forever to read. It’s frustrating, there’s just too much to choose from, how can anyone ever make a decision?!
When we have too many choices, it becomes hard to make any choice at all. We become overwhelmed and end up not making up our minds.
The solution? To just make a decision, any decision and stick with it. Yes it might not be perfect. Yes there might be better options out there. But we have to make up our minds and move on.
The Latin root of the word decision means to literally “cut off”. Therefore when you make a decision you are cutting off everything except the thing that matters. You are cutting off all the other choices and committing.
If you want a rocking 6 pack, then you must cut yourself off from junk food. If you want to be smart then you must cut yourself off from binge watching TV (unless educational of course – but who binge watches educational TV programmes anyway?)
The “5/25 Rule” is a decision making process often attributed to Warren Buffett. With this method Buffett starts by writing the top 25 things he wants to achieve in a year.
He then goes through the list and circles the 5 most important goals, and then crosses out the other 20.
He focuses solely on those top 5 things until they are complete and actively ignores the other 20. He realises that he only has limited time and the other 20 things are distracting him from achieving the top 5.
Buffett makes a decision on this priorities and cuts himself off from anything that could get in the way. Any time or effort invested in the other 20 goals robs him of focus and energy from his highest-priority goals.
Making a decision or cutting yourself off, isn’t restricting, it’s actually very freeing. It frees you from the fatigue of endless options. When we have too many options we end up avoiding commitment completely, as we try to keep our options open for as long as possible.
You can’t jump from thing to thing, you must make a decision. Give it a go yourself, make a decision and cut yourself off from any other other available options, or try the 5/25 rule.
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#selfhelp #personaldevelopment #productivity #warrenbuffett #goalsetting
Ben Caufield 